Washington- President Bush is poised to sign legislation overhauling the nation's college student loan program, and University of Connecticut senior Trea McPherson can claim some credit for the success.
The 21-year-old political science major has been a Washington presence - critics say a convenient prop - this fall as the bill snaked its way through Congress. George Miller, the California Democrat who runs the House Education and Labor Committee, told McPherson, "you've been to more press conferences than I have."
And for good reason, say supporters of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which they're calling the "single largest investment in higher education since the GI Bill" more than 60 years ago.
McPherson is the human face on legislation that would cut interest rates in half on subsidized loans over the next four years; substantially increase the maximum Pell Grants, which go to needy students; provide tuition aid to qualified students who agree to become teachers in high-poverty areas; and allow loan forgiveness after 10 years of public service to prosecutors, military service members, librarians, firefighters, nurses and others.
The White House and many Republican leaders have been wary of the bill, worried that it will actually increase the cost of borrowing. They're concerned that many private lenders, whose subsidies are being cut, will be more reluctant to make loans.
"Despite its lofty name, this legislation does nothing at all to reduce the cost of college," said Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee.
But that's been a hard argument to make when people like Trea McPherson are hanging around."
His situation is compelling," said Kevin Bruns, executive director of America's Student Loan Providers, a Washington group that opposes the bill. "People like him put a face on the issue and get attention from college papers, blogs and TV."
McPherson was discovered through U.S. PIRG [Public Interest Research Groups], one of the bill's most active supporters. The Egg Harbor Township, N.J., resident became active on the UConn campus fighting for ways to reduce the cost of college. He eventually became the state ConnPIRG board chairman in the last school year and helped register voters on campus.
His work paid off - six times as many students voted in 2006 as had voted in 2002, and newly elected Rep. Joseph Courtney, D-2nd District, gave UConn, and McPherson, a lot of the credit for his victory.
McPherson's journey to Washington began after the election. New House Speaker Nancy D. Pelosi made reducing college costs one of her biggest priorities, and U.S. PIRG, while nonpartisan, was eager to help.
Luke Swarthout, its higher education advocate, knew Connecticut well; four years ago, while still a student at Amherst College, he became a U.S. PIRG official.
So when U.S. PIRG needed "real people" to help push the cause this year, it turned to McPherson as well as others. He fit the qualifications well: A middle-class student (his father is a manager at a nuclear plant, his mother is a bookkeeper), $18,000 in student loans (a big amount, but not too big, so the middle class can relate) and a desire to go to law school once he graduates next year.
The 2007 legislation could help him and his sister, now a sophomore at St. John's University in New York, in several ways: It could reduce the 6.8 percent interest rates on student loans, and it could help with their loans if McPherson becomes a prosecutor, as he hopes to do.
"The whole point is that the bill will help students start their lives faster," he said. "Without this help I may or may not have gone to law school right away. Now I'll definitely go" after graduating from UConn next year.
He quickly found a receptive audience for these views in Washington. U.S. PIRG brought him and other students to the city in January, where he appeared at a news conference with Courtney, Miller, Senate Education Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and others as they touted legislation.
His awe evaporated quickly as he found the lawmakers down to earth. "I asked Joe Courtney could I get a picture," McPherson said. "He laughed and said, `After what UConn did for me, I'll build you a statue.''
Earlier this month, he returned for a press conference with Kennedy and Courtney, though he barely made it, arriving an hour before it began. Someone put a statement in front of him to read; McPherson chuckled and politely informed everyone he would tell his story in his own words.
"It's not that I didn't want to say what they told me. I didn't really even know I was speaking that day until I arrived," McPherson said.
Everything worked out, and he and Kennedy wound up talking informally about college, social justice and life in general.
Last Tuesday, McPherson was back, this time to stand quietly with two other students behind Pelosi at her bill-signing ceremony and heard himself touted as a hero.
Skeptics could only wince.
The lenders, Bruns said, could not counter all this. "There are privacy laws, and we have to be very careful about approaching a student and saying, `Would you show up in Washington?'"
Others thought it was unfair to students to trot them out and make them human posters for political aims.
"It might have helped when this tactic was new five years ago," said Pete Sepp, a vice president at the National Taxpayers Union. But the fact that people like McPherson are subsidized by interest groups, and are almost ubiquitous at Capitol Hill events, dilutes the impact, he said.
Don't tell that to McPherson or Courtney.
"He personifies the message," the congressman said flatly.
Hartford Courant, David Lightman, Washington Bureau Chief, 9/24/07
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