Obama Signs Student-Loan Reform

On Tuesday, President Obama signed student-loan reform into law, a piece of legislation that the Associated Press calls “the largest rewrite of federal college-assistance programs in four decades.” Obama’s reform will eliminate fees that private banks collect for acting as middlemen between needy students and the federal government. Those savings will then be used to grant Pell Grants, the federal loans that 8.5 million students currently take out. "This reform of the federal student loan programs will save taxpayers $68 billion over the next decade," Obama said in his weekly address. "And with this legislation, we're putting that money to use achieving a goal I set for America: By the end of this decade, we will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world."