College-loan interest rate may drop
WASHINGTON (AP) - A
Clinton administration compromise
offered Wednesday would reduce the
interest rate on college student loans
while assuring lenders a greater
return than promised under a 1993
law.
Vice President A1 Gore and
Education Secretary Richard Riley
announced the offer at a White House
briefing. They released a Treasury
Department report showing that a
plan due to take effect in July would
cause banks to quit providing the fed
erally guaranteed loans.
“We will ensure that more stu
dents can afford to go to college and
that lenders can afford to make the
loans that will get them there,” Gore
said. Treasury said it would take
lenders about five years to turn a
profit under the proposal.
The government is expected to
guarantee more than $24 billion
worth of new loans this year to more
than 5.5 million borrowers. The new
proposal is subject to congressional
approval.
The issue was politically delicate.
The administration did not want to be
seen as caving to pressure from banks
after backing a formula change in
1993 intended to make college
cheaper. Nor could it afford to anger
students.
The interest rate on student loans
now combines the rate on 91-day
Treasury bills with a fixed markup.
That produces a current student-loan
rate of 7.8 percent over five years.
Starting in July, the 1993 law
requires a switch to longer-term,
higher-rate Treasury bills while
allowing a smaller markup. Students
would pay 7 percent.
The return to lenders, according
to the Treasury Department, would be
slightly more than half of the current
formula. Banks would earn less than
what they need to break even in the
first year but would make a slight
profit over five years.
For a student borrowing $12,000,
ASUN lends support to
tobacco sales with bill
By Jessica Fargen
Assignment Reporter
ASUN senators passed bills
Wednesday supporting continued
tobacco sales in Nebraska Unions
and post-tenure faculty review.
Curt Ruwe, president of the
Association of Students of the
University of Nebraska, said stu
dents have shown support to con
tinue tobacco sales in the union
and deserved to be heard.
“Many students have shown
concern about and felt adamant
about this,” Ruwe said.
Government Bill No. 31 sup
ports two solutions. Foremost, the
bill urges keeping union tobacco
sales, but if it is discontinued,
senators voted unanimously that
the lost revenue of about $31,000
should not be made up for with a
student fee increase.
Ruwe said the NU Board of
Regents will consider a bill
Saturday to make post-tenure
review more rigorous.
First Vice President Amy
Rager said improved post-tenure
review at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln was necessary
to keep up with other universities
across the country that are
“sweeping toward tenure-review.”
ASUN Government Bill No.
32 also encourages the regents to
leave the logistics of the post
tenure review plan largely to each
separate campus in the NU sys
tem.
In other ASUN news:
- Government Bill No. 30 was
passed commending Karen
Steinauer, who is retiring after
nine years at ASUN Student
Legal Services.
- Director of Student Judicial
Affairs Charles Greene invited
ASUN senators to a play explain
ing student judicial processes.
The play is March 17 at 7 p.m. in
the Temple Building, 12th and R
streets.
- Senate Bill No. 24 recog
nized the Shotokan Karate of
America Club as a student orga
nization.
66
We will ensure that more students can
afford to go to college and that lenders can
afford to ... get them there”
AlGore
vice president
the drop to a 7 percent rate would
mean $650 in interest savings over 10
years. For a student borrowing
$20,000 for a masters degree, savings
would amount to $1,050 over 10
years. For a student borrowing
$60,000 for a professional degree, the
savings would amount to $3,200 over
10 years.
“Combined with the White House
proposal to reduce up-front fees on
student loans, this proposal will
deliver education at a lower cost to
millions of students,” said Ivan
Frishberg, student loan specialist
with the U.S. Public Interest Research
Group, a consumer organization.
Republicans on the House
Education and Workforce
Committee were upset that the
administration offered a proposal so
quickly, but committee members
were not necessarily against it. The
committee will consider the proposal
when it rewrites the law on student
loans.
“Let’s make good policy, not elec
tion-year politics on this issue,” said
Rep. Bill Goodling, R-Pa., the com
mittee chairman.
Albright: Military force
still an option for U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Clinton administration insisted
Wednesday that military force
remained an option and ruled out any
swift easing of economic sanctions.
“We’re not going to swallow this
hook, line and sinker,” Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright said of the
agreement U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan worked out last Sunday
with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
But Senate Republican leader Trent
Lott denounced the U.N. agreement as a
cave-in and said accepting it would be
the same as buying “peace at any price.”
