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President Obama has taken his call for Congress to extend the 3.4 percent interest rate on subsidized student loans to Iowa, North Carolina and Colorado -- all battleground states in this fall's election. But the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney said during a press event Monday that he agrees with Obama, saying he supports an extension of the low interest rate, which would otherwise double for subsidized loans made after July 1.
"Particularly with the number of college graduates that can't find work and can only find work well beneath their skill level, I fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans," Romney said, according to the Huffington Post, which reported that Romney volunteered his position on the interest rate after no reporters asked about it during the news conference, his first since his path to the nomination became all but certain. "There was some concern that that would expire halfway through the year and I support extending the temporary relief on interest rates on students as a result of student loans obviously, in part because of the extraordinarily poor conditions in the job market."
Romney has said little about federal financial aid and other higher education issues so far, although he told college students in March to "shop around" on tuition prices and not expect the government to forgive their debt. He also endorsed Representative Paul Ryan's budget plan, which would have let the interest rate rise.
