The so-called Sunshine Amendment deserves a little “sunshine” of it’s own. The Sunshine Amendment prohibits lenders from offering inducements to secure student loan applications. If you accept the premise that the Sunshine Amendment is good, then you’ll quickly find that the STAR Amendment runs afoul of it. Why? The STAR Amendment offers colleges and universities inducements to steer student loan applicants into the Federal program.

Yes, indeed. The STAR Amendment violates the terms of the Sunshine Amendment. The STAR Amendment mandates exactly what the Sunshine Amendment prohibits. Talk about two-faced. Congressional Democrats are running around like Keystone Cops trying to get something (anything!) done, and the best thing they can come up with are two amendments that would make the Mad Hatter proud!

If the law prohibits FFELP lenders from offering inducements to colleges and universities, parents and borrowers, the FDLP should operate under the same restrictions. Fair is fair, right? Apparently for the Congressional Democrats, “fair” means different things, depending upon whom you’re talking about. If you’re talking about FFELP lenders, offering incentives to students, parents, universities and colleges to participate in your programs is “unfair.” If you’re the FDLP, then those kinds of inducements are not just “fair”, they’re required by law.

And just in case the whole fair/unfair thing isn’t stacked well enough to favor the FDLP, the legislation also mandates that schools participate in the FDLP. Somehow, it is “fair” to restrict students, parents and institutions to dealing with one lender: the Federal government. This program will trap all student loan borrowers. You won’t have a choice. No lenders will compete for your business because that kind of competition would be “unfair.” The law will prevent lenders from rewarding their customers with “inducements” like interest rate reductions for on-time payments, electronic payments and automatic payments, because those would be “unfair.”

Apparently, the Federal government doesn’t have to play by the same rules it wants to impose on private lenders. Instead, Congressional Democrats want to force people to use their broken, insolvent program, and if it means they have to take away your right to choose among lenders, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.

Tell your representatives in Congress that “fair IS fair.” You want a level playing field and you want choice in lending. Once this program is gone, it will be too late to complain. Speak now, because this is what you’ll be stuck with if you don’t.

You can make a difference
Call your Senators
Send your Senators an e-mail
Download a letter and fax it to your Senators
Sign the petition and
Tell your friends the truth about the proposed student loan legislation

Hollywood filmmakers exploit a theater patron’s good nature whenever the moviegoer sits down to watch a film. The moviegoer gives the filmmaker the benefit of the doubt, and in return, the filmmaker tells a good story. Filmmakers call this phenomenon the “suspension of disbelief.” Movie watchers “forgive” an unlikely storyline to give the filmmaker a chance to win over the audience.

In some ways, the FFELP gives lenders the same chance to “suspend their disbelief” for a person with no job, little money, no savings, no assets and no credit who seems “unlikely” to pay back a large debt. Instead of a good story, the FFELP lender ends up with a good, well-educated, responsible customer who repays his debts, and at the same time, makes it possible for the lender to offer the same opportunity to a new borrower.

Congressional Democrats have other plans, though. Drastic changes to the FFELP, like those proposed by the College Student Relief Act and the STAR Amendment will force honest participating FFELP lenders out of the program. That’s just the plain, unvarnished truth. Banks, credit unions, and other private lenders who are now willing to lend money to unqualified applicants because the Federal government offers its guarantee, won’t continue to grant credit to people who wouldn’t normally qualify…like students. That’s the reality of lending. Lenders offer loans to people who can show that they have the means to pay back the money. People with no job, little money, no savings, no assets and no credit need not apply. Welcome to the real world, kids.

Now, that doesn’t mean there won’t be private lenders willing to make loans. It just means that lenders will apply different borrowing policies to student applicants. After all, students will be “high-risk” borrowers. Lending institutions often charge higher interest rates to riskier borrowers. The legislation opens the door for unscrupulous and predatory lenders, who will fill in the “gaps” left by honest lenders who have been forced out of the program. Student borrowers should plan on high interest rates, risky and uncontrollable loan terms, a higher probability of default and damaged credit if they can’t start making payments immediately on student loans. There won’t be any forbearance, or delay of payment while students are in school. There won’t be any grace period after college while borrowers find jobs and get themselves established. This is the grim reality that awaits students who are desperate for money to pay for college, and choose to take their chances with these risky loans.

