WTOL – Senator Sherrod Brown met with students at Owens Community College Monday to discuss the looming deadline for Congress to freeze interest rates on subsidized loans.

The senator is calling to pass a new bill to keep more than 380,000 Ohio students from paying more for student loans. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have until July 1 to pass legislation. If they do not, rates on subsidized loans will double. That means 25,000 students in Lucas County alone would be paying thousands more for their education.

“Ten years from now, my daughter will be 11. I should be saving up for her college, not repaying my own,” said Jakki Kleinhans, an OCC student.

If Congress does not push legislation through to stop it, the interest on subsidized student loans will jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.