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Economic Stimulus Should Promote College Affordability
We joined 12 other national organizations to send a letter to Congressional leaders urging that their economic stimulus bill include major new investments in college affordability. Our proposal includes a dramatic Pell Grant increase, a boost in funding for Federal Work-Study, more access to PLUS loans, and emergency federal loan funds for some students.
 Read the letter
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to prop up
private student loan providers as part of the $700 billion dollar
economic bailout package is misguided and will be harmful to students
and borrowers if it doesn't require new consumer protections for
private loans. We need you to keep the pressure on and demand that any
government
bailout for lenders who make these risky, high-cost loans address the
needs of borrowers as well.
 Write to Secretary Paulson urging him not to sell out students while bailing out lenders.
Read our letter to Secretary Paulson
Student Loans and the Economic Crisis
With all of the problems in the credit markets, it is logical to ask whether
families are able to get the student loans they need for college. Fortunately, federal
student loans are as available as ever. Since most student loans are made or
guaranteed by the federal government, policymakers were able to intervene to
make sure that students could continue to borrow federal loans at reasonable,
fixed interest rates. (See background on
why there is no
reason to worry about federal student loan availability).
A small portion of student borrowing has been in the form of private,
non-federal loans. This market has had the same difficulties facing other types
of credit, so private loans have become less available and more expensive. Many
people who had relied on private loans are discovering that there are grant and
federal loan options
that can fill that void. This has resulted in a substantial increase in
federal loan borrowing.
In tough economic times it is more important than ever to reduce the need to
borrow and make college more affordable and accessible. To this end, we and a
dozen other national organizations have developed a proposal
for how a new economic stimulus package could promote those goals and help turn
our economy around in the process.
Barack Obama and his administration will soon be making important
decisions about the types of
financial resources available to students and their families, as well
as how easy those resources are to find out about, apply for, and use.
We sent a letter to President-Elect Obama congratulating him
on his election and urging him to focus on reforms that will make a
real difference to college access and success.
Read the letter
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The Institute for College Access & Success
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