If you want reliability, stability, and loan terms that are appropriate to your ability to pay your loans, call or write your representatives in Washington, DC right away. Tell them that you value the stability and reliability the current FFELP provides.

You can make a difference
Call your Senators
Send your Senators an e-mail
Download a letter and fax it to your Senators
Sign the petition and
Tell your friends the truth about the proposed student loan legislation

The Congressional Democrats say the rising amount of student loan debt is a real problem. That’s a thin disguise for the real problem: the cost of a college education has risen much faster than the rate of inflation. That’s the real problem. And the College Student Relief Act and the STAR Amendment are dysfunctional measures that don’t address the real problem.

Congressional Democrats point the finger at the lenders and say “The lenders are charging high interest rates, and students are coming out of college with $40,000 in debts. Therefore, the lenders are the problem.” Student loan debt and the cost of borrowing money are two different things. The principal amount of a loan is a much larger component of student loan debt than the interest rate is. The more a student has to borrow, the more debt s/he will accumulate. Student loan lenders don’t even control the interest rates on student loans. The FFELP student loan rate is legislated by Congress. Congress complains about the “high” (read: sub-prime) student loan interest rate, yet Congress sets the maximum student loan rate. Congress tells student loan lenders what to charge.

Congressional Democrats could most effectively reduce student loan debt by reducing the amount of money a student has to borrow in the first place. Cutting the interest rate on loans that are already sub-prime may knock a few dollars off of the loan’s lifetime value, but it does nothing to attack the size of the loan’s principal, and therein lies the problem.

If the Congressional Democrats wanted to attack the real problem, they would be working night and day to reduce the cost of college tuition. They would be modifying the limits on the Pell Grant program, and providing more direct aid and grants to more students. Instead they concoct defective legislation that unfairly blames and penalizes lenders, and large cuts to state subsidies, which force states to cut subsidies to their colleges and universities, and force colleges and universities to pass the losses on to the students.

The lender, who has no control over the cost of tuition and has no influence on the minimum cost of borrowing money, is at the end of this chain reaction. Congress has the power to make positive changes that will reduce the cost of college and yet, they choose to point their fingers at the one industry capable of delivering a consistent and workable solution for the problems Congress has created.

Please, take a moment to tell your Congress representative and Senator to solve the real problem by finding solutions that reduce the cost of college tuition.

You can make a difference
Call your Senators
Send your Senators an e-mail
Download a letter and fax it to your Senators
Sign the petition and
Tell your friends the truth about the proposed student loan legislation

Rodney Dangerfield used to say that he was so unpopular as a kid that his mom had to tie a pork chop around his neck to get the dog to play with him. George Miller’s STAR Amendment is a pork chop for the FDLP. The amendment to the College Student Relief Act of 2007 “rewards” institutions for joining the Federal loan program. Why does Congressman Miller feel it necessary to “reward” institutions for participating in the Federal Direct Loan Program? This amendment doesn’t propose “rewards” or even enticements. It’s legislative racketeering at its worst.

There must be something about a program that currently only 11 percent participation from all of the eligible institutions in the United States find “rewarding” to participate in. The proposal offers to make payments to institutions to participate. Yes, you read that correctly. The Federal government is now willing to pay institutions to participate in its program.

In exchange for these “reward payments” an institution must agree to direct students through the federal program for five years. This is the same program that 83 percent of colleges and universities have chosen NOT to do business with. Under this program, they’ll be forced to foist this federal boondoggle off on their students, in exchange for a “reward payment”.

