This Week in Credit News: Congress & Courts Edition

Our nation’s capitol was where all the action was happening this week.

With the month coming to a close, deadlines were approaching for Congress to act on student loan interest rates and for the Supreme Court to rule on health care legislation. It’s been a monumental week for students and Americans as a whole.

Senate Leaders Say They Have Agreement on Preventing Student Loan Interest Rate Increase

The Associated Press is reporting that the Senate appears to have an agreement in place that would just squeak in a stopper on the student loan rate increase that would have occurred on July 1.

To fund the agreement, Democrats and Republicans have limited the time that Stafford loans will be subsidized to six years and changed certain pension-related tax deductions for corporations. Prior to this agreement, Stafford loans were subsidized by the government for as long as students were in school. @ap

Supreme Court Lets Health Law Largely Stand

The biggest news of the week was undoubtedly the U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold the individual mandate in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The 5-4 decision declared that the individual mandate was constitutional due to the fact that Congress has the right to tax citizens. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote the majority opinion. The court did strike down a section of the law that expanded Medicaid, however.

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President, made public statements Thursday in response to the bill. Romney labeled the bill as “bad law” and decried the decision.

@nytimes @adamliptak @jackcushnyt

Student Loans Are Threatening Older Americans’ Ability to Retire

NextAvenue recently wrote a piece about the burden student loans currently have on the older set of Americans, citing stats from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that said nearly 2 million Americans 60 and older owe $36 billion in student loans.

Those loans aren’t necessarily debts that they have carried since their 20s, however. Many Americans are going back to school later in life and may be unaware of how much debt they are amassing. We recently highlighted the story of Pamela Monroe, a woman who went back to school later in life and is now drowning in $45,000 in student loans at the age of 54.

@nextavenue

Is Buying Foreclosures Now ‘Sexy?’

The housing crisis of the past few years has turned the meaning of “foreclosure” on its head, attracting many buyers instead of scaring them away, according to experts that spoke with AOL Real Estate.

The site says many homebuyers see the distressed properties as a bargain since they can negotiate with banks desperate to offload as much inventory as possible. The stigma of foreclosures as poorly maintained or decrepit has been virtually eliminated.

@tkwiggin

Image: NS Newsflash, via Flickr