Back to School

School is back in session -- and so is the United States Senate.

In July, I wrote to you about our impressive Senate victory for America's college students. Democrats passed the Higher Education Access Act, the largest student aid relief package since the GI Bill in World War II!

The House and Senate have now agreed on the final version of the bill, and the Senate is likely to approve it today, followed quickly by House approval. It's now called the Higher Education Access and Cost Reduction Act, and in a matter of days, it could be on the president's desk waiting for his signature.

Democrats are doing everything in their power to prevent the student loan industry from derailing this needed legislation. For years, Sallie Mae and other lenders have been siphoning off billions of dollars in federal subsidies intended for students, while charging students astronomical interest rates for the loans they need to pay for college. It's long past time to put a stop to that outrageous abuse.

Just this week, I released a new report on the urgent need for student loan reform. The report describes how lenders make improper payments to colleges in return for preferential treatment on student loans. The abuses include "day retreats," free Rose Bowl tickets, and even free manicures and pedicures for college officials. These benefits are used to entice those officials to favor particular lenders instead of providing neutral financial advice to students.

Student loans shouldn't be decided by box seats and beauty services. We owe it to students to provide them with every opportunity they need for success, and to make sure they're getting the best deal possible for their hard-earned education dollars.

I've received thousands of stories from people across the country who struggle with college debt -- including many from people here at the Huffington Post.

Phansen wrote:

I'll be starting grad school in a month, pursuing a PhD in English. While I'm hoping to leave with only about 25k in loan debt, I'm not heading towards a particularly lucrative career. By making education financing so difficult, we pressure students to enter professions based purely on financial reward. How will this impact our national culture down the road, when all we have is I.T. professionals and lawyers?

Ron704 wrote:

I have over $40,000 in student loan debt and went to a state university in my middle age in an attempt to better myself. Unfortunately, now I'm disabled and I'm 2-1/2 years into the social security process. I'm quite sure every nickel and dime bill collector that my loans got sold to will be in line to garnish the paltry sum I will eventually receive from SS, keeping me in abject poverty the rest of my life. Even at that, with interest accumulation, there's no possible way my loans could ever be paid in my lifetime.

Every year, 400,000 qualified students don't go to a four-year-college, because they can't afford it. Those who do attend are too often faced with crippling debt like Phansen and Ron704 face.

We're a better nation than that. Please contact your representatives in Washington to ensure that the Higher Education Access and Cost Reduction Act makes it through Congress -- and that President Bush signs it into law.

 

Comments

[essex512]

What an embarrassment that this was allowed. What an embarrassment it continues because of lack of regulators due to lower taxes. What needless pain for the innocents. Shame for the rest of us. This stuff must stop.

[PoliceState]

They take 3% right away from the principal of the loan. They call it a "loan fee."

I thought that's what the interest rate was for. Didn't they use to make their profit from the interest? Now they take 3% of the principal right off the top PLUS the interest.

You need to put Wall Street in check. That's been a runaway freight train since 1981. And you need to get usury law back into effect.

What's usury defined at nowadays, senator? 99.99%?

[Not Blind]

Dear Seantor Kennedy,
AYP according to the NCLB PL-107 states that 100% of students are to achieve proficiency by 2013-2014 regardless of their baseline levels. Each subgroup must meet the participation rates and proficiency levels. The system of AYP is “meets” or “does not meet” levels. AYP measures performance so that a school and every subgroup in it must meet performance levels, or be sanctioned for not having met targets for even one of them. The school where I teach showed improvement. Every subgroup, except one met AYP goals, yet our school is listed as having “failed to meet” AYP standards.
Can you see the irony and hypocrisy? The administration requests and gets advance full funding for the troop surge, sets its own benchmarks for progress by the end of summer, then fails to meet those, and now is requesting another $50 billion, claiming their targets were too harsh. Public education had stringent standards of accountability imposed and mandated without funding. Schools are held accountable and sanctioned if they fail to meet standards and benchmarks imposed by the federal government, although funding for those mandates has never been provided.
Let Mr. Bush be held accountable for the failure of this war. The administration lied to get authorization from Congress to get into this war and then mismanaged every aspect of it.
This war has cost nearly $450 billion.
There is not enough blame being put upon President Bush. The administration has eluded accountability for seven years. The report card is in, and the administration has failed!
Instead of giving Mr. Bush another $50 billion, fully fund NCLB. Federal funds do not meet the costs of mandated testing, let alone needed improvements. Congress must insist the ESEA programs be fully funded at authorized levels. Enforce Sec. 9527(a) of NCLB, which prevents the federal government from requiring states and school districts to spend their own funds-beyond what they receive from the federal government-to implement federal mandates.

