Alert

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) co-sponsored the “Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act” (S.1241) today to provide a permanent solution that would lower and fix interest rates for 100 percent of newly issued student loans. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined this legislation would reduce the deficit by $1 billion over 10 years.

“Between now and the fall, millions of American students are trying to decide whether or not they can afford to go to college,” Blunt said. “Now is the time for Congress to act to give students more long-term certainty and access to lower rates. This bipartisan, common-sense solution is very close to the president’s proposal, and I hope Majority Leader Harry Reid will bring this bill to the floor for a vote immediately.”

The bill, which was introduced by U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (W.Va.), is also co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Tom Carper (Del.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), and Angus King (Maine).

Before serving in Congress, Blunt was a high school and college history teacher, and he served for four years as the president of his alma mater, Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Mo.

Additional Background Information:

The Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act requires:

• For each academic year, all newly-issued student loans be set to the U.S. Treasury 10-year borrowing rate plus 1.85 percent for subsidized and unsubsidized undergraduate Stafford loans; plus 3.4 percent for graduate Stafford loans; and plus 4.4 percent for PLUS loans.
  
• The interest rate would be fixed over the life of the loan and the cap on interest rates for consolidated loans would remain at 8.25 percent.

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