Sen. Elizabeth Warren will again make student loans her top agenda item as the 114th Congress gets underway.
In a meeting with Massachusetts newspaper editors, the Democrat reiterated the burden that student debt places on the economy and pledged to keep advancing the issue legislatively. Warren tried and failed to push a bill through Congress last year that would have refinanced student loan interest rates for certain debtors, and offset the lost revenue to the government with a tax hike.
“We’re going to get out there and fight for it again,” she said. “Change is hard to get in a single day. It’s a journey.”
Reports did not mention if Warren would reintroduce the same legislation. As of the second day of the new Congress, she has her name attached to two bills, neither of which are related.
Warren said she has taken her message to businesspersons, arguing that the student loan burden has weighed down economic activity across multiple sectors.
“I talked to [Staples] about the data that showed young people are not starting businesses at the rate we anticipate and a big reason was the student loan debt. They were interested and I want them to be interested. They can help us make change,” she said. “This affects us all. This affects housing values. The home builders get this. The realtors get this. And the more people who get it, the better off we’ll be.”
The progressive leader restated her previous attacks on for-profit colleges, saying that the government has failed to use “its leverage” to rein them in. According to the Department of Education, students at for-profit schools account for more than a quarter of all student loans and nearly half of all loan defaults despite making up a small portion of college students.
“These students get saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt and no diploma. In the end, many have wasted time and money here.”
In December, Warren sent an inquiry to the Department of Education about discharging the loans of students who attended and are now suing one such institution, Corinthian Colleges. Corinthian, which reached an agreement with the federal government last year to sell most of its 97 U.S.-based schools and shudder the others, faces legal action for alleged predatory loan and debt collection practices.
The Obama administration also took action against for-profit colleges last year, instituting a “gainful employment” rule that severs the flow of aid dollars to programs whose former students fail to satisfy a debt-to-earnings ratio established by the Education Department. An association representing more than 1,400 of the institutions — which primarily serve low-income populations — sued in response.
The rule is expected to face scrutiny from the Republican majority in Congress.
