The Council of Graduate Students, or COGS, is advocating for National Call Congress Day on Dec. 4, encouraging graduate students to talk to government representatives about their concerns over loans and debt.
COGS Vice President of External Affairs Dionisia Quiroga said getting students to participate in National Call Congress Day is an initiative under the ‘Grads Have Debt 2’ campaign, which aims to spread awareness about the financial struggles and loan issues of graduate and professional students — and to inform Congress about it.
The campaign was established by the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, or NAGPS.
Quiroga said the association is trying to push students to call their state senators or any government official and let them know that graduate students need more assistance and support when it comes to loans and debt.
According to a handout by the NAGPS, graduate student loan interest rate for the 2013-14 school year is 5.41 precent, whereas for undergraduate students, it’s 3.86 percent.
According to the same handout, the average cumulative debt for a master’s student is $52,000, for a doctoral student, it’s $72,000, and for professional degree students, it’s $113,000.
“Graduate students are demographically different,” Quiroga said. ” They’re more likely to have families, their parents don’t pay for them anymore, and a lot of them come in with undergraduate student debt.”
Quiroga said graduate and professional students cannot obtain subsidized loans anymore after the Budget Control Act of 2011 was passed.
COGS President Stefan Fletcher said that on a national level, graduate students now are trying to get the subject of subsidized loans for graduate students back on the agenda.
Quiroga said graduate and professional students also don’t have many options when it comes to grants and scholarships.
Unlike undergraduate students, graduate and professional students don’t have access to federal grant programs, said Val Meyers, associate director of the MSU Office of Financial Aid.
Meyers said the main reason behind this is that Congress’s main priority is to get more students to get an undergraduate degree.
She said graduate students have a higher limit when it comes to aggregate loans, because it includes the loans they took out for their undergraduate studies.
She also said since graduate students are considered independent, their parents cannot take out a Direct PLUS Loan for their education.
Quiroga said graduate student debt is something that is not discussed often, adding that some graduate and professional students do not realize the amount of debt they have until after the graduate.
Fletcher said it is likely that COGS would formulate a formal resolution or position statement concerning the issue, in addition to ongoing discussions the graduate student government is having with university administration.
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