Debt deal slaps 1.2 million grad students with new loan costs

This week’s debt ceiling deal may have pulled the U.S. back from default, but 1.2 million graduate students just got slapped with another bill. About one third of all graduate students have a partial federal subsidy on their loan, so they don’t get charged interest while they’re studying. That willll be abolished from July next year, as part of an agreement to reduce deficits by at least $2.1 trillion over a decade. But it could mean thousands of dollars more in loan costs for about a third of the country’s 3.6 million graduate students. Pauline Abernathy is the vice president for the Institute for College Access and Success, a non profit that attempts to make higher education more available and affordable.