On Monday, June 2 at 1:30 p.m., U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, will host a roundtable at the College of Southern Maryland in La Plata to discuss the growing cost of higher education.
Student loan debt has ballooned to roughly $1 trillion, a sum larger than the amount of credit card debt held by Americans.
At the same time, prices at public four-year institutions have risen more rapidly from 2012-13 than over either of the two preceding decades.
“Marylanders deserve a fair shot at success, one of the most direct paths to success used to be through higher education,” said Cardin. “We cannot afford to make higher education prohibitively expensive for most Americans if we want America to continue to be a world leader in commerce, security, or any area. There is something inherently wrong about the government making billions off of student loans when the future of our nation is at stake”.
What: Cardin Roundtable on Higher Education Affordability
When: Monday, June 2 from 1:30- 2:30 p.m.
Where: College of Southern Maryland (CSM)–La Plata campus, 8730 Mitchell Road, La Plata.
Senator Cardin is a cosponsor of The Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act which would allow Americans to pay back their outstanding loans at the same rates that Congress embraced just last summer in The Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act.
Earlier this month, Cardin met with Bowie State University President Mickey L. Burnim to discuss the growing crisis in college affordability and ways the federal government could work with higher education institutions to ease the burden for students.
