CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – When Barack Obama spoke Tuesday at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he wasn’t just a president trying to promote his higher education policy. To many students, he was someone who understood their burdens of carrying college loans.
The president talked of paying down student debt while kicking off a two-day swing to three university campuses with a stop at Carmichael Arena on the UNC campus. Obama said he and wife Michelle had a “mountain of debt,” with payments that initially cost more than what they were paying on their mortgage. The debt was paid off only about eight years ago, he said.
“I didn’t just read about this,” Obama said, adding later: “Michelle and I we’ve been in your shoes.”
While pushing his immediate goal of building pressure upon Congress to extend low-interest rates on Stafford loans before rates double this summer, Obama’s Chapel Hill visit gave him the chance to connect to a whole new crop of college students. These are students like 21-year-old Bradley Reid, who wasn’t old enough to vote four years ago but is now dealing with his own piles of debt.
“I’m definitely worried about being able to pay off all of my loans and get a good job,” said Reid, of Mount Vernon, N.Y., who expects to graduate this December with about $40,000 in debt. “And the fact that the president of the United States has been in that position, it’s really empowering to hear that.”
Likely Republican rival Mitt Romney has said he also wants to prevent the rates from increasing in a law approved by the Democratic-controlled Congress in 2007.
Obama said his administration has reformed student loan programs to ensure more money goes directly to students, but more must be done. If the Stafford loan interest rate should double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, he said, each student on average will see an added $1,000 in payments.
