Head spinning from juggling the figures of your student debt and your financial aid package? This week, you can ask the president for help, and he just might answer — by text message.
President Barack Obama is answering students' questions about paying for college this week, ahead of a planned July 1 rate hike on the interest charged on students' subsidized Stafford loans.
Every day this week, the youth activism group DoSomething.org is collecting questions and sending one of those to the president to answer.
Obama's answered an inquiry Tuesday from Marcus in Nevada, Texas, about what the government is doing to educate high school students about loans before entering college.
"We launched a College Scorecard and Financial Aid Shopping sheet to compare schools, aid and loan options," Obama said via text message. "It’s something Michelle and I wish we had had when we were in your shoes — because sometimes we got surprised by some of the debt that we racked up."
On Monday, the president responded to a question about what has been done to lower student debt, saying the government has expanded grants and proposed incentives for colleges to keep tuition down.
Students interested in submitting questions can text “PREZ” to 38383 to sign up, then submit a question.
The White House has been fighting with Congress over how to deal with the student loan rate hike, and no solution has been reached. The subsidized Stafford loan interest rate will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent next month if Congress does not act soon.
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