Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine on Monday urged a one-year reauthorization of a federal loan program set to expire Wednesday. It is used by nearly 8,000 Virginia students annually.
More than 1,000 students at the University accepted a Perkins loan for the 2014-15 school year.
“These students borrowed a total of $2,886,834,” Student Financial Aid Director Scott Miller said in an email statement.
Warner and Kaine addressed their concerns about the the Federal Perkins Loan Program in a letter to members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which oversees the authorization of federal aid programs.
The Perkins Loan is need-based, with a fixed interest rate of 5 percent. It allows students a nine-month grace period before they must start repaying the loan and gives students the ability to borrow up to $27,500 over the course of their undergraduate careers.
The Perkins Loan program helps to make college a reality for lower-income students, said Warner spokesman Rachel Cohen.
“The reason that [Warner] is calling for a one-year reauthorization at this point in time is that many of these students are counting on this program to help them pay for college this school year,” Cohen said.
The House of Representatives unanimously passed its one-year reauthorization on Monday, and Senate leaders are currently working to do the same.
“We are hopeful,” Cohen said. “We’ll have to watch the floor.”
Despite this, there is some opposition in the Senate, according to Kaine's office.
“Some Senators feel that the program needs to be renewed as part of a complete reauthorization of the Higher Education Act,” the office said in a statement. “However, Senator Kaine and a number of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle have called on the Senate to extend Perkins Loans before they expire.”
The letter's authors do not necessarily advocating for indefinite renewal of the Perkins program, but said they believe it's important to renew the program for the upcoming year so that students currently dependent on the loan are not left without aid.
“Given the time frame we’re talking about, many of these students would have to turn to more expensive, higher interest private loans,” Cohen said.
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