At its meeting last Thursday, the Student Senate passed a resolution urging members of the U.S. Congress to reconsider cuts proposed to student financial aid programs. Currently, Congress is deliberating bills reauthorizing the Higher Education Act of 1965 for five years and going through a budget reconciliation process due to monetary constraints. As a result, many changes could be made to federal financial aid, leading the Student Senate to draft this resolution and organize a student call-in campaign.
According to the resolution, the proposed cuts “adversely affect the 85 percent of Rensselaer’s 4,911 undergraduates who rely upon over $24.8 million in federal financial aid.” The resolution came out of the Student Advocacy Corps, led by Chair Mike Goldenberg ’06, who explained that the Student Senate wants students to call their federal legislators in order to underscore the importance of government financial aid.
Last week, a committee in the House of Representatives voted 22 to 19 to send a reconciliation bill to the full House, that cuts around $15 billion from government student loan programs. These possible cuts, which would span five years, help in offsetting the cost of the rest of the Congressional budget—from tax cuts to hurricane relief.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that members of two student lobbying groups protested the changes from the gallery, wearing shirts and holding signs opposing the bill’s passage. Democrats seem opposed to the bill, but The Chronicle reported that Republicans argue that the changes will help students by raising loan limits and reducing origination fees.
The U.S. Senate is also considering a reconciliation bill. Its bill cuts some programs and creates new temporary ones that specifically help those students from families with lower incomes.
Both the reconciliation bills and the bills reauthorizing the Higher Education Act differ in each house. The reauthorization bills call for several changes to many of the federal aid programs—including loan programs and Pell grants. If and when each house approves each bill, a conference committee would work to resolve the differences between them.
Grand Marshal Max Yates ’06 explained that the Senate is not working against either bill, but rather trying to change parts of each. “We’re not comfortable with the rhetoric in both of the bills,” he said, continuing that the bills could lead to increased interest rates that may cost a student thousands more over the course of repayment.
Yates said, “We’re talking about freezes in funding levels for LEAP and the Federal Work Study, as well as authorized maximums for Pell Grants until 2013. Basically, this means that individual students in federally-funded financial aid programs could see a significant decrease, on the order of thousands of dollars, in the amount of aid they receive.” At the same time, however, he pointed out that there are some good parts to the bills as well and that is why the Senate has not taken an overall stance on the bills themselves.
Yates and Goldenberg emphasized the issues surrounding financial aid more than the actual current bills. Senators have been approaching students this week about the overall changes to aid and asking them to call their congressional representatives. In addition to that, a table has been setup by the Sage Dining Hall at which students can use cell phones to call their federal legislators and urge them to support financial aid programs.
The Student Senate resolution discusses how federal aid helps two RPI students in particular and goes on to say “Considering specifically the proposed legislation and its affect on Rensselaer’s students, we, the Rensselaer Student Senate, stand unwaveringly in support of maintaining or reducing the interest rates on Stafford and Perkins Loans and the costs of loan consolidation, increasing Pell Grants, and expanding federal work-study programs. We implore federal legislators to expand these programs in the proposed higher education reauthorization bills.”
The Senate’s resolution calls for students to call Congress toll free at 1-800-574-4AID. There are also several websites that are asking students to call members of Congress and urge them to “Stop the Raid on Student Aid.”
Editor’s Note: Senior Reporter Christine Skrzypiec contributed to this report.
