Durbin brings good news for college bound students

QUINCY, IL. -- US Senator Dick Durbin brought some good news to parents and students trying to figure out how to pay for college.

The senator addressed the recent overhaul of the student loan system.

The change comes as a provision of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation bill.

Durbin says the change removes the bank as the middle man in the process.

Starting this July students will be able to get a loan directly from the Federal government for school.

The bill also also puts 36 billion dollars into the Pell Grant program over a 10 year period.

Durbin says, "More and more people out of work are going back to school to try and improve their skills adn be ready for the workplace, the new job, the new opportunity. And so we want to give them a helping hand."

Senator Durbin pointed out that banks were getting between 6 to 8 billion dollars a year in federal subsidies which was added to the financial burden of the students and their families.

He says that was no longer acceptable.

"We want the students to have the lowest interest rates. We wanna make sure they can pay the loans back as quickly as possible. And the less debt they have out of school the more flexibility they have in choosing the job that they really want to get into."

Another provision of the reform bill applies to public service workers like nurses, teacher as well as those in the military.

It says that after 10 years of paying back their loans, the rest of the debt, no matter how.