U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., is certainly not pinning his gubernatorial hopes on the votes of Wisconsin's college students.
Green, one of the Republicans challenging Gov. Jim Doyle in November's election, voted earlier this month to slash student aid subsidies by an unprecedented amount. Green's Feb. 1 vote against students allowed the budget to pass the House by the narrowest of margins, a 216-214 vote. President Bush happily signed the student aid cuts into law a week later, which marked the largest cut to federal student aid in the program's history.
Thanks to Mark Green'and other Republicans in Washington'student loan subsidies will now reduced by nearly $12 billion over the next five years. How will these cuts be achieved? The interest rate cap that parents pay on many of their students' college loans will rise from 7.9 percent to 8.5 percent. Student and parent borrowers will also be required to continue paying excessive, above-market interest rates on other student loans in many cases.
Of course, the budget Green helped pass does more than just cut back student loan programs. It also cuts health care for low-income children, reduces the child support supplements upon which many single parents depend and increases co-payments and premiums for millions of seniors and disabled people enrolled in Medicaid who depend on the program for their health care.
Still, the main concern for students should be that a man who wants to be our next governor cares more about giving tax breaks to the very richest Americans than he does about helping students afford a college education. Usually when politicians cut money from popular programs, they cite budgetary constraints as their justification. However, Green can't even do that with this decision.
The recently passed budget, while cutting roughly $40 billion from student aid, low-income health care assistance and other services, lavishes so much on wealthy tax breaks that it still increases the federal deficit. Mark Green just voted to cut $12 billion from student aid programs so our country could be even more in the hole!
What makes Green's vote so troubling is the fact that students in Wisconsin have faced such huge tuition hikes over the past several years. Tuition has risen at UW institutions by more than 40 percent in the past three years. Lower-income students are being steadily priced out of the state's public universities as the cost to attend rises'the number of UW System students from families earning less than $47,000 a year dropped by 17 percent from 1994 to 2004.
Fortunately, there are leaders who are addressing the financial situation facing students, rather than making it worse. In his State of the State address last month, Gov. Doyle proposed the 'Wisconsin Covenant,' a plan to provide students from less fortunate economic backgrounds with college educations.
The covenant would offer all Wisconsin eighth graders the opportunity to attend a UW System school. After fulfilling certain requirements, students will receive a state financial aid package that will bridge the gap between available family contributions and federal financial aid. Now that Green has helped slashed federal student aid by nearly $12 billion, Doyle's proposal becomes even more important.
Green, who openly opposes the Wisconsin Covenant, has made his legislative priorities quite clear to college students. Fortunately, Gov. Doyle will be on the ballot again next November, giving us the opportunity to re-elect a leader who understands how to help college students.
