Debt deal promises grad students bigger bills

Grad students are about to pay more, thanks to the federal debt ceiling deal.

Right now, graduate and professional students can borrow up to $8,500 a year in federal subsidized loans. That means that while a graduate student is enrolled at least half-time in her studies, the 6.8 percent interest on those loans will not accrue until after she graduates.

That subsidy will end next July 1.

Eliminating subsidized loans for graduate students might mean that those students borrow less, said Tricia Grimes of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. But "the most likely result is that their monthly loan repayments will simply be higher," she said.

By how much? Universities are making their calculations.

University of Minnesota officials estimate that a student taking out $10,000 a year in loans for four years would end up owing $7,256 more at the end of four years, without the subsidy. Depending on how long it takes a student to pay that off, the total effect could be closer to $10,000 or $11,000.

That scenario, drawn up by the U's financial aid office, assumes a bigger amount in subsidized loans than actually possible, given the $8,500 max in place right now. But you get the idea.

Abou Amara, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly at the University of Minnesota, said that while grad students expected to do their part, he's disappointed that the debt deal pitted undergraduates against graduate students.

The cuts to graduate subsidized loans helped save the Pell Grant program, according to several reports.

"There's kind of this belief -- and it's wrong -- that somehow graduate students either have more access to funds or don't have the same financial constraints that undergraduates have," Amara said.

"There's a disconnect here. The narrative now is about jobs and innovation," Amara said. "Well, people in graduate and professional school are the people who are going to be creating jobs. We're the people who are going to grow the economy.