The “reward payments” are to be used by the institution to supplement the Pell grants given to students. If the goal of the “reward” is to increase the amount of a student’s Pell Grant, why doesn’t Rep. Miller simply increase the limits on Pell Grants and leave the colleges and universities out of it?

So the “reward payments” will be funded to the tune of 50 percent of the “savings” generated by shoehorning students into the FDLP and away from the FFELP. But what happens if the “savings” aren’t as big as Rep. Miller thought they would be? Less money for students, in case you were wondering. What happens if there are no savings at all? Fifty percent of nothing is still nothing.

Rep. Miller isn’t willing to put real numbers in his bill because there are no real numbers to be had. He has no idea what kind of funding this will generate for the program, nor are there any provisions for increasing student loan funding when the so-called “savings” don’t meet the growing demand for student loans.

To show how fiscally responsible this program is, Rep. Miller has established limits on the distributions of the “reward payments” to the colleges and universities. These “rewards” cannot exceed these so-called savings. Once the savings are gone, kids, there are no more federal monies to be had. If Rep. Miller’s plan doesn’t generate enough funding, you’re out of luck and the federal government WILL NOT step in to correct its mistakes. Why? By law, they cannot. The Federal government prohibits itself from disbursing more money for student loans under this program. This law prescribes a hard cap on the funds available for student loans and details a ridiculous pro rata formula for determining the “haves” and “have-nots” when the funding runs short.

Hypothetically, say that the changes in this program are so spectacular that more students want to go to college. But wait! There’s no money for more students. Why? Once again, Congress has constructed a program that pegs funding to a particular point in time. This plan makes no accommodations for inflation, increases in tuition and fees, or increased participation in the program.

Regardless of the impact of the STAR Amendment, the number of students headed to college is increasing. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that high school enrollment for grades 9-12 will increase by 3 percent between 2003 and 2015. Enrollment for elementary school students is growing even faster, so the high school enrollment boost is not just a temporary thing. Elementary enrollment for the same period is expected to grow by 7 percent. The NCES has also predicted that minority enrollments in colleges and universities will increase between 6 and 42 percent, depending up on the minority classification.

Colleges and universities are expecting a student boom and Rep. Miller is preparing for a bust. More qualified students than ever before are approaching college age and Rep. Miller’s plan is painfully and structurally under-capitalized. Not only is there not enough federal funding to cover the upcoming student surge, but also the plan irresponsibly steers students and institutions away from the well-funded, well-prepared, successful FFELP program to the FDL Program, which everyone admits is a dud.

Don’t be swayed by the false promises of reduced student loan rates. The program as presented is unworkable. It’s deficit spending adorned with a pork chop necklace to get students and their institutions to play with the highly unpopular and under-funded FDLP. If you don’t want your student loan choices restricted, take one minute to call or write your senator and your representative. Tell them in no uncertain terms that you want choice and flexibility in a well-funded, well-run student loan program. Please act now.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.

There was an interesting discussion in the House the other day. They are thinking about repealing the internet gambling law of a few years ago. It wasn’t attended by a lot of people and it was a Friday so there were more people there to testify than Representatives. Luckily, C-SPAN doesn’t care if the Reps don’t care and they broadcast the proceedings. Several things struck me, but none more than the tone of the Representatives that did bother to show up. They acted like they were there to talk about themselves, not the issue and certainly not the people they have been elected to represent. Sure, maybe it was laid back because, as Rep. Barney Frank pointed out, Friday sessions are poorly attended, but aren’t they having the session to learn more about an issue? Is this how they treat all their legislation? With something as important to students and the future of our country’s higher education at stake, are they going to invite the top experts to come testify and then ignore them because it’s a Friday?

Every issue that comes before Congress should be treated as important and afforded respect. There’s a reason it’s made it to Congress even if it’s bad legislation like the STAR Act. These issues have meaning and Congressional decisions will have an impact on our lives. Certainly some of those decisions will have less of an effect than others. Some might not affect us for decades. The Congressmen who voted based on their party or their cronies or on their publicist’s advice will be long gone and we will be trying to clean up the mess from their decisions. Please, tell your Congressmen that you are watching them and that you care about the issues!

