Published: Tuesday, April 13, 2010 in The Whitworthian as part of a package on how health care reform will affect student life.

Tucked away in more than 2,400 pages that make up President Obama’s health care reform bill are measures to change the way students receive federal loans.

The student loan reform will allow the federal government to take control of student loans.

“The federal government has paid the banks before, but now they can remove the banks as middle men and save that money,” said Mike Ediger, chair of the health services department.

The government will be able to save money that has been going to the private banking industry, said Aaron Korthuis , president of the Political Activism Club.

“Now the government will be offering loans directly,” he said.

Removing banks from the picture could ultimately save the government $61 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The money saved will go toward funding health care reform, reducing the national deficit and increasing Pell grants for students.

Current Whitworth students will not see any benefits from the changes, however. These measures will not begin going into effect until July 1, 2014. And even then, it’s unclear how much the changes will directly affect students, as many of the shifts in policy occur behind the scenes.

One change future students will see are increases to the Pell grant, which provides “need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain post-baccalaureate students to promote access to post-secondary education,” according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Web site.

However, even these changes are slight. An article on SmartMoney.com, an affiliate of the Wall Street Journal, called them “watered down.” The official plan is to increase the Pell grant from it’s current amount of $5,350 to $5,975 by 2020 – a $625 dollar increase over 10 years.