Student-Loan Rates Set to Double as Fix Eludes Congress

Bloomberg reports:

It’s increasingly unlikely Congress will act in time to avert a doubling next week of the interest rate that low-income college students pay for subsidized federal education loans, said senators involved in negotiations. “We probably can’t get anything done this week,” Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat and chairman of the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, told reporters yesterday. Unless Congress acts, the interest rate on new subsidized Stafford loans will double on July 1 to 6.8 percent from 3.4 percent. That means that any agreement would have to be handled retroactively, after the week-long recess scheduled over the July 4 holiday.