Bipartisan group of Senators reach deal on student rates.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A bipartisan group of senators have reached a deal for better rates on loans for college students this fall, but higher rates in future years.
The rate of student loans had doubled beginning of this month when Democrats and Republicans failed to see eye to eye with each other on the issue.
According to the deal reached by the group of Senators yesterday, students would be offered lower interest rates through the 2015 academic year, but then rates would likely climb higher than they were when students left campus this spring. The deal has to be approved and reconciled with the House version too.
Here’s a look at student interest rates – by the numbers.
1 – date in July of this year on which student loan rates doubled, forcing Congress to renegotiate the interest rates on such loans.
2015 –academic year through which the newly reduced interest rates on student loans will be in place.
8.25% — the maximum interest rate an undergraduate student loan can have, under a protection plan won by the Democrats. Graduate student rates max out at 9.5%, while parents’ interest rates can go no higher than 10.5%.
3.85% — the interest rate for all undergraduate loans this fall, under the new legislation.
5.4% — the new legislation’s interest rate on graduate student loans this fall.
6.4% — the interest rate for parents’ borrowing a student loan this fall under the new legislation.
715 million – number of dollars the renegotiated interest rate deal is estimated to reduce the national deficit by.
20% — the growth rate of student loan debt between late 2011 and May 2013.
$165 billion – the amount of student loan debt currently in the United States.
$51 billion – the amount of money the federal government will make in 2013 off of new and current student loans.
$184 billion – the amount of profit the federal government will receive through 2023 from new student loans taken out this year.
11 million – the number of families who stand to save, in total, billions of dollars through the renegotiated student loan rates.
18 – date in July on which the new rates should be passed and announced by Congress.