With the direct student loan program facing congressional cuts, the SIUC Graduate and Professional Student Council is voicing its support of the program through a letter sent to President Bill Clinton.

GPSC Vice President Mark Terry added SIUC’s voice to a National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, Inc. letter that contained signatures from student leaders representing 120 universities and colleges in 45 states. The letter calls for the preservation of the direct student loan program.

Investments being made in financial aid are perceived by the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, Inc., the Graduate and Professional Student Council and me to be investments in the productivity of the United States, Terry said. If you spend a dollar on education, you get more from it than that in the long run.

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Kevin Boyer, executive director of NAGPS, said his organization originated the letter with the intent to show that higher education groups are in support of the direct lending program.

We had been aware of these bills for many months, he said. We wanted to make sure at least a week in advance that a letter would be on President Clinton’s desk.

The direct student loan program, spearheaded by Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., is a method in which students receive loans directly through the mail rather than from banks and college bursar offices.

Simon has backed his program by saying the direct student loan programs allows for competition among the banks and government to give students competitive loan rates.

Two house bills, the fiscal year 96 budget reconciliation bill and the fiscal year 96 education appropriations bill propose billion dollar cuts in the program. The budget reconciliation would also add a 10 percent cap on direct lending.

Terry said if the bills pass they would effectively eliminate direct lending at SIUC, as about 40 percent of lending is done through direct loans.

Sixty-seven Illinois campuses would have to drop the direct lending program and return to the guaranteed student loan program, where loans are received through college bursar offices and banking institutions. Nationwide, 1,350 schools would have to revert back to the original student loan program.

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Boyer said he has been in contact with White House staff officials who have assured him the president plans to veto the bills.

This is one of his signature programs, Boyer said. I would be shocked if he did not veto anything that repealed or capped direct lending.

Bill Karrow, GPSC president, said he did not sign the letter because of problems he had when Clinton came to SIUC in September.

I’m not saying that I don’t support it (the letter), Karrow said. I just don’t want to be involved with it right now. I’m trying to play it low key.

Karrow had been excluded from a round-table discussion with the president on direct student lending programs for undetermined reasons when Clinton visited the SIUC campus.