Senator Elizabeth Warren just unveiled the first plan of the 2020 election cycle that comprehensively addresses both college affordability and student loan debt simultaneously.
Today, Democratic members of the House of Representatives released the Aim Higher Act, a bill that would reauthorize the Higher Education Act, the federal law which authorizes a broad range of student aid programs and governs the federal role in higher education.
Demos, a public policy organization based in New York, has this response:
Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), informed his staff that he would be shutting down the bureau’s Office for Students and Young Consumers and folding it into the Office of Financial Education. In response, Mark Huelsman, Senior Analyst and student debt expert at Demos, issued the following statement:
Rather than excluding students, progressive states like New Jersey have an opportunity to lead and expand the universe of the possible on issues like free college.
Washington, DC – Today, Demos, a New York public policy organization, released a first-of-its-kind congressional college yearbook, which compares the cost of college tuition members of Congress experienced with the cost of college for today’s students. The yearbook, entitled When Congress Went to College, finds that the average student today paid nearly $20,000 a year more for college than current members of Congress.
While some fairly valuable tax breaks for students have been kept from the chopping block, the Senate GOP’s tax bill could go a long way toward decimating funding for public colleges and universities, and community colleges in particular.
To summarize, the House Republican tax plan would get rid of several incentives—from the ability to deduct student loan interest as well as tuition, to the Lifetime Learning tax credit—which provide middle-class students and borrowers with some relief at tax time.