Tuesday morning presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign hosted a press conference call with former Senator Hank Brown (R-Colo.), U.S. Rep. Aaron Shock (R-Ill.), and College Republican National Committee Chairman Alex Shriver to address President Obama’s failed policies on young adults.
While campaigning this past week with Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Romney endorsed a student loan proposal that President Obama has been selling on the campaign trail. Obama, who is visiting colleges in swing states North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa this week to get students involved, is pushing for congressional action on the student loan extension. While recently President Obama has been heavily encouraging Congress to extend student loan interest rates, in 2007, then-Senator Obama skipped two votes on the Senate floor for the student loan interest bill.
During the conference call, the Romney campaign stressed that, “students don’t want more loans, they want a way to be able to pay their student loans.” While Romney has recently backed Obama and has embraced the student loan proposal, campaign reps on the conference call did not offer any specifics.
With interest rates for student loans are set to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, House Republicans have taken a course that disagrees with President Obama and Romney’s stance. The House GOP has stated that the estimated $6 billion annual cost of extending the low-interest rates isn’t affordable without offsetting cuts.
One out of two students who graduated in 2011 are either unemployed, or underemployed, and also inherit a mountain of debt from the Obama administration’s spending. The Romney campaign argues that “President Obama doesn’t meet the reality of today, and that for young people, the path to choose could not be clearer.”
During the conference call, Congressman Shock stated that he believes “that the young adult demographic will vote differently than in 2008 and more similarly with how they voted in the 2010 midterm election after they had seen two years of President Obama’s failing policies.” The Romney campaign also pointed out that college tuition has increased 25 percent since the Obama administration has become more heavily involved and that the “government should get out of the business of student loans and let the free market back in.”
Although President Obama and Governor Romney are making an effort to reach out to young people, in reality, most students will not qualify for the student loan extension, and those who do will only save approximately $4- $6 a month.
President Obama will ask Congress to prevent student loan rates from doubling tonight at 8 pm est. at the University of Colorado- Boulder. The Romney campaign has clearly laid out the effect that the Obama administration has had on students as concerns grow that Obama will sweep the under 30 demographic again. In 2008 he beat Republican Presidential nominee John McCain two to one in this demographic.
With as many policy failures as President Obama has had during his first term, it seems clear which candidate will help college students and recent grads the most in the upcoming election. However, a newly released study shows young Americans just aren’t ready to tell Obama goodbye, yet.
