Lobby Day 2018 Issue 1: Student Loans

There are Unsubsidized and Subsidized Loans. A Subsidized loan does not accrue interest while the student is in dental school. Dental students and graduate students are only eligible for Unsubsidized loans, meaning the loans accrue interest from the second they sign for them. We are asking the legislators to 1) make Subsidized loans accessible for students 2) lower the federal interest rate on Unsubsidized loans 3) permit students to refinance loans more than once
If you have a loan with a 9% interest rate and the economy gets better, the rate may lower to 7%. Students are stuck with that 9% even though you could take the loan to a private company for the 7% rate. Refinancing multiple times would allow students to take advantage of better rates on their loans to decrease the amount of student loan debt. (H.R. 1614, the Student Loan Refinancing Act)
and 4) we are also advocating against the placement of caps on all loans.
This is crucial right now because H.R. 4508 known as the PROSPER Act has been introduced in the House. This bill seeks to cap Grad PLUS loans for dental students at $235,500 even though the average student debt of a D4 is $270,000, collapse all loan programs into one loan program that would only offer unsubsidized loans and eliminate the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for new borrowers
We are unable to provide all the main points and background information on this issue in a short video, please reference the Lobby Day information sheets emailed and available online for a comprehensive description of this issue.