VOA标准英语2012--Economics Report - President Obama Presses Congress on Student Loan Interest

Economics Report - President Obama Presses Congress on Student Loan Interest

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Student loans and the interest millions of Americans pay on them have been getting a lot of attention recently. Student loan payments and interest are a financial reality for men and women in many different kinds of jobs across the United States.

The Department of Education says interest rates for Direct Subsidized Student Loans will double to just under seven percent on July first. Five years ago, Congress passed a measure that lowered interest rates for the government loans. But the law is set to expire.

The president has called for the lower, three point four percent interest rate in his new budget. But if Congress does not act, new student borrowers will pay more. Other borrowing-related costs will also go up. The Obama administration says this will cost each student borrower an additional one thousand dollars on average.

Higher education in the United States is costly¹. The Department of Education says the average yearly cost of attending a public college was about twelve thousand eight hundred dollars in twenty ten. The total for private schools was over thirty-two thousand.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York collects financial information. It says Americans owed eight hundred forty-five billion dollars in student loans last year. Some reports say the amount is now near one trillion dollars.

The administration says seven point four million students will be affected² without a new law. This week, President Obama traveled to several college campuses. At the University of North Carolina, he talked about his own experience.

BARACK OBAMA: “We didn’t come from wealthy families. So when we graduated from college and law school, we had a mountain of debt. When we married, we got poor together.”

Supporters of low student loan interest rates have promised a campaign to get new legislation. An extension is estimated to cost the government six billion dollars. Mitt³ Romney, the Republican Party’s likely presidential candidate, supports an extension. Republican leaders in the House of Representatives say they like the popular program. They just differ on how to pay for it. Republicans want the money to come from the new health care reform law.

The Democratic Party has proposed increasing taxes on some businesses, including oil and gas companies. Last Tuesday, President Obama put his argument to music on a late-night television program.

BARACK OBAMA: (Music Under) "Now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people.”

JIMMY FALLON: “Oh yeah.”

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report. I'm June Simms.

1 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

2 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

3 mitt   

n.棒球手套，拳击手套，无指手套；vt.铐住，握手

参考例句：

• I gave him a baseball mitt for his birthday.为祝贺他的生日，我送给他一只棒球手套。
• Tom squeezed a mitt and a glove into the bag.汤姆把棒球手套和手套都塞进袋子里。