Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Obama Cuts Out the Student Loan Middleman

Today, we mark an important milestone on the road to health insurance reform and higher education reform ... With the bill I signed last week, we finally undertook meaningful reform of our health care system. With this bill, and other steps we've pursued over the last year, we are finally undertaking meaningful reform in our higher education system ... By cutting out the middleman, we'll save American taxpayers $68 billion in the coming years. That's real money -- real savings that we'll reinvest to help improve the quality of higher education and make it more affordable. President Obama

Today, President Obama signed into law the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. What does this mean? It's an overhaul of the student aid system. Students can now take out loans directly with the fedral government. This ends the subsidized program for the student loan industry that banks and other financial institutions have been enjoying for a long time. All new federal student loans will be direct loans from private intitutions but under control by the Department of Education through performance-based contracts.