Student Loans, Education | featured news

It's the latest snapshot of the growing burden of student debt and it's another discouraging one: Two-thirds of the national college class of 2011 finished school with loan debt, and those who borrowed walked off the graduation stage owing on average $26,600 - up about 5 percent from the class before....

At dispute is how to provide funding that would prevent a jump in the interest rates for subsidized loans made by the federal government to undergraduate college students. The House of Representatives voted last week to keep the rate from doubling, but funded it by eliminating the Prevention and Public Health Fund that is part of President Obama’s health care law. (The House measure has little chance in the Senate controlled by Democrats.)

An expansion of the income-based college-loan repayment program is expected on Wednesday, lowering monthly payments and allowing some loan consolidation.

Big changes in the student loan program will help make college more affordable for students and their debt load more manageable ...

Compromises abound, but the current health care/student loan bill would make huge investments in higher education, pouring upwards ...

With Democratic Congressional leaders and the White House struggling on Wednesday to finalize the details of major health care legislation, House Democrats were desperately trying to prevent another of President Obama's top legislative priorities - an ambitious overhaul of student loan programs - from becoming a casualty of the health care battle.