Remarks by the President and Secretary Duncan in Student/Parent Discussion on College Loans

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Washington Lee High School, Arlington, Virginia

11:35 A.M. EDT

        THE PRESIDENT:  What I’m going to be talking about today is obviously financing college educations.  And I tell a story about how both Michelle and I, we had to rely on student loans and grants and scholarships to get through college and law school, and we still had a huge amount of debt after we graduated.  It paid off, it’s a great investment, but obviously we’re pretty sympathetic to the challenges that families go through in terms of financing.

        And so I just wanted to get a sense — all of you are going to be taking out Stafford loans.  And two things I wanted to get a sense of — number one, I’m assuming that a doubling of the interest rates is not helpful to you, but feel free to talk about that.  I also wanted to get a sense of how it was to apply for one, because one of the things Arne and I and others in the administration have talked about is how do you simplify the process just to make it a little bit easier for people.  Because I know that — and based on your chuckle, it sounds like that’s something that we need to do.

        Anybody want to start?  

        SECRETARY DUNCAN:  How was the financial aid form itself?  Was that scary?  Was it easy?  Was it hard?

        STUDENT:  Pretty easy.  It was kind of like filling out a college application, so that made it really easy — did it all for you.

        THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, good.

        SECRETARY DUNCAN:  That’s what I like to hear.  What about other folks?

        STUDENT:  It was pretty easy.  

        SECRETARY DUNCAN:  It used to be really, really tough, and we worked with the IRS to simplify that.  I was scared to partner with the IRS — (laughter) — but they did a great, great job.  The form itself used to be a barrier to going on.  So what was your sense on it?

        STUDENT:  I did it in my college summit class

You can read the rest of this article at:: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/05/04/remarks-president-and-secretary-duncan-studentparent-discussion-college-

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Posted by RobertButler on May 4 2012. Filed under Barack Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry