By Reid Setzer
This week, U.S. congressmen and senators review bills that could determine how Congress spends money on higher education in the years ahead.
The decisions that lawmakers make this week could impact student loan borrowers, in particular, for years to come. Access to income-based student loan repayment options could be on the line.
Right now, there is 1.2 trillion dollars of loan debt piled high across the country and the average college student graduates with $30,000 in loan debt. As Congress weighs its higher education budget, we’re urging lawmakers to protect student borrowers’ ability to repay their loans.
Hardworking students in today’s economy simply can’t afford to fall further behind. Our generation’s facing a far different economic landscape than our parents’ generation once did. We have a savings rate of negative two percent, between 20 and 30 percent of young adults move back in with a parent after graduating, and the loan debt we carry could have ripple effects on our economy for decades.
We’re urging Congress to protect borrower access to income-based student loan repayment assistance programs.
And we know our generation stands behind us in protecting these programs. Recently, we surveyed roughly 50,000 young people nationwide and received almost 1,500 student borrower stories, hailing from 45 states. While our sample was not selected randomly, it did yield some important results that show how important Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plans are for individuals:
· 86% of respondents said they are aware of their income-based repayment options, though we also know from past surveys and information-gathering initiatives that young people still do not know enough about their repayment options
· 57% of respondents said they are currently enrolled in IBR plans
· 84% of respondents said that IBR plans have made their monthly payments more affordable
· 98% of respondents were concerned when asked how they would feel if lawmakers were considering cutting access to IBR plans
As lawmakers continue to weigh spending levels for higher education, let’s make sure they’re aware of how important access to income-based repayment plans are to millions of borrowers nationwide. There’s still more work to be done to ensure borrowers are aware of all of the repayment options available to them.