Invest in America
Affordable Higher Education
THE BIG PICTURE
Rising student loan debt, student loan payment default rates, and unemployment rates for college, graduate school, and professional school degree holders have created a crisis facing young people.
FACT CHECK
- Two-thirds of college seniors graduated with loans in 2010, and they carried an average of $25,250 in debt. They also faced the highest unemployment rate for young college graduates in recent history at 9.1%.
- “New data released by the U.S. Department of Education shows a sharp increase in the rate at which student loan borrowers are defaulting. The official ‘two-year cohort default rates’ show that 8.8 percent of student loan borrowers who entered repayment in 2009 had defaulted by the end of 2010, up from 7 percent for those entering repayment in 2008.
BOOST THE ECONOMY THROUGH STUDENT LOAN REDUCTIONS
Reducing student loan debt potentially frees up hundreds of billions of dollars that can be directed into our economy in more productive and constructive ways, including consumer goods, housing purchases, retirement savings, and charitable giving.
WORKING FAMILIES WIN IN ACTION
Proposed legislation in the form of the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 (Rep. Hansen Clarke, D-Michigan, lead sponsor) limits student loan repayment amounts to 10 percent of discretionary income, caps student loan interest rates at 3.4 percent, and allows for forgiveness of student loans for graduates in public service positions. Contact your Representative and ask him/her to support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012.