ALBANY – The Minority Republican Caucus in the State Assembly introduced a legislative agenda on Tuesday, designed to make college education more affordable for students and families in the state.
In 2015, the Project on Student Debt reported that from 2004 to 2014, the average student debt at graduation rose 56 percent, from $18,550 to $28,950.
Among those Republicans supporting the caucus plan is Karl Brabenec (R, Deerpark).
“Providing a good college education to our future generations is extremely important in New York,” Brabanec said. “We need to provide these opportunities for our youth, for our next generation that is going to be taking over as future presidents, future doctors, future lawyers. We need to make opportunities so they can afford college, pay for college.”
The Republican plan includes a “Learn for Work” program in high schools designed to accelerate career readiness by offering apprenticeships and enhanced degrees; increases transparency by requiring colleges to disclose certain financial statistics to students; creates a student loan payment tax deduction of up to $4,000 for single filers, $6,000 for head of household filers, and $8,000 for married filers; endowing the Community College Merit and Mobility Scholarship Program to offer top high school graduates $1,000 per year scholarships to attend New York community colleges; and petitioning the federal government to support legislation that would increase the options available for refinancing federal student loan debt.
