Obama will make crushing college debt a little more affordable

Continuing the autonomous streak he promised in his most recent State of the Union, President Obama on Monday will use his executive authority to mitigate the burden of hefty college loans. Specifically, the president will expand a 2010 law that capped the amount borrowers can be required to repay at 10 percent of their monthly income, a change estimated to impact 5 million loan-holders.

Obama is also expected to announce that the Department of Education will work with lenders to incentivize repayment over default. And though Obama says he would like to go further to make college more affordable, he'd likely need legislative action — a long shot given Washington's aversion to any substantive efforts in this election year — to do so.

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