House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN) appeared on Sunday’s edition of C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program to discuss student loans and Republican efforts to prevent a scheduled rate increase on subsidized Stafford Loans without raising taxes or adding to the deficit.
Education Week’s Alyson Klein and Congressional Quarterly’s Rich Cohen asked Chairman Kline about the ongoing Stafford Loan interest rate debate and the prospects for an agreement before the July 1 deadline, when rates are set to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Additionally, Chairman Kline shared his views on the need for a long term solution that would better align student loan interest rates with the free market. Watch the exchange below:
“We’re now in the position of needing the Senate to actually do something so we can have a real negotiation…This ought to be manageable, and again it’s frustrating for us in the House to have actually passed legislation to fix this - and to have offered some alternatives in how to pay for it that have already been proposed by the president… I think the answer is sitting there - we just need the Senate to pick it up."
