Washington, D.C. – Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva released the following statement today after voting against the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act, which passed the House of Representatives and now heads to the White House for likely approval.

“This bill means students will pay $715 million more down the road than they would if current rates, which recently doubled for new borrowers, stayed untouched. Today we reverse the July 1 student loan interest rate hike at the cost of ultimately charging students more over the next decade.

“We need to make student loans more accessible to students and easier to pay back. In this country, in our economy, students should not have to agonize over whether to go to college because of our nation’scrushing student debt problem.”

Rep. Grijalva supported Rep. John Tierney’s (D-Mass.) bill to tie the student loan interest rate to the current Federal Reserve lending rate, which is currently 0.75 percent. Grijalva also signed a discharge petition and indicated his support for H.R. 2574, which would set the interest rate for any subsidized Stafford loan made between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014 at 3.4 percent.

“We shouldn’t charge students more to borrow for college than we charge banks,” Grijalva said.