Blumenthal Statement on Federal Student Loan Debt Eclipsing $1 Trillion

(Washington, DC) – Today, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) issued the following statement after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that federal student loan debt eclipsed $1 trillion nationally for the first time. All student loan debt, which includes private and federal student loans, currently stands at $1.2 trillion.

“Mountainous, monstrous student debt is continuing its spiraling climb – as today's news dramatizes – making Congress's obligation all the more urgent: We must reduce the student loan interest rate back to 3.4 percent immediately, and then even lower, and develop ways for past students to reduce and erase the $1 trillion in existing debt. The failure of Congress to act – now –  threatens our all too slow and fragile economic recovery and job creation. I call on Congress to invest in students and our future by undoing this rate increase before borrowers feel the pinch. At a time when students are already struggling under mountains of debt, Congress shouldn’t make college more expensive.”