Courtney on House Adjourning without Action on Student Loan Rates: “It is time for this Congress to act”
WASHINGTON, DC – The House of Representatives adjourned today without enacting legislation to prevent subsidized Stafford student loan interest rates from doubling from 3.4% to 6.8% before the July 1st deadline. Congressman Joe Courtney, who authored legislation that would have locked in the current low interest rate for a period of two years, made the following statement on the House floor following the last votes until the House returns on July 8:
"Mr. Speaker, in two days at midnight, by law, the interest rates for the subsidized Stafford Student Loan Program will double from 3.4% to 6.8%, raising interest rates for seven and a half million college students at exactly the time they are taking out loans for next fall's semester.
"What a terrible statement about this Congress, that we failed to move forward with legislation to protect those rates. My legislation, H.R. 1595, which had 195 discharge signatures, would have protected that rate. Again, the leadership of this House turned a deaf ear and insisted that their bill, passed on May 23rd, somehow protected those college students. Well, the Congressional Budget Office looked at that bill that passed that day, and they concluded that that bill was worse than doing nothing than allowing the rates to double to 6.8%.
"It is, again, a bill that will put kids into a variable rate system that over time, we know, will be higher than 6.8%. The disgust that America will feel on July 1st when they see that a critical need, higher education, was overlooked and ignored, on top of failure to turn off sequester and pass the farm bill.
"It is time for this Congress to act. Protect the lower interest rates for America's college students."
Congressman Courtney introduced his legislation, Student Loan Relief Act of 2013 (H.R. 1595), in April. This legislation would extend the current 3.4% interest rate on subsidized Stafford student loans for two years to provide time for Congress to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. The bill currently has 169 cosponsors.
Click the image to watch Congressman Courtney's
speech on the House floor today