With all of the talk about the credit freeze lately, it seems logical enough to ask whether parents are going to be able to get the student loans they need for their children’s college. Fortunately for everyone, federal student loans are as available as they ever were. Since most student loans are made, and guaranteed, by the federal government, policymakers were able to intervene and made sure that students could continue to borrow federal loans at reasonable, fixed-interest rates.

Only a small portion of student borrowing has been in the form of private, non-federal loans. This market has had the same difficulties facing other types of credit, so private loans have become less available and much more expensive. Many people who had relied on private loans are discovering that there are grant and federal loan options that can fill that void. This has resulted in a substantial increase in federal loan borrowing, for good reasons.

In these tough economic times, it is more important than ever to reduce the need to borrow and make college more affordable and accessible to everyone who wants to go. To this end, the current administration must develop a way to use the new economic stimulus package to help promote those goals and help turn our economy around in the process.