Lower rates could kick-start careers

Imperial Valley Press 1/19/07

By Jonathan Dale

There is one thing Guadalupe Tiznado will not be looking forward to upon graduation from San Diego State University-Imperial Valley campus — repaying her student loans.

“I think that (student) loans help the students a lot,” the 24-year-old Tiznado said. “But I think that maybe they can lower the interest rates on the loans that are already given to (students) at least a little bit.”

Tiznado said she’s unsure how much money she will end up owing by the time she graduates with her degree in liberal studies, but for now she’ll have to count on a future teacher’s salary to clear her from debt.

In Washington the House on Wednesday passed the proposed College Student Relief Act of 2007, which would lower the interest rates on student loans received this past summer, with an annual interest rate decrease during the next few years. The bill now goes to the Senate.

The act, which would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, aims at lowering the applicable rate of interest on unpaid principal balances of undergraduate subsidized loans and Federal Direct Stafford Loans to 3.4 percent as soon as July 1 of 2011.

“I think it’s going to be good for the ones who are going to be using loans from here, but the rest of us are going to be locked into those higher rates,” Norma Aguilar, a SDSU-IV public administration major, said.

Aguilar, who already owes $8,000, and Tiznado are two of many who can only hope the lower interest rates for recent and future loans will somehow help college students who have had loans for some years.

“It’s going to motivate me to go back and find out whether it will be retroactive as far as my loans, to help make ends meet,” Aguilar said.

“I think that part of it is positive, but it also is negative because I think the decrease needs to be in general,” Tiznado said. “The students coming in will get a lower rate than the ones who are in college right now, and I think that’s bad for us.”