Obama, Romney campaigns discuss college student loan debt at stops

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney talked about student loan debt from their respective spots on the campaign trail.

Starting July 1, interest rates on federal Stafford Loans will increase from 3.6 percent to 6.8 percent, which poses an issue for the candidates vying for the votes of 7 million students affected by the interest jump.

Obama started a three-day tour to talk to students about college loan debt. He even made a stop Tuesday on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” at the University of North Carolina.

“We only finished paying off our student loans,” Obama said in Chapel Hill, N.C. “Check this out, all right, I’m the president of the United States. We only finished paying off our student loans about eight years ago. Now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people.”

Before he spoke, however, Romney had stolen the president’s political thunder by releasing a statement earlier that morning about the upcoming interest increase. The two candidates agreed the interest rate should be kept low but disagreed on why Congress should take action.

“President Obama’s failed leadership has led to the weakest recovery since the Great Depression, where 50 percent of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed,” Romney said in the statement. “Given the bleak job prospects that young Americans coming out of college face today, I encourage Congress to temporarily extend the low rate.”

— Charles Scudder