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.

I’ve seen some studies that estimate up to 80% of college students need to take at least 1 remedial course in college. What that tells me is the federal mandate to improve secondary education standards has failed. No child left behind? I think taxpayers would argue with that! So after your secondary education prepares you just enough to pass a test, you are thrown into college without the skills to begin your studies. You’ll have to pay to take classes the public education system should have already taught you.

The Feds have done a bang-up job fixing that problem so why are we so willing to take their suggestions towards post-secondary education? But they want to help students pay for college! You mean pay for the classes the failing public education system has set them up to take?

You might see a pattern. Congress starts stepping all over state rights and reality doesn’t work out they way they thought it would. Congress ties the hands of the people in the best position to help citizens and then they are shocked when things get worse. Coming soon – Congress tells students who they can borrow from to pay for college. I wonder if how that’s going to turn out!

I took a statistics course where the professor stated—at least once each a class—that with greater diversity comes greater opportunity for error. That’s a truism when it comes to theoretical statistics, but it doesn’t equate to living, breathing human beings. It also doesn’t equate to macroeconomics. With the STAR Act, Congress is trying to say the breadth of options for students today is too wide. Students need to be restricted in their choices to keep them from making errors. If they eliminate the FFELP students will only have one real option. In theory that means 100% of students will make the correct decision. In reality that means 100% of students will be forced into making a bad financial decision. I wish I had this example to debate my prof with back then!

Congress should take some remedial courses of their own. I’d like to recommend “Constitutional Rights of States”, “Beginning Budgeting”, and “Ethics in Governance”. And don’t worry, Congressman. It isn’t your fault you made it this far without knowing the things you need to know to succeed. It’s not like you’re being set up for failure! Besides, I’m sure your student financial aid package will pay for it.

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.

There has been a lot of talk in the media about financial aid officers’ ulterior motives which cause them to steer students towards certain lenders. Politicians would make you think there is a nation-wide conspiracy by school administrators to give students bad choices while making money for themselves. Oh wait. No wonder the politicians are upset. It’s their job to abuse power for personal gain.

Maybe the real conspiracy here is the politicians trying to distract us from what they are doing to student financial aid. With misdirection skills any Las Vegas magician would sell their linking rings for, Senators are jumping on the reform bandwagon. It sure is lucky they have a fleet of legislation ready to vote into law—almost like they planned it. As long as nobody reads the bills they’ve drafted they can pass them into law and tell the American public how they single-handedly put an end to financial aid corruption. That should make a good sound bite come election time and it could play well on the campus tours.

In fact, Congress must hate competition. The legislation they proposed would give the government a virtual monopoly on student lending. Without subsidies, loan companies won’t be able to offer incentives. That makes student loans more expensive to the customer. The long-term effect would be more debt for the students.

So whose ulterior motives should we be more worried about? I’m not excusing anyone who abuses their position for personal gain, but who poses the bigger threat – the administrator who might cut corners or the Congressman who bases life-altering legislation on political aspirations?

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.

You’ll never guess how I spent my evening. Actually you probably will since I’m posting this on StudentLoanTax.org! My friend Brandi is a grad student. She has several more semesters in her future before she will be qualified for her future profession. Tonight we took a look at her student loan situation. She needs to borrow more money than expected for the fall so she wants to plan ahead. Brandi is doing everything a responsible student should do. And then we did some math…Ouch!

When Brandi’s started grad school her undergraduate loans were deferred for payment. Some of those loans are subsidized and some aren’t so the meter is still running on the unsubsidized portions. Not including this interest she owes roughly $30,000. That’s just for her undergraduate degree. Her graduate degree is going to add up to about $22k in loans. This is when she took a deep breath. $52k.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says her chosen profession has a median average of $34,820. That’s not the first year average! That median salary includes the big money makers. Her starting salary will probably be more like $30k. The job outlook is good – it shows a general upward trend for growth. The potential earnings are bad – it shows a general downward trend that isn’t keeping up with inflation. Even if Brandi had no other bills, and that’s just not realistic, and spent every after-tax dollar she makes her first year, not even half of her tuition loans would be paid off.

Luckily her current school participates in the FFELP plan and her loan amounts have been increased due to her financial needs. Luckily the bank managing the FFELP loans has some really good incentives. As long as she makes her first 30 payments on time, she will receive a 3% cash rebate on the remaining principle. If she participates in their automatic payment program she can save a third of a percent in interest. That might not sound like a lot, but that’s $200 she doesn’t have to pay back. Any savings in her situation is a definite plus!

So why would Congress want to take these incentives away from Brandi? What could they possibly get out of costing her money? They get short-term political gain in exchange for her long-term financial worries. If our elected officials think that’s what we the people want or need it is time to give them their own education.

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.

I hate to get all political about this, and I’m sure Sen. Edward Kennedy is a fine person (OK – I’m NOT so sure about that), but does he really think he can play both sides of the student aid issue and keep what little credibility he has?

He says it is time to stop thinking about profits and start thinking about students. Then he says the FDLP (Federal Direct Lending Program) is more profitable for the government than the FFELP (Federal Family Education Loan Program), so the FFELP must be reformed. Whoa right there, senator. That would mean you think the only way to better serve students is if the government makes a profit? I think Kennedy was seeing just how much fuzzy math, faulty logic, and how many unsubstantiated assumptions he could pack into one piece of legislation.

I agree that students need to be championed. I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would say students and education are not important to the future of America. I bet you couldn’t even find someone in the lending business to say it isn’t important. In fact, lenders have a more direct reason than anyone to support students. Why? Profit. There – I’ve said it, and I refuse to accept the senator’s argument that private profit is a dirty word. Part of the practical reason students go to college is to get better jobs when they graduate. They’d like to get a little personal profit. Who doesn’t?

So Kennedy’s plan would champion students by a) removing their options, b) tying students with governmental apron strings, c) forcing private lenders to reduce staff … How exactly does this help students? It isn’t helping students pay for college, which is what the senator and the other members of the Senate Education Committee should be trying to do. Drafting legislation to make a political point is wrong. Claiming that legislation is in the best interest of an underrepresented group like students is a lie.

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.

Congress is making some promises to students it just can’t keep with the current surge of proposed legislation. The only things wrong with its argument are math (which is based on assumptions, not on evidence) and reality. Let’s face it. How many congressmen actually had to borrow money to pay for college? Do they understand the real world of recent college grads who don’t have family connections to help them?

Our typical student, Greg L., borrows his maximum every year for four years starting this fall. He plans to graduate at the end of those four years. His subsidized loans mean he will not have to pay the interest on the loans until six months after he graduates and he begins paying off the loans.

Freshman Greg receives $2,625 at 6.12% as a subsidized loan for the 2007-2008 academic year.

Sophomore Greg receives $3,500 at 5.44%. He’s thinking of changing majors.

Junior Greg receives $5,500 at 4.76%. He’s too wrapped up with his internship to notice the decrease.

Senior Greg receives his final subsidized loan for $5,500 at 4.08%. He’s trying to figure out how to fit three quarters worth of classes into two semesters.

It’s now 2011 and Greg L. hasn’t slept in a year, but he did manage to graduate on schedule. He borrowed $17,125 in subsidized government loans. He will have to start paying them back in six months. That means Greg will have to find a job, move, get a place to live, and receive enough salary to afford paying back the loans. The clock is ticking!

If our Greg L. is like the vast majority of college students attending a four-year university he has other loans to pay back. He won’t get far with $5,500, even at the most inexpensive public schools. So Greg had to go to some private lenders, and they helped him pay for the rest.

Those private lenders understand that having just graduated, Greg L. is getting started on his own. He’ll be earning an entry level salary and facing many financial needs, so he may not be able to repay the loans right away. That’s why lenders will offer him a student loan consolidation loan that will lower his overall interest rate, lower his monthly payment, and give him a payment schedule he can follow.

