HIGHER EDUCATION ACT CREATES HARDSHIPS FOR STUDENTS

Dear Editor: As a student at UW-Madison, one of the foremost public
institutions of higher education in the country, I feel it is my
responsibility to call attention to the potentially disastrous
proposition currently before Congress. If the Higher Education Act is
reauthorized with the current language intact, it will severely cut
resources to higher education and therefore make college more
expensive for millions of students.

The act includes the single largest cut in the history of student aid
programs. House Resolution 609 eliminates in-school loan
consolidation, makes fixed-rate loan consolidation more expensive for
students, creates a mandatory 1 percent fee for each student loan,
takes away on-time repayment benefits and makes many more changes
that follow the pattern of cutting resources at the expense of students.

In addition, the act includes a provision that suspends financial aid
for students who have been convicted of drug-related crimes, no
matter how small. This, along with deep resource cuts to financial
aid programs, places a far greater burden on low-income students,
limiting their access to higher education.

During the college application process, I, like many other students,
was encouraged to apply to schools based purely on my interest in
attending and told to disregard the price of tuition. Supposedly, any
college in the country is a possibility for any student with the help
of financial aid and scholarships. This, however, is not a realistic
vision of the state of higher education in this country, as I
discovered when I discovered that with the help of "financial aid," I
could graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

I was lucky enough to have the option of attending UW-Madison without
incurring such a huge amount of debt, mostly due to the reciprocity
agreement between Minnesota and Wisconsin, but many students are not
so lucky. Already, over 39 percent of students graduate with
unmanageable levels of loan debt (more than 8 percent of their monthly income).

If the HEA bill is reauthorized without including more affordable
loan consolidation options, the lowering of the interest cap rate to
6.8 percent, the Student Aid Reward Act and increases in federal
grant programs (like Pell Grants), this problem will only continue to
get worse.

Public education has always been one of the cornerstones of American
democracy. But unless we protect equal access to higher education by
voicing our opposition to the cuts proposed in the HEA, it will cease
to exist as such. Please write to your congressional representatives
and let them know that you support public education and want to
ensure that it is available to all students.

Jessica Halpern-Finnerty

student UW-Madison