Open Cloze
Gap-fill exercise
Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers.
Obama: Keeping student loans affordable is 'all about the economy'
President Barack Obama tried
two-part strategy today to push Congress
keep interest rates
student loans from doubling on July 1:
First, he filled the East Room
college students and
a speech demanding action on legislation
prevent this increase. Second, the Treasury Department and the Education Department issued a report
quantified the value
a college education: The median weekly earnings
a college graduate was $1,053 in 2011, compared
$638 for a high school graduate.
That earnings gap is the highest it’s been
1915.
“Some form of higher education, something beyond high school
never been more important,” Obama said. “It's the surest path
finding a good job, earning a good salary, making it
the middle class.”
The problem, Obama said, is that Americans
owe more on student loans
they do on credit cards. If interest rates on federal student loans double
3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, “over 7 million students will
hit with the equivalent of a $1,000 tax hike,” Obama said.
“We can’t price them
of the college education market,” the president said. “We can't stand
when millions of young people are already saddled
debt just as you're starting off.”
Enabling students
go to college is “all about the economy,” Obama said.
“This is
about whether or
we are going to have the best-trained, best-educated work force in
world. That improves our economy. And higher education cannot be a luxury reserved
for a privileged few.”
Republicans agree that Congress should prevent an increase
student loan interest rates -- they just don’t agree
Democrats on how to come
with the $6 billion needed to
this. Democrats want to increase payroll taxes
shareholder/employees at some professional services firms. That’s a tax hike
small businesses, Republicans claim. They’d rather get the money by taking it
a preventive health care fund created under Obamacare.
That “would create
new problem,” Obama said.
So Obama urged the students in the East Room, and Americans everywhere, to “keep the pressure
” Congress to end this stalemate.
Adapted and abridged from: The Business Journals, June 21, 2012.
Check
OK