Spring Break
Waking The 'Sleeping Giant'
Courtney Stresses Importance Of Students In National Elections
Kala Kachmar
Issue date: 11/6/07 Section: News
Interest rates for the Stafford student loan will decrease from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over the next five years.
"There are 6,500 Stafford loan borrowers at UConn," Main said. "Students will save between $1,000 to $1,500 over the life of a loan."
According to Main, there is also a slight change in the way family income is reported. Students and parents will have more of their income protected from being counted as spent toward education, making students eligible for more financial aid.
"That fact that we are under investing in higher education is making it hard for families to pay and as a result, less students are graduating from college," Courtney said. "Seventy-five percent of students in high school expect to get college degrees, but only about one-third actually achieve their goal and it's mostly because of high costs."
We need to make college affordable to produce college graduates who can be competitive in an increasingly global environment, especially with the retirement of the baby boomers, Courtney said.
Courtney is currently working on the Higher Education Reauthorization bill, a federal act that will push colleges to reveal reasons for high tuition increases and will investigate how well colleges manage money, he said. This will be one of his main bills for next year's Congressional session.
Part of the bill would include making preferred lender lists in financial aid offices illegal.
"There are 3,000 student lenders out there," Courtney said. "And when students get a list of one or two from their college, it's not fair."
The bill will also provide comparisons of different college costs for families that might not understand how college pricing works, Courtney said.
"Often families get scared away from the sticker price of colleges," he said. "We need to help them look at different school costs and financing options."
One program that would be part of the bill is called Trio, which is a federal program that reaches out to junior high school students from families who haven't gone to college, but have high grades, Courtney said. The program allows these students to gain access to college-prep curriculums.
"The program exists right now on a limited basis," Courtney said. "There are waiting lists and very little funding."
Contact Kala Kachmar at
Kala.Kachmar@UConn.edu.
"There are 6,500 Stafford loan borrowers at UConn," Main said. "Students will save between $1,000 to $1,500 over the life of a loan."
According to Main, there is also a slight change in the way family income is reported. Students and parents will have more of their income protected from being counted as spent toward education, making students eligible for more financial aid.
"That fact that we are under investing in higher education is making it hard for families to pay and as a result, less students are graduating from college," Courtney said. "Seventy-five percent of students in high school expect to get college degrees, but only about one-third actually achieve their goal and it's mostly because of high costs."
We need to make college affordable to produce college graduates who can be competitive in an increasingly global environment, especially with the retirement of the baby boomers, Courtney said.
Courtney is currently working on the Higher Education Reauthorization bill, a federal act that will push colleges to reveal reasons for high tuition increases and will investigate how well colleges manage money, he said. This will be one of his main bills for next year's Congressional session.
Part of the bill would include making preferred lender lists in financial aid offices illegal.
"There are 3,000 student lenders out there," Courtney said. "And when students get a list of one or two from their college, it's not fair."
The bill will also provide comparisons of different college costs for families that might not understand how college pricing works, Courtney said.
"Often families get scared away from the sticker price of colleges," he said. "We need to help them look at different school costs and financing options."
One program that would be part of the bill is called Trio, which is a federal program that reaches out to junior high school students from families who haven't gone to college, but have high grades, Courtney said. The program allows these students to gain access to college-prep curriculums.
"The program exists right now on a limited basis," Courtney said. "There are waiting lists and very little funding."
Contact Kala Kachmar at
Kala.Kachmar@UConn.edu.
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