In an effort to gain support from college students and their parents, both Democrats and Republicans have begun to focus on rising interest rates on subsidized college loans, The New York Times reported. After fending off a weeklong attack from President Barack Obama regarding a potential 3.4-percent increase, Republicans in the House of Representatives will vote on Friday in hopes of preventing the July 1 increase from occurring, The Times reported. Both sides said they agree that these interest rates must be decreased, but Republicans wish to cut money from a program within the 2009 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, while Democrats want the money to come from repealing tax breaks on oil companies, according to The Times. Without legislative action, it is predicted that the interest rates will revert to 6.8 percent, which will have a significant impact on graduates entering an already "sluggish" job market, The Times reported.
Former Texas Lutheran University President Rev. Ann Svennungsen, along with 28 other current and former college leaders, publicly came forward on Monday as charter members of the Presidents' Pledge Against Global Poverty, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Members of this organization pledged to donate 5 percent of their earnings this year to charities that fight global poverty. The goal of the pledge is to help accomplish the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which include reducing the number of people in the world who live in extreme poverty by half by 2015, according to The Chronicle. Svennungsen said she was disappointed that the number of presidents who joined the pledge was not as high as she anticipated, the Chronicle reported.
On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order that protects veterans from being deceptively recruited by institutions of higher education that aim to reap military benefits from veterans and their families, according to The New York Times. Current laws encourage for-profit colleges to seek these benefits because 10 percent of their revenue must come from a private source, which includes veterans' benefits, while 90 percent comes from federal student aid, The Times reported. Eight for-profit colleges received $636 million in G.I. Bill benefits last year, and dropout rates at most of them were above 50 percent, according to a recent study by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Harkin recently introduced legislation that would prohibit for-profit college and universities from using taxpayer dollars to fund their advertising campaigns and other recruiting efforts, according to The Times.
