07.23.2014

Congress IS in session today.

After receiving their diplomas and stepping into the real world, two-thirds of students graduating from American colleges have some amount of student loan debt.





Individual student debt is averaging somewhere around $26,600 . On a national scale, student debt has reached past the $1.2 trillion mark — with $1 trillion of that total national average coming from federal student loans

Today’s featured bill, HR 4984 aims to “get to the root of the problem” by changing the way that students (and their families) are counseled when they use federal student aid programs.

If you’re one of the millions of college graduates who finished school strapped with debt, you might wish that someone had walked you through how your student loans or Pell grants would affect you in the future. This bill would ensure that students receive counseling on:

- What they are borrowing

- How much they should be borrowing

- Which financial options they can or should draw from

- Their future debt load and how that will affect their life post-graduation

- Repayment options

Critics of HR 4984 point to the fact that schools already offer and require loan counseling when students first take out federal loans or aid. Some taxpayers feel that it shouldn’t be their responsibility to make college students better borrowers.

Should student loan counseling be remodeled? Or should college students learn to handle their debt on their own? Let us know what you think in the comment section!

In other news…

Yesterday, the House passed some bills yesterday by voice vote. They’ll head to the Senate next for consideration.:

H.R. 4803 - Demoting High-Wage TSA Investigators

H.R. 4450 - Building up inbound international travel to the United States

H.R. 4411 - Cutting off international financing to Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah.

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