“It is always possible to get a deal if
you give enough away,” Lott, R-Miss.,
said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“The deal negotiated by U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan with
Iraq does not adequately address the
threat posed by Saddam Hussein,” he
said.
Lott portrayed the deal as an abdica
tion of U.S. power to the United
Nations.
“The secretary-general is calling
the shots,” Lott said. “The United States
is not”
Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright defended the administration’s
Iraq policy before a House
Appropriations subcommittee. “It is
real-world policy, not a feel-good poli
cy,” she said.
Touching on some of the fuzzy pro
visions, Albright said the diplomats
who will be added to U.N. inspection
teams will be “observers only,” with the
monitors conducting die searches.
She also said an arms control spe
cialist - not a technician - will be added
to the panel in charge and will head the
teams that go to the so-called presiden
tial palaces.
“We cannot do everything by our
selves,” Albright told the Senate panel.
Lott said Wednesday: “With all due
respect to Secretary Albright, I stand by
my comment” criticizing the accord.
Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle disapproved of Lott’s state
ment
“I don’t see what purpose it serves
by attacking one another at this point,”
the South Dakota Democrat said. “I
mean, if ever there was a time for us to
present a unified front to Iraq, this
ought to be it”
With Republicans leading the
attack, Albright shied away from
declaring any partisan motive.
However, she said, “We need to have
understanding of what we accom
plished and not criticism without a
solution.”
FDA warns
of Accutane
side effects
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Accutane users now have more
to worry about than acne.
Doctors prescribing the
powerful acne drug Accutane
should watch patients careful
ly for signs of depression, stat
ed a warning issued
Wednesday on the basis of
reports of depression and a few
suicides among Accutane
patients.
There’s no proof that
Accutane caused the problems,
argued manufacturer Hoffman
La Roche. It said people with
severe acne are at risk for
depression anyway.
But the Food and Drug
Administration counted about
a dozen patients who became
depressed while taking
Accutane, then found that the
depression disappeared when
they stopped the medication
and recurred once they took it
again.
mat was enougn ot a link
to prompt the precautionary
warning, FDA said.
Roche wrote thousands of
doctors Wednesday that it is
relabeling Accutane to warn:
“Accutane may cause depres
sion, psychosis and, rarely,
suicidal ideation, suicide
attempts and suicide.”
Patients should tell a doctor
if they’re feeling depressed,
said Dr. John Wilkin, FDA der
matologic drugs chief. And at
every visit, doctors should
“ask questions to the patient
about changes in mood,” he
said.
Roche officials refused to
say how many depressed
patients or suicides they know
of but stressed that more than 4
million Americans have taken
Accutane since it was
approved in 1982, and the pos
sible side effect is very rare.
Roche also argued that
teen-agers - prime acne suffer
ers - often suffer depression,
and hormones involved with
acne also may contribute.
FDA officials would not
say how many depression and
suicide reports among
Accutane patients it received
but called them “isolated.”
Women get tips to avoid sexual assault
By Eric Rineer
Staff Reporter
Women can fight against the
threat of sexual assault on cam
pus, security experts said late
Tuesday.
TEAM Inc., a group of per
sonal security experts and private
investigators based in Bellevue,
told a group of about 60 UNL stu
dents they could take precautions
to protect themselves from rape.
John Hoffman, president of
TEAM, said women between the
ages of 16 and 19 have the high
est probability of being sexually
assaulted.
“Women at these ages are
more vulnerable,” he Said.
“They’re more inclined to being
alone at night, and they meet
more people.”
Larry Willis, Husker Hall
director, said he organized the
event after receiving requests
from some residents.
The requests arrived after a
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
student was sexually assaulted
the night of Feb. 6 in the
Harper/Schramm/Smith
Residence Complex parking lot,
he said.
“There’s a lot of concern on
campus right now,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman, a state-licensed
investigator, said women on cam
pus can take several steps to help
protect themselves on campus:
■ Avoid walking or jogging
alone at night.
■ Stay in well-lighted areas.
■ Wear clothes that give them
66
There s a lot of
concern on campus
right now.”
John Hoffman
TEAM president
freedom of movement, so they
can react if attacked.
■ Look around cars and in
back seats before climbing
inside.
■ Don’t hitchhike.
■ Hoffman said the presentation
Tuesday was an excerpt from an
eight-hour course he teaches on
taking precautionary measures
against rape.
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