WASHINGTON, D.C. – Casting the issue as both a matter of middle-class prosperity and national security, Vice President Joe Biden challenged young people Thursday to push Congress to act to prevent student loan interest rates from doubling this summer.
“It’s all about restoring the dream of the middle class,” Biden said at an event titled “White House Briefing on College Affordability,” held in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House.
“When the middle class is doing well, the wealthy do very well, and the poor have a chance,” Biden said. “They have a ladder up. They have a vehicle.”
Biden and other administration officials urged the young people to Tweet using the #DontDoubleMyRate and to write members of Congress to express their views.
“With your help I’m confident, and I’m not being gratuitous here, we’re going to be able to keep interest rates from doubling,” Biden told the room full of dozens of young people, who ranged from college students to members and leaders of youth-serving or advocacy organizations. “Now is not the time to make it harder for students to pay for college.”
Biden said that, if Congress fails to act, more than 7 million students will see their student loan interest rates jump from 3.4 to 6.8 percent.
“That’s going to average more than $1,000 a year,” Biden said. “These guys (Republicans) don’t think a thousand bucks make a difference. It matters. It matters. I don’t know how many of you have an extra thousand bucks lying around,” the vice president said, evoking laughter in a talk in which he portrayed Republican lawmakers—whom he and other administration officials say have failed to keep the interest rates from doubling—as being divorced from the reality of the middle class and the poor.
