The Minority Republican Caucus in the New York State Assembly has introduced a legislative agenda aimed at reducing student debt. If passed, three of the agenda’s seven bills will have a direct impact on Syracuse University.

Chad Lupinacci, a state assemblyman for the 10th District representing the towns of Huntington and Babylon, New York, helped write the agenda. He said part of the reason the agenda was introduced in February is that state and federal governments have been “slacking in this field for quite some time.”

“I know what’s going on, the struggles that students face,” he said. “We need to do something. We can’t put it off any longer.”

Nearly 70 percent of bachelor’s degree recipients leave school with debt, according to the White House data. The average student debt for a 2014 college graduate was $33,000, and every second, $3,000 in student debt is accrued, according to debt.org.

The bill, which would affect both public and private institutions in New York state — including SU — would increase transparency by requiring institutions to disclose certain financial statistics to current and potential students, according to New York state Assemblyman Brian Kolb’s website. For example, institutions would be required to disclose information about the school’s student loan default rate.

Institutions would also have to provide a financial breakdown by student type and program of study, Lupinacci said. The bill would also make schools include the percentage of students who receive the degree level they initially sought.

“This gives more information to the students as they continue to explore and decide which schools to go to,” Lupinacci said.

Another bill would provide an income tax deduction for both interest and principal amounts of student loans, according to Kolb’s website. In other words, single filers could receive up to $4,000 in tax deduction, head-of-household filers could receive up to $6,000 and married filers could receive up to $8,000, according to the website.

“When you graduate from college, we want to make sure that you’re continuing to get benefits in terms of a tax deduction,” Lupinacci said. “Because we want you to stay in New York after you graduate.”

The third bill that would have an impact on SU would increase the household threshold income cap on the New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for the first time since 2000, from $80,000 to $100,000, according to Kolb’s website. In other words, more students would be eligible for financial assistance, according to the website.

The SU and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry chapter of the New York Public Interest Research Group traveled to Albany to lobby for more TAP funding last week.

The slew of bills also includes a “Learn for Work” program in New York state high schools that would offer apprenticeships and internships for high school juniors and seniors, Lupinacci said.

If a student wants to become a paralegal, for example, he or she could complete an apprenticeship at a local law firm and earn high school credit for it, Lupinacci said. At graduation, the student would receive his or her diploma with a designation that denotes the student has experience in the field, he said.

The expansion of apprenticeship programs echoes proposals made by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as he vies for the GOP presidential nomination, according to Rubio’s website. President Barack Obama has also made similar calls to increase funding for vocational programs, according to The New York Times.

Other measures, Lupinacci said, include awards to the state’s top high school graduates who attend a New York state community college and a petition to the federal government to support legislation that would increase the options available for refinancing federal student loan debt.

Published on March 1, 2016 at 11:59 pm

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