In anticipation of some student loan interest rates jumping on July 1 President Obama urged college students and their parents to do everything they can to pressure congressional Republicans to take action to stop the jump, CNN reports.
"Higher education cannot be a luxury for a privileged few," Obama said in front of a group of college students during a press conference. "It is an economic necessity that every family should be able to afford, every young person with dreams and ambitions should be able to access and now's not the time for us to turn back on young people."
If action is not taken the interest rate for federally subsidized student loans will jump to 6.8 percent. Republicans and Democrats both want to avoid the increase but have different methods to do so. Democrats want to lock in the current rate of 3.4 percent for the next two years while Republicans want to tie the rate to the market and have approved a plan to do so, reports The New York Times.
Obama acknowledged that the bill that has passed the House but said that it was not a sufficient solution.
"I'm glad the House is paying attention to it, but they didn't do it the right way," Obama said. "It fails to lock in low rates for students next year. That's not smart. It eliminates safeguards for lower-income families. That's not fair."
Republicans were outraged that the president decided to hold the press conference in the Rose Garden flanked by college students, accusing the president of "petty partisanship," according to The New York Times.
"The differences between the House plan and the president's are small, and there's no reason they can't be overcome quickly," Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement. "But today, rather than working to resolve the issue, the president resulted to a campaign stunt to try to score political points."
Obama argued that the House plan could end up costing a starting freshman more over four years than if nothing was done and the rates were allowed to double. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the loan rate would be 5 percent this year under the Republican plan while increasing to 7.7 percent by 2018, according to The New York Times.
The president directly called on students and their families to push for the government to renew the 3.4 percent rate, just like they did last year.
"So this year, if it looks like your representatives have changed their minds, you're going to have to call them up again, or email them again, or tweet them again and ask them what happened, what changed?" Obama said.
