Devastating cuts to student aid proposed

Yesterday faculty and student leaders launched an effort to increase awareness about the significant cuts to student aid now being considered by Congress as part of the Higher Education Reauthorization bill. In order to bring attention to the issue, OSPIRG brought a number of citizens together for a mock funeral procession, “mourning” the potential loss of federal funding. The Oregonian ran an article about it this morning. You can read it here. Here's an excerpt:

..."'If you're in the lower middle class, (debt) makes it that much harder to struggle out of it,' Sutcliffe said at the protest, organized by the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group.

..."A key House committee approved a bill last month to renew the Higher Education Act, the law that governs federal student loan and grant programs. The committee's Republican majority was under pressure from House leaders to carve billions of dollars out of the loan programs to use toward shrinking the federal deficit."

We are disappointed that congress is cutting student aid so significantly at a time when tuition, cost of textbooks and other expenses are increasing for students. Big lending institutions still get significant government subsidies, which angers student leaders I work with when they are suffering these cuts.