President Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 expanding educational opportunity for America’s students and families.
Points of the legislation include larger pell grants, more stable funding for Pell Grants, increased support for Minority Serving Institutions to include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
These institutions are particularly hard hit. They account for nearly one-third of all degree-granting institutions and enroll nearly sixty percent of the 4.7 million minority undergraduates in our nation today. They do more with less and enroll higher proportions of low- and middle-income students. The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act provides $2.55 billion in mandatory funding for these institutions – dollars that can be used to renew, reform, and expand programming to ensure that students at these colleges and universities are given every chance to rise to their full potential. The bill also makes repayment of student loans more affordable with the Expanded Income Based Repayment (IBR) program.
The administration cites that about two-thirds of graduates take out loans with an average student debt of over $23,000. This debt is particularly burdensome for graduates who choose to enter lower-paying public service careers, suffer setbacks such as unemployment or serious illness, or fail to complete their degree.
Also included in the bill will be more investments in community colleges.
The bill signing took place today at Alexandria, Virginia's Northern Virginia Community College where Dr. Jill Biden is a professor.
"I am particularly thrilled that this bill invests in community colleges across our country so that more students can gain the knowledge and technical job skills that they need to compete and succeed", said Dr. Biden.
The president and Dr. Biden are planning to host a summit on community colleges at the White House this fall. "We’re going to bring everybody together, from educators to students, experts to business leaders. We are going to bring everybody together to share innovative ideas about how we can help students earn degrees and credentials, and to forge private sector partnerships so we can better prepare America’s workforce and America’s workers to succeed in the 21st century.
The bill also makes lending more available from the government and reduces the amount of lending from banks.
“For a long time, our student loan system has worked for banks and financial institutions,” President Obama said.
“Today, we’re finally making our student loan system work for students and all of our families.” By cutting out the middleman, we’ll save American taxpayers $68 billion in the coming years -- $68 billion. That’s real money, real savings that we’ll reinvest to help improve the quality of higher education and make it more affordable."
Happened At The Event
A White House media pool report states:
"After signing the bill, Obama went down to audience level and shook hands for more than five minutes, chatting with three other cabinet members who’d been seated there – HUD Sect. Shaun Donovan, Interior Sect. Ken Salazar, and Trade Rep. Ron Kirk. Among the lawmakers spotted down there: Reps. Charlie Rangel and Dennis Kucinich.
The president also picked up a baby girl (class of ’31, give or take) and cradled her in his right arm. They ogled and cooed at each other. The girl’s eyes and mouth were wide open."
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