George Miller: “The tragedy of that bill is that the Republicans fought us for the last 2 years at every turn where we had the ability…”

“The tragedy of that bill is that the Republicans fought us for the last 2 years at every turn where we had the ability to make it less expensive for students who graduated from college to consolidate their loans, to save hundreds and hundreds of dollars in interest costs, to refinance those loans at lower rates. They fought that effort even when the administration tried to do it again this year, the Republicans came down on them like a ton of bricks. Then when we tried to lower the cost of student loans, the Republicans fought us the whole way, finally agreed to lower the cost of student loans just a little bit so that they could say they lowered the cost. The fact of the matter is, this whole year, I serve on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, this whole year they have fought on behalf of the banks to retain the ability of the banks to suck money out of the student loan program, to take it out in fees, to take it out in higher interest rates. And what does that do? That just means for more students they have to work more hours or they cannot go to college or they have to defer it or take fewer units, costing their families more and more money.”