It’s one of the hot topics of higher education these days. Number one, of course, is what all these “college kids” are going to do in this awful job market. But number two — student debt — is the one that sits there, stinking and festering. The Jabba the Hutt of college problems, if you will.
Today’s cover story is about the latest drama over this issue as Congress couldn’t find a good way to pay for keeping the Stafford loans (one of the two large federally subsidized loans) at its current interest rate. The rate is scheduled to double — from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent — this year on July 1, due to restrictions in the federal budget. To keep it at its current rate would be $6 billion more a year on the federal budget.
That’s not new, students have been reacting to this development across the nation as Congress has debated it, or failed therein. The “Don’t Double My Rate!” movement has gotten a wave of support from students.
About a week ago, a Senate bill failed to make the Senate floor that would have frozen the 3.4 percent rate. This is where we come in.
Everyone always says, “talk to your elected official” when it comes to political discourse, to the point where it’s just become one of those broken-record phrases. Stay in school, reduce, reuse, recycle and make sure to talk to your elected officials.
But it’s more than that. Students should be talking to elected officials more; we’re in a place where we are directly in the public sphere every day. And it has been proven to actually change things. When the state Senate was looking into options for the institutional governing boards in February, much of the crafting happened because of the Student Power Coalition and the Students for Higher Education Excellence Now political action committee talking to state representatives.
And now? We’re closer to having individual governing boards than we’ve ever been. Boards that will attempt to maintain the individual missions of universities while keeping a promise to the state. And students directly influenced that action.
Our argument: Let’s make that happen more. Here’s the first step.
While you are here, your U.S. representative is Democrat Peter Defazio. He is being challenged — in the most liberal sense of the word — in the fall by Art Robinson. Your senators are Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
The common refrain is that if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain. Even more so, if you don’t talk to your elected representatives, you have no right to complain about your bulbous student debt.