NH College Republicans: Ayotte's Right for Students

By New Hampshire College Republicans

As college students, we learn many things in our time on campus, related to both our courses of study and our personal development as we prepare for lives in the real world.

One of the most important skills we learn, however, is the ability to critically evaluate arguments and come to rational conclusions. And on this point, we’re sorry to say that the New Hampshire Young Democrats apparently haven’t done their homework.

Their column criticizing U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte was misleading and full of recycled partisan attacks.

Here’s the truth on Kelly Ayotte. As an independent leader, Kelly is not like every other politician. She reallydoes work with anyone to get things done for people in New Hampshire, and when it comes to students and college graduates, she’s leading the charge to help us afford and access a college education.

Kelly’s worked on numerous bills in the Senate to help students and graduates refinance and repay their loans, simplify their payments, and access higher education.

For example, Kelly introduced the Student Loan Relief Act, which gives borrowers the opportunity to refinance their loans at a lower rate. That’s something that makes a lot of sense for young people who are just getting their lives started. If you can refinanceyour house or your car, you should definitely be able to refinance your student loan. Refinancing your loan reduces monthly payments and gives you more flexibility over your finances.

Despite what the Young Democrats allege, Kelly is actually fighting for income-driven repayment options, so you can make payments on your student loan based on how much money you make. She’s a cosponsor of a bill called the Repay Act because she knows that it can behard to pay off your student loans, and she thinks that having a single, simplified option to base your payments off your income just makes sense. So do we. Kelly’s also worked on bills that would encourage employers to help their employees pay off student loans with pre-tax dollars.

And in yet another example of how Kelly will work with anyone on solutions for students, she was part of a coalition that helped pass the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act into law, which is now preventing students from seeing their loan interest rates skyrocket. This law was based on bipartisan legislation she cosponsored that included ideas from Democrats, Republicans, and President Obama. Preventing drastic interest rate hikes is a solution we needed, and we’re proud that Kelly was a leading voice in that fight.

On top of all of that, Kelly’s leading efforts to make sure students who are most in need can afford college in the first place, not just pay for it afterwards. She has been fighting to renew the Perkins Loan program, and we’re hopeful that it will soon be renewed so it can continue providing critical financial assistance to more than 5,000 low-income New Hampshire students.

As college students, we’re not just concerned about how we’re going to pay off our student loans once we graduate. We want to know that we’ll be able to find good paying jobs, and Kelly’s working on that too. She’s working to partner employers with universities so course offerings better reflect the needs of the modern workforce, and she’s encouraging businesses to offer apprenticeships to help us get the real world experience we need before graduation. She’s pushing for a fairer and simpler tax code so we can keep more of the money we earn. And she’s working to ease regulatory burdens on employers so they can afford to hire more workers.

Kelly has talked about her own challenges paying off her student loans after college and law school, and she knows first-hand what many students and college grads are going through. But more importantly, she listens to us. She listens to the concerns we have about our futures and brainstorms solutions with us. Kelly fights on our behalf in the Senate and we couldn’t be prouder to call her our Senator.

This election year, we hope that our counterparts in the New Hampshire Young Democrats will look beyond tired Washington talking points and instead apply their critical thinking skills when looking at this race. Because when you look at the facts, it’s clear: Kelly Ayotte is right for New Hampshire students.