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SOURCE: Citizen-Times.com
03.07.07
WCU student joins call for financial help in D.C.
By: Ellyn Ferguson, Gannet News Service
Students from North Carolina colleges were among hundreds who braved wind chills of 20 degrees Tuesday to lobby Congress for more financial aid.
“You’re freezing for a reason,” said Jennifer Pae, president of the United States Student Association during a midmorning outdoor rally on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol.
Cody Grasty, 21, student government president at Western Carolina University, visited the offices of Reps. Robin Hayes, Virginia Foxx, Walter Jones and Heath Shuler with other Tar Heel State students.
“My dad makes $55,000 a year, and I have to take out loans, which I think is outrageous,” said Grasty, a Maggie Valley resident. He worries that access to college and opportunity will be “limited to (only) those who can afford it.”
He’s carrying about $5,000 in debt after paying off earlier loans but said it will grow by about $20,000 when he enters a two-year graduate program at Appalachian State University.
Although in-state tuition increases at North Carolina’s public colleges and universities are capped at 6.5 percent a year, the cap does not apply to a variety of fees.
According to U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s Higher Education Project, Western Carolina students with federally subsidized loans average $11,334 in debt after four years. At UNC Chapel Hill, the average subsidized loan debt is slightly more at $11,860.
The United States Student Association says there are a number of college graduates who will spend the next 20 to 30 years paying off debt. The group wants Congress to increase Pell Grants for low-income students, which once covered 66 percent of a student’s financial needs but now cover only a third of such costs. It also is calling for Congress to reduce student loan costs by, among other things, approving House legislation that would temporarily reduce interest rates on federally subsidized loans.
