Obama Student Loan Speech Signals Renewed Battle With Republicans Over Interest Rates
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| President Barack Obama will deliver a speech Friday urging Congress to pass legislation that would prevent student loan interest rates from doubling on July 1. (Photo by Zbigniew Bzdak-Pool/Getty Images) |
WASHINGTON -- Even before President Barack Obama personally joins the debate over student loan interest rates on Friday, Republican lawmakers and higher-education professionals are lashing out at the White House for what they criticize as a campaign-style initiative unlikely to focus on the biggest student debt issues.
Obama, appearing with college students, is to call on Congress to prevent a doubling of interest rates on some federal loans offered to undergraduate students, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday. The event likely will be reminiscent of the "Don't Double My Rate" drive Obama successfully promoted during the 2012 election year on college campuses.
The interest rates, set by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by former President George W. Bush in 2007, are set to jump to 6.8 percent from their present 3.4 percent for about a quarter of all new federal student loans, according to the Department of Education. Like last year, when Obama’s initiative only tackled borrowing costs for a small segment of students, three-fourths of new student borrowing this fiscal year -- a projected $79