So subsidized loan rate changes had zero net effect for Greg L. Nothing. Nil. Technically the rate changes cost him money, as all taxpayers had to pay for the legislation to be drafted, debated, committee’d, re-drafted … well, you get the idea. It’s a shame Congress hasn’t.

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.

I don’t know about you, but as a college student a few hundred bucks, not to mention $5,000, is a big deal.

With all this press about student loan legislation and conflicting information saying that it is both good and bad, I thought I’d do a little research of my own. What I found is surprising to say the least and disturbing at most.

After I scoured the facts, I thought I’d plug in some numbers to see where that took me. Here’s what I did. Students receive up to 2.25% in benefits from lenders. The average student loan is $20,000 for a 20-year term. That means it will cost the average student $4,854.80 over the life of the loan if the student loan legislation passes.

Rate: 2.25% (compounded)
Term: 20 years
Amount: $20,000

That’s $4,854.80, almost $5,000 that the average student stands to lose! So, if you don’t want to end up paying big time, take action by signing the student loan petition.

STOP the College Student Relief Act and related bills NOW!

This legislation STEALS THOUSANDS FROM STUDENTS by imposing a STUDENT LOAN TAX on all federally funded loans including Stafford, PLUS and Consolidation Loans.

We are opposed to this bill because it hurts the people it says it protects… the students!

Save student loan benefits and STOP the STUDENT LOAN TAX.

Call and E-mail Your Senator and Sign Our Petition.

FACT:
This bill is a political gimmick! Nothing more than a “good sound-bite.” It DOES NOT deliver on the promise to save students money.

FACT:
On January 2, 2012, the interest rate returns back to 6.8 percent, making the promised $4,400 in savings is IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE.

FACT:
80% of America’s colleges and universities chose to work with FFELP because it delivers better service and more choices to their students than the Direct Loan Program.

FACT:
The Direct Lending Program COSTS TAXPAYERS - over $16 billion.

FACT:
Lending Companies give students interest rate reductions -the Direct Loan Program DOES NOT.

FACT:
The Direct Lending Program has ADDED to NATIONAL DEBT - it’s borrowed $105 billion, but has only $89 billion to repay the money.

FACT:
H.R. 5 DOES NOT provide relief to students. Interest rates are for subsidized college loans ONLY.

FACT:
This plan DOES NOT help students go to college, NOT ONE additional student will be able to attend college because of this act.

FACT:
There in NO GUARANTEE that subsidies that HR 5 proposes to stop paying FEELP Loan providers will go back to support scholarships and education.

WE ARE OPPOSED TO THE COLLEGE STUDENT RELIEF ACT AND RELATED BILLS. MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES SHOULD BE TOO!
The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET, AGAIN.

Call and E-mail Your Senator and Sign Our Petition.

They Say:
U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-CA, of the House Committee on Education & Labor, as saying, “Once fully phased in, these cuts would save the typical borrower, with $13,800 in need-based federal student loan debt, $4,420 in savings over the life of the loan- relying on an analysis by U.S. PIRG. The new interest rate will drop to 3.4 percent by 2001, but on January 1, 2012 the rates will go back to 6.8 percent.

We Say:
U.S. PIRG, a public interest advocacy group, has said Miller’s office has misquoted its findings. Miller’s prediction assumes that the interest rate at its low of 3.4 percent will be permanent, although the act is scheduled to expire in 2012. A student with $13,800 in debt might save $4,420, but only if the rate was not scheduled to go back up to 6.8 percent in 2012.

They Say:
The STAR Act will help low-income students.

We Say:
The total average cumulative debt is roughly $13,800, thus saving the borrower approximately $4,400 at 3.4 percent with a 15-year repayment term. However, the 3.4 percent interest rate is limited to a six-month period, so it is unreasonable to assume that all of the subsidized Stafford loan debt will be at this rate.

