Petition Aims to Help Students
By: Monique Redman
Issue date: 4/28/09 Section: News
One hundred thousand signatures are needed by May 17 to help extend benefits of the federal bailout to students, for the Reduce the Rate petition, sponsored by Reverend Jesse Jackson, and for the Rainbow Push Coalition. On Sunday, March 22, Jackson announced on his Keep Hope Alive radio talk show that he and others will join together in a march to Washington D.C. to petition Congress and President Barack Obama.
According to a spokesman for Reducetherate.org, the organization's platform and goals include the following:
• Reducing interest rates on all student loans to 1%. If banks can borrow at 1% or less, then so should students.
• Extending the grace period before loan repayment begins from 6 months to 18 months for students who graduate, since it takes an average of 6 to 12 months for a graduate to find a job.
• Ending the penalties assessed to schools for student loan defaults. Schools should not be held accountable for students who don't pay back their loans.
• Increasing Pell Grants to cover the average yearly cost of a 4-year public institution instead of the amounts in the current stimulus package: $5,350 starting July 1 and $5,550 in 2010-2011.
"We're calling it 'The Rainbow PUSH Education Stimulus Plan.,'" Jackson said at reducetherate.org. "It is a simple-yet-sweeping plan to help families finance college costs that are steadily putting higher education out of the react of most Americans. Our proposal is that students holding and applying for college loans should be offered interest rates that do not exceed 1 percent-the same favorable terms now being offered to the large corporations under the federal bailout plan."
President Obama's current stimulus package proposes the following in regards to student loans:
• Increase the Pell Grant by $500 from $4,850 to $5,350.
• Increase work study funding by $490 million.
• Increase student loan limits on unsubsidized Stafford Loan by $2,000.
• Provide $50 million to the Department of Education to help them administer student aid and loan programs.
According to a spokesman for Reducetherate.org, the organization's platform and goals include the following:
• Reducing interest rates on all student loans to 1%. If banks can borrow at 1% or less, then so should students.
• Extending the grace period before loan repayment begins from 6 months to 18 months for students who graduate, since it takes an average of 6 to 12 months for a graduate to find a job.
• Ending the penalties assessed to schools for student loan defaults. Schools should not be held accountable for students who don't pay back their loans.
• Increasing Pell Grants to cover the average yearly cost of a 4-year public institution instead of the amounts in the current stimulus package: $5,350 starting July 1 and $5,550 in 2010-2011.
"We're calling it 'The Rainbow PUSH Education Stimulus Plan.,'" Jackson said at reducetherate.org. "It is a simple-yet-sweeping plan to help families finance college costs that are steadily putting higher education out of the react of most Americans. Our proposal is that students holding and applying for college loans should be offered interest rates that do not exceed 1 percent-the same favorable terms now being offered to the large corporations under the federal bailout plan."
President Obama's current stimulus package proposes the following in regards to student loans:
• Increase the Pell Grant by $500 from $4,850 to $5,350.
• Increase work study funding by $490 million.
• Increase student loan limits on unsubsidized Stafford Loan by $2,000.
• Provide $50 million to the Department of Education to help them administer student aid and loan programs.
Be the first to comment on this story