Heidi Alexander: “this discussion by very good Senators-- and I congratulate the Senator from Pennsylvania and the other Senators who have…”

“this discussion by very good Senators-- and I congratulate the Senator from Pennsylvania and the other Senators who have spoken. The Senators from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are both on the education committee and we have worked well together and we will continue to discuss this. This shows how difficult it is to do what most Americans have said they would like to see us do, which is to simplify, deregulate, and make it easier and simpler for students to go to college. That is what we are trying to do in the Senate. Almost every witness who came before us said this: It is too complicated to fill out a form for the current form of student aid, so simplify it. The witnesses have said: Have one undergraduate student loan, have one loan for graduate students, and have one loan for parents. Right now undergraduate students might have three different loans with different interest rates and different terms. The application process is so complicated that it turns away millions, we have been told, of students who are frustrated by that. The repayment program, which is very generous--not for the Perkins loan, which I will get to in a minute, but for all other direct loans-- is so complicated that students don't take advantage of it.…”