Vice President Joe Biden released the
Annual Report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class today. The report contains the findings of a committee that has spent the past year researching ways to improve the living conditions of working and middle class families.
The Task Force concluded that among the most effective ways to help American families secure economic stability is
increasing college access and affordability.
The Task Force's
February 15th blog post states that:
Over the past three decades, college tuition has grown ten times faster than real median incomes for families with children. So it’s no surprise that about two-thirds of graduates take out loans to pay for college and their average debt is over $23,000. But we didn’t need statistics to understand how challenging it can be to pay for college; the Vice President and other members of the Task Force heard about it directly from students, parents, faculty and administrators when we held meetings at Syracuse University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.The Task Force’s findings include budget recommendations for the Fiscal Year 2011, including:
* Capping student loan payments at 10% of a borrower’s income and forgiving debt after twenty years, shifting all federal lending to the Direct Loan program, which would allocate $80+ billion to need-based aid and access and retention programs.
* Extending the American Opportunity Tax Credit, and making historic investments in community colleges and Minority Serving Institutions.
It's encouraging that the recommendation to shift lending to the Direct Loan program is the key feature in the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which passed the US House of Representatives in September and is currently pending in the US Senate.
