Editor,
With the skyrocketing costs of textbooks and the drastic reduction in grant aid, students and their parents all around the country have to work harder to afford college.
The Republican-controlled Congress reconvened after Labor Day to tackle major national issues, including the looming national deficit. Unfortunately, they continue to ignore a crucial issue: Students are coming up short when it comes to paying for college. Worse yet, the House and Senate have proposed cutting as much as another $14 billion from student aid programs.
The House higher education act reauthorization bill (H.R. 609) cuts student aid by raising student loan interest rates, eliminating critical borrower benefits and freezing funding for the Federal Work-Study Program.
New Mexico's Democratic Rep. Tom Udall is working with other Democratic leaders to make college more affordable and less burdensome to students and their parents. Their proposal would eliminate excessive subsidies to lenders and recycle the funds to use them for additional grant aid instead, while providing lower interest rates on loans. Sadly, Congress' current plan will only succeed in making college more difficult to pay for than ever.
Every year, millions of students fall short of what the federal government estimates is the cost of paying for college, even after adding up all available federal and state aid, expected family contributions and student work.
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This year, both houses' education committees were told to reconcile the federal deficit with cuts to student aid. While this process is touted as necessary to reduce the federal deficit, it will actually increase the deficit over the next five years. These cuts neither accomplish the deficit-reduction goal, nor help millions of students emerge from college debt. The Republicans in Congress appear to be balancing the federal deficit on the backs of students.
As Americans, we are all in this together, but we have to provide people with opportunities to earn the education that will allow them to give back to their communities and contribute to society as a whole. These proposed cuts make it obvious that education ranks frighteningly low on the Republican agenda. Now is the time to make education a top priority - we should be doing more to make higher education affordable.
Jacqueline Belding
UNM student
