The omnibus spending bill the President signed into law included three major bills I introduced - one on student loans, and two (surprise!) on energy policy. Will do a thread on each: first what we did to help make college a little more affordable. Thread:
1/ Last year, I introduced the GRADUATE Act with @CongressmanRaja, @RepDebHaaland and @RepSylviaGarcia to repeal Section 455(q) of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
2/ This law limits access to federally-subsidized college loans to people who complete their degrees within 150% of the "published length" (e.g., 6 years for a bachelors, 3 years for an associates)
3/ The result has been to raise the student loan costs for lots of folks who took a little longer to graduate. Maybe because they had to take a break to work, or because they started a family, or had to take time off to care for a loved one.
4/ Our goal as a government should be to ensure that everyone lives up to their potential, not to only reward traditional students. So we filed a bill to eliminate that section of the code.
5/ It's just a few words of legislation, but a big deal for a lot of families in #IL06, and nationwide. And I'm pleased to say that it's now the law of the land. 
6/ That's from page 5305 for those who want to read more. It's far from everything we need to ensure college affordability, and just one of many bills we introduced. But really happy to see this one signed into law. More on the other provisions later this week. /fin
Postscript: here's how this started, for those who like the whole "how a bill becomes a law" story - meant to embed this up above! casten.house.gov/media/press-re…
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