Former AU Student Government President and 2011 alum Andy MacCracken introduced President Barack Obama on June 9 before a public signing of an executive order reforming the way student financial aid forms are paid.
The order expands the Pay as You Earn repayment program, which caps the amount a college student repays in loans to 10 percent of their monthly income after taxes. Under the new order, the program will help an additional five million students pay off their debt, according to a report by the Washington Post.
MacCracken was chosen to introduce the president due to his advocacy for student financial aid as the president and co-founder of the National Campus Leadership Council (NCLC), an advocacy group for college students, he said.
The NCLC is a non-governmental and non-partisan organization composed of current and former student body presidents nationwide. It aims to solve problems college students face and encourages advocacy on campuses nationwide, according to its official Facebook page.
As the leader of NCLC, MacCracken met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, to discuss student loan repayment, according to MacCracken.
“I was wearing two caps [that day]-one as director of NCLC and one as a student with loans myself,” MacCracken said.
His personal story of student loan debt resonated with Duncan and Biden. The next day he received a phone call from the White House asking him to introduce Obama before he signed the executive order.
The new legislation raises awareness that the Pay as You Earn program exists and is available to a wide range of students both at AU and other universities, MacCracken said.
“Only 11 percent of students are enrolled in [Pay As You Earn]. This is a huge problem,” MacCracken said. “It means that one in seven student loan borrowers go into default on their loans within two years, which could hurt their finances for the rest of their lives.”
The information gap that exists between students who need to get the information about repayment options versus the people that enroll in the program is too large, according to MacCracken.
“President Obama and the Education Department are pursuing efforts to renegotiate contracts with services that lend money so that there is incentive to help borrowers better understand the options in front of them,” he said.
However, the responsibility to educate students about their repayment options should also lie with universities, according to MacCracken.
“It would be a good gesture for universities around the country, including AU, to make a conservative effort to make sure their recent grads are in good financial standing [and] part of that is making sure their students are educated [about their options]” MacCracken said.
To help students understand and use their repayment options, student leaders and governments could partner with financial aid offices to educate students about this while they are still in school, MacCracken said. That way there is no scrambling to pay off student loans as soon as students graduate.
NCLC continues to partner with AU Student Government, and the close relationship MacCracken keeps with AU helped SG forge connections with the White House, according to current SG President Sophia Wirth.
“NCLC has a broad network across the country and more people can help make more of a change,” Wirth said. “Two-hundred voices are stronger than one.”
This past spring SG created a Financial Aid Commission with the goal of partnering with AU Central, AU’s office in charge of student services including financial aid, to make financial aid more accessible as well as increasing literacy for students about financial aid, she said.
“Accessibility” and “literacy” are the two hot button issues that SG will focus on for financial aid this year, according to Wirth.
“We are coming up on a budget year, which is why it is especially important to talk about [these issues] now,” Wirth said. “As tuition continues to climb, we need to make sure aid is increasing as well as information.”
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