UNL discusses student affordability with US Department of Education undersecretary

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – University of Nebraska-Lincoln hosted a round table on Friday with James Kvaal, the U.S. Department of Education undersecretary.

Kvaal’s visit focused on student access to higher education and affordability, they also talked about the transition from high school to post-secondary education and how students adjust to that change.

“It was a very impressive group of young people, I thought,” he said. “Really perceptive, really shrewd, and it just leaves me feeling a lot better about the future after getting to know them a little bit.”

Part of Kvaal’s visit was to simply listen to students and their experiences about affording college and dealing with student loans.

Kvaal says there is a lot more awareness of students and the tradeoffs they make to be able to afford school.

He hopes that he can help make college more accessible to young people.

“There’s a lot of commonality to what I hear in different places, and I think one key issue that students are focused on is affordability,” Kvaal said. “And I heard a lot of students here today talking about that being one of the advantages of the University of Nebraska that a lot of students, even from out of state, had more affordable options here than they did other places.”

In August, President Joe Biden announced a student loan forgiveness plan, which would cancel up to $20,000 of student debt.

Kvaal believes this is only a short-term solution and they’re working on more programs to help students going into college.

“We’re working very hard with Congress to increase Pell Grants, it’s really important for states to invest more in public higher education,” he said. “President Biden has proposed a new repayment plan that will make it much cheaper to repay loans, to expand public service loan forgiveness, and just make it easier on an ongoing basis for people to get help with their loans if they need it.”

Kvaal said the goal of these policies is to cut through red tape and make the process of getting help simple when it comes to paying loans and getting into higher education.