Congress Approves Student Loan Bill

This is great news!

“It’s an industry where we’ve seen exceptional and enormous  profits at the expense of taxpayers,” said Luke Swarthout, a specialist in  higher education at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. “I don’t know how  e can treat banks as credible arbiters of what appropriate subsidies should  be.”
 
With the law, Congress is reducing federal subsidies to  lenders by roughly $20 billion and gradually halving the interest rate on need-based student loans over the next four years. Some $11.4 billion of that money will go toward stepping up Pell grants.
 
For the first time, the government will now auction off the  right to make federally-backed educational loans to parents in each state,  instead of setting the rate from Washington. The two lowest bidders will win the right to make subsidized college loans to  parents.

---------------------

September 7, 2007
Congress Approves Student Loan Bill
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/diana_jean_schemo/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — Congress gave final approval to a broad overhaul of federal student loan programs today, sharply cutting subsidies to lenders and increasing grants to needy students.