MLive: Sen. Gary Peters wants to keep college-bound students out of debt

Flanked by Rockford High School seniors, U.S. Senator Gary Peters, D-MI, announced legislation introduced Monday, Feb. 22, to make college more affordable by expanding opportunities for high school students to earn college credit.

Peters said the legislation will allow grants to be awarded to colleges and universities that partner with high schools to offer students the opportunity to earn post-secondary credit while still in school

West Michigan schools and those across the state, currently offer dual enrollment, early college, middle college and concurrent enrollment programs in local high schools.

"The grants will be used to develop curriculum specific for high school students and also to train professional staff," said Peters, during a press conference at the Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University.

"We want to provide those resources. It is surprising that there aren't the kinds of federal grants necessary to support these programs given the great success they've demonstrated."

In 2013, Ferris and Rockford Public Schools launched a concurrent enrollment program. College-level courses are taught to juniors and seniors by high school teachers approved by Ferris. The district covers tuition through state per-pupil funding, which has been reduced by Ferris one-third of its normal tuition-rate.

Rockford senior Ethan Begalka, 17, told the audience that he is thankful for the opportunity to participate in the program an earn credits. He said saving time and money was huge because they couldn't emphasize how stressful it is worrying about being in debt.

"The problem with student loans right now is the interest rate is absurd to say the least," he said. "We cannot ever just escape from them.''

Peters praised the Ferris-Rockford program that has over 130 students enrolled this school year. He said when he attended college he worked, got help from his parents and had scholarships to escape debt, but today's student can do the same things and still be saddled with debt.

Ferris State University President David Eisler said he is excited about the legislation because it would help build relationships between college and high school faculties.

"A little bit of incentive to encourage people to work together to build new partnerships makes sense to me," he said. "The partnership we have with Rockford is working extraordinarily well. This would be very helpful for that next partnership.''

Superintendent Michael Shibler said their students can gain as many as 30 hours of credit before they leave high school.

"Anyone with college age students knows the potential debt they are going to have to pay off,'' said Shibler, who said he's working to expand their program, not only for cost-savings but for students to experience the rigor of college work before hitting campus.

Peters is seeking to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965. He said it would give congressional authorization to use federal resources for expanding credit earning opportunities.

He said if the "Making College Affordable and Accessible Act of 2016" is approved, the U.S. Department of Education would put together a program moving forward.

Peters said the bill was a bipartisan effort with Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, that he hopes will be part of a broader higher education bill.

In May 2015, Peters introduced a bill that would allow students with private loans to have their default wiped from their credit report and their credit rehabilitated if they made a series of nine consecutive monthly payments.