Budget cut stiffs student
By Benjamin Baxter
The Collegian
Fresno State students will be hit by a raise in interest rates for student loans due to nearly $40 billion of federal budget cuts.
House Resolution 653 narrowly passed Wednesday with a 216-214 congressional decision largely decided along party lines.
The $16 billion cut out of education spending over the next four years primarily affects student loans, according to a New York Times report.
Some Fresno State students are dissatisfied at the prospect of the new, fixed interest rate in their student loans, having become accustomed to the variable interest rate.
Elaine Kalingking, a freshman nursing major, is one of these students. “How are we going to pay for school if we have to pay so much for it?” Kalingking said she finds the idea of spending even more for money for tuition disconcerting.
Other students agree.
“I think it’s sad and typical that they go after the non-voting college students,” Ceasar VanTill, a senior accounting major, said.
According to a study conducted by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics published Fall 2004, 84 percent of college students anticipated voting in the presidential election, but this figure may not represent voting on local or statewide measures.
VanTill said student apathy in voting is a serious issue and that students need to take responsibility for not voting.
“We need to vote and voice our opinion more or just take it,” VanTill said.
The bill faced opposition from other areas as well. Lobbyists, such as ActNow.org, an online lobbying group, which describes itself as being a campaign “committed to an aggressive campaign” with the hope that they would convince Congress to stop “cutting programs that primarily benefit the poor and middle class.”
Interest groups had time to pressure congressmen to change their vote during the winter break, after Democratic Senators forced the bill back to the House through changes in the bill.
Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT) changed his vote to no because of pressure from the AARP, unions and several liberal interest groups.
There were 13 Republican representatives who crossed party lines to oppose the measure.
The bill did not receive support from the local representative. Rep. Jim Costa, the U.S. Representative for the 20th Congressional District, opposed the measure.
Californian U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein also opposed the measure last month, when it went through the Senate in a tie vote broken by Vice President Cheney.
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