[AngFL]

Thank you for your efforts to pass Higher Education Access and Cost Reduction Act. Based on my monthly student loan payments, I should be driving a BMW or Mercedes instead my Chevy... Let's hope Bush signs it into law, even though he has no concept of what it's like to be a working American.

And please keep giving the Bush team hell and keep up the "good" fight.

[sadnmadinvirginia]

I applaud your efforts, Senator, and thank you. My personal feeling is that a 4-year college education should be available to any citizen that wants one. If we spent less money on defense contractors and pork barrel projects, and waste due to mismanagement then maybe we could find more money for health care, education and infrastructure. My other pet peave is the growth in TV advertising that targets college-bound students to Borrow, borrow, borrow !! "Just sign here" "No payment til you graduate!" We already have a mortgage crisis, yet we continue to "teach" the young that it is OK to go deep into debt, any time they want something. Bad for now, worse for the future of America and its citizens.

[GeorgiaOrwell]

Dear Senator Kennedy,

Education should be a high priority in the US but when you spend the rest of your life trying to pay off the exorbitant cost of the loans and have little left to live on, it hardly seems worth the education ultimately.

Why doesn't the US have some better form of forgiveness of these crushing debts than the meager remedies that currently exist. Say you make every payment on time for 10 years - can't the remainder be forgiven as they do in some other countries? Instead, making $1100. payments each month when you make a net of $2000. leaves you with nothing after barely paying rent. Congress has the power to change this horrific situation - universities in the US are so much more expensive here than in Europe and other countries and you can never pay off the tuition and living costs that are accrued when pursuing an undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Please make a difference with this - the status quo is literally ruining millions of lives.

[toddadam]

Every so often, we subjects of SallieMae and her innocuous name and formidable resources, get to hear from one of the great liberal crusaders out to help us, the little guy. I'm here to tell you that lip service and superlatives don't pay our bills, Senator. I have a master's degree, for which I paid handsomely, to a very reputable institution, so much so that the amount is likely on par with some mortgages. Am I allowed to refinance my loan as are these mortgages? No. Why is that? Why can I "consolidate" my student loans only once, then remain locked in my interest rate for the remainder of my years? How about some real reforms and some real relief for those of us who actually gave a damn about educating ourselves and trying to make a difference instead of mollycoddling SallieMae and her numerous governmental loopholes and exemptions from when she was a quasi-public entity?

I have too much respect for myself to lobby my Congressperson for a bill that will be obsolete before it is signed into law.

[Dejack]

WHY WON'T DEMOCRATS END THE WAR IN IRAQ?

DE-FUND
INVESITATE
IMPEACH

[theroc5156]

De-Fund??

A ton of soldiers will be very pissed about that. You hate the war, fine. You want it to end? Cool. You want to take weapons out of their hands?? Not cool.

[Dejack]

Bring them home and you have no argument.

[darker]

Books? Colleges don't publish those books or charge for them! Your bitching target should be the corrupt publishers who resemble the pharmaceuticals in charging insanely high prices.

The student loan industry has had a PROFITEERING FREE-FOR-ALL particularly in the Bush-Cheney years. They've cheated, lied and stolen money from students, charging them huge interest rates.

Why has the gov't been standing by and supporting this profiteering scam?

It's time to stop it dead in its tracks.
And it's time to stop the pathological greed, lies, cheating, stealing and hold the crooks
responsible.

[theroc5156]

Why was my student loan rate higher during the Clinton years then when I finished my MBA in the Bush years???

[Plisko]

My student loan payments for an associates degree followed by a Bachelors degree will be around $600 per month once I finally run out of deferments.

That's like renting an extra apartment for 30 years.

[theroc5156]

What would your income be without your degree??

Thought so.

[apishapa]

Senator, you are my hero and have been for years. You have done more for poor people, working people and minorities than teh rest of Congress combined. That is why Republicans heap abuse on you constantly. You are a great Senator.
I would like to know why I must claim my ex-husband's income on the fafsa form even though he does not contribute one cent toward my son's support or college expenses. He does pay child support on our two younger children ($200/month) and I do not have any problem adding in the child support I receive to my income. But, why must I add in all of his income and his wife's income none of which benefits my son? His father has no obligation to help pay for college so why does his income have anything to do with my boy?
As a result of this the "family" income is boosted by $40,000, none of which goes to my son. This makes him ineligible for any kind of federal aid. I cannot afford to pay for this bright young man to go to college while I support my other children, so he had to drop out. This is not fair.
Why are children of divorce punished in this way?

[Trittydi]

We have three kids in college and I don't know if they'll ever get their degrees.

It's so painful to watch while even the modest future you envisioned for your children shrivels, dries up and dies. In America.

And there's nothing you can do to stop it.

America - no longer the home of the free. Now it's the land of the hopeless.
*

[cheforacle]

Senator Kennedy,
I agree with most of your post; however, I suggest that, at this juncture, in our country's history, it is imperative that all Democrats, particularly one of your stature, focus all efforts on fighting this Administration's PR strategy to keep our troops in Iraq. This is a moment of truth. Normally you would be right if you defended yourself by stating that "we can walk and chew gum at the same time." However, any oxygen not used to stop this White House is wasted. Use your bully point to point out the flaws in the surge. Present the evidence on the actual amount of violence, kidnappings, refugees or you will later feel you let the country down as the Congress did as well during Vietnam.

[truthserum4u]

Bravo Senator! Your commitment to the public interest is exemplary. Come election time, the real american people will try to give you functional majority - unlike the republicans who are lockstep, the Democrats have and respect varied opinions which results in deluted power with such fragile numbers.

Regarding student loans, this has been a sham for so long in the interest of Salliemae and her cohorts. Why not just bring back grants and have students commit to public service for fixed periods as payback?

Also, what will you do about students who have already been taken advantage of by the Salliemaes and slapped with exhorbitant collection fees (Salliemae now owns the bulk of the student loan collection agencies) when they couldn't pay back the high interest rate loans - fees that are equivalent or in excess of the original balance. What about some sort of conciliatory or abatement period for students who have gone into or about to be in default because of the flawed system? Perhaps a reset of the loan to the original balance at a more equitable rate???

[NoFactsJustTruth]

Probably too much TRUTH again for you, Senator Kennedy, but I DON'T believe your Democratic CONgress is doing ALL it can to set the proper priorities for this nation.

HERE indeed, in your desired education funding is a program that would require an override to get this NEW budgetary money signed by this preznutz, and cooperation from the other side of the isle to counter his veto. This is NOT the case with the EXISTING budgetary funding for the Iraq occupation though. You currently have power to discontinue previous appropriation levels and fund the withdrawal from Iraq activities ONLY, should you so desire.

Rather than accuse particular CONgresspersons any longer, Senator, of Fred Astaire and/or Ginger Rogers impersonations, just let me say that I am now fairly well convinced that most Democratic members of CONgress ARE in fact auditioning for "So You Think You Can Dance". The Dems, it seems, will talk about anything EXCEPT stopping funding for the occupation, or why they WON'T even discuss their views concerning the geopolilitical nature of the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law 'rip-off'.

Some 70% of the country says they want OUR troops out of Iraq, Democrats control Congress and DO NOT NEED TO OVERRIDE the preznutz veto, just keep sending him a same bill with funding for withdrawal from Iraq ONLY...spelled out! It will then be his choice to break CONgress' law, if ever eventually signed by him, or abandon his military altogether if not.

I can't stand the republican't party, sir, but your Dem party is not even attempting to explain the APPEARANCE of -also- listening to energy lobbyists instead of the polls taken from voting citizens. I guess I'm having trouble understanding why this ol' indy would want to 'get out my vote' for the Dems in '08, if they are no different from the can'ts on this whole wasting OUR troops and mortgaging OUR country ...for OIL thing.