On the recordJuly 9, 2013
I take the floor today to follow up on what my good friend and colleague Senator Reed from Rhode Island just spoke about; that is, the looming interest rate hike on student loans that is confronting us in this country. To recap a little bit, in 2002 the Congress passed a fixed rate. We had variable rates before, but it passed a fixed rate on student loans of 6.8 percent. In 2007 it was lowered. That lasted for about 5 years, and then it was going to go back up to the fixed rate of 6.8 percent last year. The Congress passed a 1-year extension of that at 3.4 percent. It is that 1-year extension which expired on July 1 of this year. So if the Congress does nothing, the interest rates go back up to 6.8 percent. In the midst of all of this, a lot of ideas have been floating around about what to do on student loans and the interest rates. Well, I think we have to keep in mind that if we go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, that is a doubling. More than 7.2 million college students will be required to pay an average of $1,000 more in interest per loan if we let it go back to 6.8 percent. Again, that is real money for our Nation's students. Student loan debt currently exceeds $1 trillion. It is second only to mortgage debt in the United States, and it is higher than credit card debt. The average student now graduates with more than $26,000 in student loan debt. So now is really not the time to make them pay even more.…
