July, 09 2013, 01:40pm EDT
Students Tell Sanders How College Loans Impact Families and Careers
WASHINGTON
Responding to more than 700 emails from college students and graduates in Vermont and around the nation, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called today for restoring student the loan interest rate to the level that was charged before the rate doubled on July 1 to 6.8 percent.
"We have a major crisis in our country today in terms of the high cost of college and the incredible debt burden that college students and their families are facing," Sanders said in a Senate floor speech. "Our job is to improve that situation, to lessen the burden on students and their families - not to make it worse."
Sanders read from some of the emails he received about how student loans have affected people's careers and families.
Emily Decker from Colchester, Vt., told the senator that "watching the interest eat away my savings every month is hard to swallow ... This is putting our plans for having a family on hold because we want to have our finances in better order before doing so."
Andrea Craft from Burlington, Vt., is a 25-year-old, full-time college student at Champlain College. "I am a single mother. I am already $20,000 in debt and I still have one more year to go before I graduate ... I often feel like I am not ever going to be able to 'get ahead' and 'make it' in spite of my advantages."
Allison LaFlamme of Johnson, Vt., said her credit is good but she couldn't take advantage of lower home mortgage rates because college loans pushed up her debt-to-income ratio.
Melissa Weber from Rutland, Vt., wrote: "I have found myself struggling to survive independently as a 25-year-old with a master's degree. Yes, I have achieved a degree, of which I am proud, but I have also accumulated an immense amount of debt that will likely haunt me for the majority of my life. As a result of my daunting loan payments I find myself barely surviving on an income that should easily support a small family."
"My wife and I both have $50K-$60K of loan debt each. We both have good jobs, but a large percentage of our income is used to pay back student loans ... The education process should be rewarding and create opportunities. For my wife and me, it did the opposite," wrote Evan Champagne from St. Albans, Vt.
Sanders said the emails he received are typical of young people who graduate from college saddled with incredible debt. In America today, the average debt for a college graduate is $27,200. For those who go to graduate school, medical school or dental school that debt can be higher.
The cumulative higher-education debt burden in the United States is $1.1 trillion, more than the entire credit card debt owed by Americans. The Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury have both issued warnings that high levels of student loan debt could drive down consumer demand and have a negative impact economic growth.
To read emails to Sanders about student loan debt, click here.
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"So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is," said one critic.
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Public health advocates, federal lawmakers, and other critics responded with alarm to The New York Timesreporting on Friday that an attorney helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. select officials for the next Trump administration tried to get the U.S. regulators to revoke approval of the polio vaccine in 2022.
"The United States has been a leader in the global fight to eradicate polio, which is poised to become only the second disease in history to be eliminated from the face of the earth after smallpox," said Liza Barrie, Public Citizen's campaign director for global vaccines access. "Undermining polio vaccination efforts now risks reversing decades of progress and unraveling one of the greatest public health achievements of all time."
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Although Kennedy's nomination requires Senate confirmation, he is already speaking with candidates for top health positions, with help from Aaron Siri, an attorney who represented RFK Jr. during his own presidential campaign, the Times reported. Siri also represents the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) in petitions asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "to withdraw or suspend approval of vaccines not only for polio, but also for hepatitis B."
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Mr. Siri is also representing ICAN in petitioning the FDA to "pause distribution" of 13 other vaccines, including combination products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and hepatitis A, until their makers disclose details about aluminum, an ingredient researchers have associated with a small increase in asthma cases.
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After the article was published, Siri called it a "typical NYT hit piece plainly written by those lacking basic reading and thinking skills," and posted a series of responses on social media. He wrote in part that "ICAN's petition to the FDA seeks to revoke a particular polio vaccine, IPOL, and only for infants and children and only until a proper trial is conducted, because IPOL was licensed in 1990 by Sanofi based on pediatric trials that, according to FDA, reviewed safety for only three days after injection."
The Times pointed out that experts consider placebo-controlled trials that would deny some children polio shots unethical, because "you're substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk," as Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, explained. "The real risks are the diseases."
Ayman Chit, head of vaccines for North America at Sanofi, told the newspaper that development of the vaccine began in 1977, over 280 million people worldwide have received it, and there have been more than 300 studies, some with up to six months of follow-up.
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Multiple critics altered Trump's campaign slogan to "Make Polio Great Again."
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Without naming anyone, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a polio survivor, put out a lengthy statement on Friday.
"The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed—they're dangerous," he said in part. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."
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