Students

Elizabeth Warren Advocates for Vast Student Loan Reforms; Backs Bankruptcy Forgiveness Bill

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) does not think enough is being done to help college graduates pay back their student loans, addressing several higher education cost issues, the Huffington Post reported.

Speaking at Saturday's Education Writer's Association's Conference on Higher Education, held at Northeastern University, Warren did not outline a specific proposal. She said Congress could do more to help those with student loan debt, like give better funding to public colleges.

"We stepped a piece at a time into making student loans impossible to deal with when a person hits a financial crisis, there are a lot of steps we could take back out of that," Warren said. "I'd like us to go a long way toward letting people deal with student loans the same way they deal with home mortgages and medical debts."

While presenting her own, she advocated for the retracement of numerous reforms made in the past 30 years that has made harder discharging student loan debt. She has already co-sponsored legislation from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that has made the rounds through the past two sessions of Congress.

The legislation would rescind a 2005 reform that made private student loans unaffected by filing for bankruptcy. In other words, Warren, Durbin and the 35 consumer and student advocacy groups who back the legislation would like filing for bankruptcy to discharge any private student loans.

"Americans with private education loans who fall on hard times deserve bankruptcy relief and a fresh start just like everyone else," said Pauline Abernathy, vice president of The Institute for College Access and Success, which runs the Project on Student Debt.

In her speech, Warren talked on the massive profits the federal government makes on student loans. During the last Congress debate over federal student loan interest rates, Warren presented a bill that would lower them drastically, but it gained no traction.

"Young people get into trouble on these debts and you know what happens? It just means the amount they owe keeps going up and up and up," Warren said. "It's crushing these kids."

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