Obama Signs Order To Cap Student Loan Payments At 10 Percent Of Income

By Christi Parsons, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday signed an executive order that lets millions of college graduates cap their student loan payments at 10 percent of their income, a move he says will help “open the doors of opportunity for all.”

By amending student loan regulations to put the cap in place, Obama is making use of his executive powers to help alleviate the burden for young Americans increasingly saddled with student loans.

“Everything I do is aimed toward reversing those trends that put a greater burden on the middle class and are diminishing the number of ladders to get into the middle class,” Obama told a crowd gathered in the East Room for the formal announcement.

“In America, higher education opens the doors of opportunity for all,” he said. Some higher education and additional skills are going to be your surest path to the middle class.”

Under Monday’s order, the new cap would be available by December 2015. Administration officials said they won’t know how much it will cost until they have gone through the regulatory process.

Even so, Republican House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio dismissed the executive action as a “much-hyped loophole” and questioned whether it would do anything to reduce the cost of higher education or improve access to federal student loans.

“Nor will it help millions of recent graduates struggling to find jobs in the Obama economy,” he said Monday.

But with college costs rising every year and incomes lagging behind, aides to the president say he had to take the action that was within his power. The move was the latest in Obama’s “pen and phone” strategy to take administrative action to address issues that have been deadlocked in Congress.

As he announced it Monday, Obama recalled that it took him a while to pay off his law-school loans but that lawyers usually have the means to retire their debt.

Many students saddled with debt are often in a more desperate situation, he said, leaving “middle-class families feeling trapped.”

AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan