Shaheen Talks Dollars and "Sense"

"It's a real thing," said U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen to a group of roughly 70 students, faculty and staff.

Senator Shaheen discussed financial aid and college affordability with a group of Plymouth State University students on Fri., Feb. 28.  In addition, she also spoke about supporting a number of recent affordability measures, including increasing Pell grants and keeping Stafford loan interest capped at 3.85%.

Shaheen is also working on legislation to make student finances easier to manage. She discussed the decline in state support for higher education across the country, "We must decide what we support as a society...education needs to be on the table," said Shaheen.

"The government has done a lot to help, yet it is not enough," Shaheen said.  Reaffirming her commitment to keeping college affordable, Senator Shaheen's record includes backing 2013 legislation to avoid interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford loans from doubling, supporting "Pay As You Earn" plan to help over a million students reduce their monthly payment, supporting education reform in 2010, increasing the maximum Pell grant to $5,550 and capping repayments at 10 percent of discretionary income.  As Governor of NH in 1996, Shaheen launched a tax-free college tuition savings plan for New Hampshire. 

New Hampshire has one of the highest state college/university tuition in the U.S.  Yet, is there a hope that the federal government can intervene?  When asked this from a junior in political science, Shaheen answered in the negative. 

Much of the blame on the high cost of NH's college system is the fact that NH does not have a general sales tax, nor individual income tax, which would offset funding to the university system.  Encouraging students to contact their state legislatures to make sure that cuts to the universities do not continue, Shaheen voiced concern over accomplishments in the near future with the current make-up of the delegates, saying, "we cannot get a consensus on the issues."   

Senator Shaheen and University President Steen fielded questions of possible changes to the US educational system to the possibility of narrowing down a bachelor's degree to three years.  Another student asked, "with rising tuition and lowering of state funding, Universities are focusing more on out of state and global student, is there anything being done to help the shrinking share of lower-income and non-traditional students?" Shaheen said, "Lower-income individuals do not vote." 

The final question proposed to Senator Shaheen was from another political science major asking, "Since this is an election year, what can we expect you to do to help fix the college affordability issue?"  The answer was vague, she promises to stand behind legislature presented and keep fighting for affordability for education.