Students and local officials criticized the House of Representatives' plan to cut student loan programs by $9 billion last night at an education panel held by Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group.
Under the pending bills, the typical student borrower with $17,500 in debt will have to pay an additional $5,800 for loans, according to UW-Madison senior and co-coordinator of WISPIRG's Higher Education Campaign Jordan Burghardt.
Burghardt said these cuts are proposed to reduce the federal deficit.
'But it is wrong to balance the federal budget on backs of America's college students.'
'Reducing student aid?? doesn't seem to make sense when all the data shows people in a four-year education will have higher paying jobs and pay more taxes,' Director of Student Financial Services Susan Fischer said.
Fischer said she is not opposed to a program to reduce the federal deficit, but she is, 'opposed to having students take the hit,' she said.
UW-Madison senior Melissa Mueller said not only will she have about $20,000 in debt when she graduates in May, but will also have an alternative loan from studying abroad.
Although she has accepted the fact that she has loans, she worries about her younger siblings.
'The debt that they're going to be facing if this is cut,' Mueller said, 'I just don't want to have to think about it.'
In order to prevent or reduce the cut, Burghardt said it is necessary to make the issue relevant to students.
'Basically what we are trying to do is show members of Congress that students are listening,' Burghardt said.
Ald. Austin King suggested students should make at least two phone calls a day to Congress to lobby against the bill, which is scheduled for a House vote today.
'Lobbying is about ?? writing letters, making phone calls and being a pain,' King said. 'That's the lobbying that moves people.'
