Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Political Maneuvering on Student Loans
Inside Higher Ed: "With the 110th Congress preparing to vote today on its first significant piece of higher education legislation, Washington crackled Tuesday with vintage, and in some ways predictable, politicking. But much of it had a through-the-looking-glass feel to it."
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This brings up the question as to whether a bill should be passed simply on good intentions. Our new Congress is doing good work, but they do seem a bit hasty. The Democrats want to prove that they’ll get more done than their predecessors in the Republican-led 109th Congress. That Congress’ three day work week led to only 103 days of work in the House. The Democrats’ plan to move to a five day work week would more than double the workload. Yesterday alone sixteen new bills were introduced in the Senate and thirty in the House. But shouldn’t representatives be using that extra time to further develop bills instead of just pumping more out? The issues that are being address in this bill are valid but not really encompassing of the more significant problems.
The bill is directed to help those who have already secured loans and probably graduated. Without increasing the amount of spending for subsudized loans, it does nothing to help students who are currently struggling to gather enough money to enroll. Not to mention students who are too well off to qualify for subsidized loans but don’t have nearly enough to pay for a college-level education. Colleges need to be made more affordable in the first place. That way students don’t need to worry about finding (or borrowing) enought money for a four year university.
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