They Say:
The STAR Act makes college more accessible or affordable for low-income students and benefits the taxpayer.

We Say:
The STAR Act does not make college more accessible or affordable for low-income students nor does it benefit the taxpayer: the U.S. government will lose billions in interest revenue because of the lower interest rate, which will cost taxpayers.

This act does nothing to make college affordable. It does nothing to reduce the $32 billion in unmet financial need that we identified from the 2004 NPSAS study.

WE ARE OPPOSED TO THE COLLEGE STUDENT RELIEF ACT AND RELATED BILLS. MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES SHOULD BE TOO!

The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET, AGAIN.

Call and E-mail Your Senator and Sign Our Petition.

The Financial Aid Process can sometimes seem like a maze of numbers, signatures and tax information, as just another cog in the already laborious bureaucracy of the Federal Government. However, Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Secretary of Education, has started a movement to simply the process, beginning with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Bureaucracy Limits College Access
Apparently, the length and convolution of the form is one of the issues the Senate SHOULD be dealing with in order to help low-income students go to college. According to a report released by the Department of Education stated, “the complexity of the current financial aid form as being a barrier to college access, particularly among low-income students, who, the report states, tend to have greater difficulty compiling the necessary financial information. An estimated 1.5 million low-income students who were likely eligible for Pell Grants did not apply for aid in 2004, nearly double the number in 2000, according to the report.”

Move to Streamline the FAFSA
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), announced new legislation that would cut the form’s length from five pages to two, while increasing Web access, allowing high school juniors to file a “Pre-FAFSA” for planning purposes and encouraging coordination between the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education.

Ways to Streamline the Form
31 questions on the current federal financial aid form — or about two-thirds of those relating to income and assets — ask for information already provided to the federal government on tax forms. Students should be able to authorize the IRS to forward that data directly to the Education Department in order to streamline the Federal Financial Aid process.

WE ARE OPPOSED TO THE COLLEGE STUDENT RELIEF ACT
It creates even more bureaucracy for students to deal with by taking away their choice and making them deal only with the federal government to get their federal student loans. The government is looking to take money out of YOUR POCKET, AGAIN.

Call and E-mail Your Senator and Sign Our Petition.

STOP the College Student Relief Act and related bills NOW!

This legislation STEALS THOUSANDS FROM STUDENTS by imposing a STUDENT LOAN TAX on all federally funded loans including Stafford, PLUS and Consolidation Loans.

We are opposed to this bill because it hurts the people it says it protects… the students!

Save student loan benefits and STOP the STUDENT LOAN TAX.

Call and E-mail Your Senator and Sign Our Petition.

FACT:
This bill is a political gimmick! Nothing more than a “good sound-bite.” It DOES NOT deliver on the promise to save students money.

FACT:
On January 2, 2012, the interest rate returns back to 6.8 percent, making the promised $4,400 in savings is IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE.

FACT:
80% of America’s colleges and universities chose to work with FFELP because it delivers better service and more choices to their students than the Direct Loan Program.

FACT:
The Direct Lending Program COSTS TAXPAYERS - over $16 billion.

FACT:
Lending Companies give students interest rate reductions -the Direct Loan Program DOES NOT.

FACT:
The Direct Lending Program has ADDED to NATIONAL DEBT - it’s borrowed $105 billion, but has only $89 billion to repay the money.

FACT:
H.R. 5 DOES NOT provide relief to students. Interest rates are for subsidized college loans ONLY.

FACT:
This plan DOES NOT help students go to college, NOT ONE additional student will be able to attend college because of this act.

FACT:
There in NO GUARANTEE that subsidies that HR 5 proposes to stop paying FEELP Loan providers will go back to support scholarships and education.

WE ARE OPPOSED TO THE COLLEGE STUDENT RELIEF ACT AND RELATED BILLS. MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES SHOULD BE TOO!
The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET, AGAIN.

Call and E-mail Your Senator and Sign Our Petition.