President Obama boasted "two major victories in one week," as he signed the education reconciliation bill into law today at Northern Virginia Community College. The bill, which focuses on the federal student loan program, was attached to the health care reform act that he signed last week, giving the President a sort of two-for-one legislative deal.
"For almost two decades, we've been trying to fix a sweetheart deal in federal law that essentially gave billions of dollars to banks to act as unnecessary middlemen in administering student loans," he said before a supportive audience of Virginia college students. Those billions, he continued, could have been used to help students instead of boosting the profits of lenders.
In addition, the new law aims to make it easier for college graduates to repay their student loans by capping monthly payments at 10 percent of workers' incomes, down from 15 percent. "We're also going to give students an incentive to do what's right--if you pay your loans on time, you'll only have to pay them off for 20 years," said Obama. "And you'll only have to pay them off for 10 years if you repay them with service to your community, and to our country, as a teacher or a nurse or a member of our Armed Forces."
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