{"id":9302,"date":"2012-06-26T12:09:18","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T16:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=9302"},"modified":"2012-06-26T12:08:29","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T16:08:29","slug":"why-the-doubling-of-student-loan-rates-will-affect-latinos-most","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/06\/26\/why-the-doubling-of-student-loan-rates-will-affect-latinos-most\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Doubling Student Loan Interest Rates Would Hurt Latinos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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USDAgov\/flickr<\/p>

Education officials in Florida say loans discourage students from choosing non-profit fields as careers. <\/p><\/div>\n

Tuition is going up at Florida’s public universities this fall.<\/p>\n

Now, barring Congressional intervention, student loan interest rates will double on July 1st from 3.4 to 6.8 percent.<\/p>\n

The change affects subsidized Stafford student loans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Student leaders and administrators from Palm Beach State College and Miami-Dade College North are joining\u00a0Florida PIRG<\/a>\u00a0to call for a bipartisan bill to keep interest rates low.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are urging Senators Nelson and Rubio to act to extend the low interest rate on federal student loans on behalf of all students,\u201d\u00a0Christine Lindstrom said,\u00a0Florida PIRG Higher Education Program Director.<\/p>\n

The groups are focusing on Latinos, which Lindstrom said have been hit particularly hard by the economic downturn.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoughly 63,000 Latino students in Florida will see their loan amount increase by over $900 on average, which would total an additional $62-million in loan debt,\u201d said Lindstrom.<\/p>\n

Why the focus on Latinos?<\/a> Lindstrom says there is a great interest in which way the Latino vote will go in the November election.<\/p>\n

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“Roughly 63,000 Latino students in Florida will see their loan amount increase by over $900 on average, which would total an additional $62-million in loan debt.”<\/p>\n

– Christine Lindstrom,Florida PIRG Higher Education Program Director<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make sure that the Latino perspective on issues in student aid was being put forth loudly and clearly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Maria Vallejo is Provost of Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth, where 25 percent of the student population is Latino.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that more Hispanic Americans in Florida need access to post secondary education,\u201d said Vallejo. \u201cAnd loans are not part of the culture. So increasing interest rates will scare them away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Higher rates are especially worrisome since student loans follow the borrowers for life. They cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

In addition to Florida\u2019s unemployment rate, which is higher than the national average, Vallejo said, \u201cLoans discourage students from choosing education and nonprofit fields as careers [out of] fear that low salaries will not allow them to pay back the loans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Jose Vicente, President of Miami-Dade College North Campus, says his institution serves the working poor.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiami Dade College has the highest number of Pell Grant<\/a> recipient students in the nation,\u201d Vicente said. \u201c46 percent of our students are below the poverty level by federal standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

FPIRG says a deal to keep interest rates low is being crafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but several deals in recent weeks have fallen through.<\/p>\n

Congress has less than a week to act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuition is going up at Florida’s public universities this fall. Now, barring Congressional intervention, student loan interest rates will double on July 1st from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. The change affects subsidized Stafford student loans. Student leaders and administrators from Palm Beach State College and Miami-Dade College North are joining\u00a0Florida PIRG\u00a0to call for a bipartisan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[529,1064,1141],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}