Loan Bone

Interest rates on Stafford Loans could double from 3.4% to a usurious 6.8% if Congress fails to act by July 1. Many Senate Democrats want another extension of the current rate; Republicans want a variable rate pegged to the market at a higher figure. As Elizabeth Warren put it as she argued for giving students the same rate as banks:

“Right now, the US government is out there investing in large financial institutions, offering them money every single night [for] three quarters of 1 percent, and yet our students, if the government doesn’t do something, will be paying nine times that much,” Warren said to an audience of about 70 students and staff at the Northeastern Visitor Center.

Adding to the debt of poor college students at a time of ever-increasing economic inequality (and record low interest rates) while companies like Apple practice massive tax avoidance is simply ridiculous.