Obama’s student loan plan moving forward with health bill
Would cut funds to private lenders, boost grant money
WASHINGTON — President Obama moved closer to achieving one of his top policy goals yesterday as congressional Democrats joined forces behind a bill that would cut funding to private student lenders and redirect billions of dollars in expected savings into grants to needy students.
The bill, which was released yesterday afternoon, has long been overshadowed by the rancorous health care debate, but it is moving swiftly now and may benefit from a legislative maneuver that packages it together with Obama’s health care plan. The two initiatives at the centerpiece of the president’s domestic agenda could pass simultaneously in what is expected to be a largely party-line vote.
The student loan bill would end a program begun in 1965 that relies on banks and other financial institutions to lend students money for college while the government assumes virtually all the default risk. The government would vastly expand its own lending to fill the void.
Republican opponents have criticized the move as an unnecessary government
