NC lawmakers push ahead on changing education, Fox News

June 2011

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina lawmakers are voting on changes to education practices, including whether community colleges can choose low-interest federal student loans.

The state Senate voted largely along party lines Wednesday on three local bills designed to sidestep 1 of Gov. Beverly Perdue’s vetoes. The measures would allow about two dozen community colleges to refuse to offer student loans. Perdue can’t veto local bills.

Republicans are working to change a law that requires all 58 campuses in the nation’s third-largest community college system to offer the loans beginning next month. College presidents fear if defaults go too high they’ll lose all federal financial aid, something that rarely happens.

The House approved allowing parents to bar corporal punishment if their children attend 1 of the 17 school districts were paddling is practiced.