To the Editor:

A former president once warned this nation that “all we have to fear is fear itself.”

1995 seems to have been the year that we have abandoned this warning and have had fear distributed, in large quantities, to the American people.

In the face of a serious change in the business that Congress does, by initiating a historic plan to save this country from financial destruction, the President and special interest groups can do nothing but retreat and snipe from the sidelines.

It began with misinformation about the funding of our school nutrition programs and continued through complete lies about plans to save Medicare.

The latest targets in this year of misinformation are college students. The administration and special interest groups are playing fast and loose with the facts in a deliberate attempt to scare college bound students and their families into believing that Congress is preparing to cut student loans. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Contrary to the predictions of doom and gloom, THESE ARE THE FACTS:

FACT: Student loans will not be cut!

FACT: Congress is increasing the guaranteed Student Loan Program from the current $24 billion to $36 billion over the next seven years. (6.6 million students were able to get loans this year. That number will INCREASE to 7.1 million next year under our plan.)

FACT: The in-school interest subsidy on student loans will remain just as they have always been while a student is in school.

FACT: No student will lose eligibility or access to student loans.

FACT: Interest rates on student loans WILL NOT increase under this plan.

FACT: Funding for Pell Grants will go up to the highest level ever next year under our plan.

Those are the facts, and they are part of a budget that has been certified by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which even President Clinton recognizes as a fair, honest, non-partisan referee.

Despite all of the facts listed above, our budget reforms will save $10.1 billion and move the country closer to achieving a balanced budget. Those reforms include eliminating President Clinton’s Direct Student Loan program and returning that function to the private sector, which handled aIl student loans until the President’s change last year.

This reversal of the President’s actions will save taxpayers from the $1.5 billion clunker of an initiative dropped on them by the Clinton Administration.

The only change that any student will see is an elimination of the six-month subsidy of interest on student loans after graduation. Students will still have the six month grace period after graduation before having to start payments on their loans, but from now on, they will have to pay for the interest on that six-month period.

For a student who has borrowed the maximum loan amount, that’s a cost of about $9 per month for those six months. It is a standard practice of lending that loans incur interest from the day they are made and I don’t believe that this is an unreasonable request.

I also don’t believe that it is an unreasonable request to help the nation work towards a balanced budget. In fact, a balanced budget is the best gift we can give to our future graduates.

Under a balanced budget interest rates will be 2 percent lower. That means lower car payments and lower payments on a graduate’s first home. Balancing the budget also means the economy will create more jobs — as many as 6.1 million jobs over the next 10 years.

Few things are as important to graduates than the opportunity for a good job upon graduation.

Education is too serious to become another political volleyball by the president and special interest groups.

Republicans are serious about education, and we are serious about preserving this country for future generations by balancing the budget for our children and grandchildren.

After all, a college education will mean very little if there is no American Dream to pursue.

Tom Latham

U.S. Congressman

5th District, Iowa