NPR
August 11th, 2015
Everyone knows student debt is growing. College costs are growing. Student debt delinquencies are rising. And now Hillary Clinton has her own plan for how to stem that tide of financial problems for college graduates.
On Monday, Clinton released a package of ideas aimed at helping Americans handle their college debt, which currently totals around $1.2 trillion. The package's splashiest proposal promises future students a debt-free four-year degree from a public school.
That could transform the higher education system of the future. But one other cornerstone of Clinton's plan aims to help people with loans right now — it involves lowering interest rates to help millions who are already out of college pay down their loans. The problem is that this sort of proposal may not help the borrowers who need the most help.
The basic idea behind Clinton's interest rate plan is simple: knock down interest rates to keep costs down for new borrowers, and let older borrowers who have been locked into higher interest rates for years refinance their rates lower.