This week, as The Healthcare and Education Reconciliation Act was signed into law, President Obama committed a historic amount of aid to students, workers and their families. The Act prioritizes college access and affordability for those who need it most—relieving the burden of student loan debt, investing in institutions, and providing new investments and training programs to fill the middle-skill job gap.

The law, which will impact all student loans taken out after July 2010, will take the savings from eliminating the wasteful subsidies that went to Big Banks and Sallie Mae under the FFEL student loan program and specifically provide:

Decade Decline in Federal Job Training Could Leave New Jobs Unfilled Amidst Record Unemployment; Report Underscores President’s State of the Union Call

President Obama's FY 2011 Budget reasserts his commitment to making college affordable, increasing education spending by 7.5%. A week before the budget was released, the President urged the Senate to pass their own version of H.R. 3221--the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. Obama's budget maintains this same priority, dedicating funding to Pell Grants, eliminating the Family Federal Education Lending program in favor of direct lending, and decreasing federal student loan repayment from 15% to 10% of an individual's income.

On November 10, 2009, 50 organizations representing millions of students, families, workers and educators, wrote to urge the Senate to support President Obama’s higher education agenda. The groups expressed their support for initiatives embodied in the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (H.R. 3221), which recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives.