JCVALLEY CITY, N.D. (KCSi-T.V. News)   – Thursday  (Aug 15, 2013) on the campus of Valley City State University (VCSU), U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp brought together students and administrators from area colleges to focus on the increasing cost of higher education.

Heitkamp, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, recently helped provide long-term certainty to student loan rates and is now working to address the skyrocketing price of a college degree. VCSU President Dr. Steve Shirley, Mayville State University President Dr. Gary Hagen, and Jamestown College President Dr. Robert Badal participated in the discussion.

Heitkamp said, “We worked together last month in a bipartisan fashion to provide long-term certainty for students, but my efforts to improve our higher education system are far from over.  The students, as well as Presidents Shirley, Badal, and Hagen offered important insight that I am going to use to shape legislation in the Senate. For our state to continue to be successful, we need to ensure higher education is affordable for North Dakotans.”

In July, Heitkamp helped pass the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013, which the House then passed and the President signed into law. The legislation allows students the ability to take advantage of historically low interest rates, while locking in the rates for the life of the loan, and capping future rates.

In addition to her work to on keeping rates low, Heitkamp is also working on a plan to help Americans saddled with costly, private student loans refinance to more affordable options. In June, Heitkamp and fellow Banking Committee member Senator Sherrod Brown introduced a bill to help folks reduce their debt through refinancing, which would be no cost to taxpayers. Heitkamp understands that the issue of mounting student loan debt not only affects students and graduates, but that it is a drain on the entire economy.

Last year, outstanding student loan debt reached more than $1 trillion and 81 percent of the undergraduates with high student debt had private loans. This excessive student loan debt dampens home purchases, slows small business startups, diverts retirement savings, and limits opportunities for economic expansion in rural communities. Private loans typically have higher interest rates – that can top 18 percent – and are more difficult to refinance and offer fewer payment options than loans administered by the U.S. Department of Education.