U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, alongside three fellow Republican senators, announced Wednesday their Lowering Education Costs and Debt Act legislative package — five bills that would address rising higher education costs and increasingly burdensome student loan debt repayment.

“Anyone with a college-aged child knows that college costs are soaring,” he said.

According to Cassidy, the cost of tuition for private and non-profit universities has increased by 80 percent. For public four-year universities, the increase is 124 percent. He said data shows the federal financing higher education system “actually contributes to the problem more than addresses the solution.”

“Some colleges and universities have used the availability of federal loans to increase tuition, and this has led to many students drowning in debt with no pathway for success.”

Cassidy condemned President Joe Biden’s student loan relief plan, which aims to reduce the load of student debt for graduates, calling it a “student debt scheme.”

“President Biden’s answer was to enact his $400 billion student debt scheme, which doesn’t forgive debt, it merely transfers the responsibility to pay it back away from the person who willingly took on the debt to taxpayers who maybe never went to college.”

He also said Biden’s plan does not address the cause of the debt crisis.

“Total debt at that point would be $1.6 trillion dollars,” he said, citing data from the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, which states the student debt loan transfer would put students in taxpayers would see similar struggles in five years. “This is not a fix. This is merely a bandaid, and the bandaid saddles taxpayers with a burden again in five years.”

He said these outlooks led him and his peers to write the Lowering Education Cost and Debt Act.

“Unlike Biden’s plan, this actually addresses the root causes of the student debt crisis. Our legislation puts downward pressure on tuition, it empowers students to make educational decisions that put them on the track to both academically and financially succeed.”

These root causes, he said, are young borrowers making poor, uninformed decisions and a portion of universities exploiting the federal student loan system.

Cassidy is also sponsoring the College Transparency Act, which would reform the college data reporting system.

He said while investing in a college education is one of the largest financial decisions Americans face, there is little to no transparency between educational institutions and potential students.

“You don’t buy a car without the ability to compare prices, quality and financing options … why don’t we do this for higher education?”

This legislation would create a reporting system that takes into account a student’s cultural and economic backgrounds to determine the estimated college cost and loan repayment that will be needed for their preferred degree path, as well as their estimated earning potential they would make after graduation.

Additionally, the bill would put strict data security in place to ensure any information inputted into the system would be encrypted and protected.

Cassidy also introduced the Informed Student Borrower Act, which would provide student borrowers with clear financial information, including the duration of their loan, estimated monthly payment, projected future earnings, the percent of postgraduate borrowers still in active repayment and the college completion rate for undergraduate borrowers. It will also require the borrowers to receive this information on an annual basis through loan counseling.

This piece of legislation is sponsored by Sen. Steve Daines of Montana.

The Understanding the True Cost of College Act would require colleges to use universal financial aid letters that clearly lays out financial aid options and costs.  This bill is sponsored — and was previously introduced — by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

“Students need clear information to shop around. You can’t compare costs if you can’t tell what the final cost is,” he said, explaining that 91 percent of colleges understate their true cost in aid letters that are sent to accepted students. Additionally, one-third of these letters don’t distinguish between loans and grants.

“If students are going to make wise choices about the cost of education, and what sorta help they get to go to college, they oughta be comparing apples to apples, not apples with oranges.”

The Graduate Opportunity and Affordable Loans (GOAL) Act will set a maximum limit on federal graduate school borrowing and allow institutions to set lower loan limits by program. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said that the aim of this legislation is to make post-college goals, such as having children, more achievable.

“More and more of our young people are starting their careers with a huge burden of debt,” Tuberville said. “As a result, many are putting off their goals, like owning a home or starting a family.”

He believes this bill would limit the financial exploitation of universities. “It would force schools to bring down costs and to compete for students … protect students from getting buried in debt they can never, ever pay.”

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas discussed the Streamlining Accountability and Value in Education (SAVE) for Students Act, which would make repayment options simpler for borrowers by reducing the number of repayment systems from nine to two.

This bill would also limit the ability for borrowers to get federal loans for degree programs in which former students cannot earn more than someone with a high school diploma or bachelor’s degree.

“When you’re a 17 or 18 year old kid, you may not understand that all this debt you are incurring … and the course of studies you are pursuing may not permit you to do that.”