With national student loan debt topping $1 trillion last year, it seems the problem has never been more universal in reach. For proof, look no further than the U.S. Capitol. Sure, a majority of lawmakers are millionaires, but that doesn’t mean they’re exempt from repaying loans taken out to cope with expensive tuition bills.

Forty-one members of Congress — three senators and 38 House members — reported student loan debt in 2012, our most recent data shows.

And it’s something that knows no party allegiance. Floor debates about education policy can become bitterly partisan, but student debtors were split almost evenly in 2012 — 29 Democrats and 25 Republicans owe.

After the interest rate on student loan debt doubled on July 1, 2013, Democrats in the Senate and House Republicans diverged on how to address it. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed fixing the interest on student loans at the low rates at which banks borrow from Federal Reserve. House Republicans like Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), meanwhile, pushed to implement caps on student loans at slightly higher rates.

But Warren and McMorris Rodgers come at the problem from a common place: they each owe money on student loans, according to their personal financial disclosure statements. Warren is in debt to Harvard University for between $15,001 and $50,000, while McMorris Rodgers owes between $10,001 and $15,000 to to ACS Education Services, Inc.

Rep. Mark Takano, who was elected in 2012, still owes about $30,000 on loans he used to finance his masters degree from the University of California, Riverside. “Taking out unsubsidized student loans made me more sensitive to the choices available to young people, as well as older people looking to retrain and advance their skills,” Takano said in an interview with OpenSecrets Blog. He said his years teaching high school seniors in public schools and his position as a trustee of Riverside Community College also shaped his approach to higher education policy. “I’m a defender of student aid in the form of grants and subsidized loans.”

Reps. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) both turned up on our list for the first time, though they have been in Congress for years. Both Turner and Shimkus have both been in Congress for many sessions, but took out loans for their children in 2012.

Overall, 17 members of Congress listed loans for a spouse or child. The largest amount owed on a loan benefiting a child in 2012 belonged to Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.). “Two students in school equals twice the tuition bills. With college costs hitting astronomical highs, it won’t be easy on us,” Israel wrote in an op-ed for the Huffington Post, in which he called for a tax subsidy for middle class families with kids in college.

Warren, like Israel, is grappling with student loan policy on behalf of her constituents while striving to pay down her own student loans. Last August, Warren excoriated Sallie Mae — the nation’s largest provider and servicer of student loans — for acting “unfairly or deceptively” in its lending to active-duty servicemen. Eighteen of her colleagues — Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.) and 17 members of the House — owe money to Sallie Mae.

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Meanwhile, seven members of Congress fell off of our tally sheet entirely in 2012: Reps. John Conyers, Jr., Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Marc Veasey (D-Texas).

The shuffling ushered five House members into the top 10 owing the most on student loans for the first time: Reps. Israel, Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) and Joe Heck (R-Nev).

Altogether, the 10 largest student loan debts in Congress amounted to nearly $1.8 million in 2012, 15 percent less than the previous year’s sum of close to $2.1 million.

Image: Tulane University (Flickr/wallyg) Follow Emily on Twitter: @emilyakopp





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