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Published: Nov 16, 2016 4 min read
Student burdened with books.
Thomas Barwick—Getty Images

The persistent but gratuitous idea that there is a national student debt crisis is hard to escape these days. It’s surprising, then, that there has been little effort put toward ending the tax levied against students and parents the second they take out a federal student loan.

It’s a little known fact, but each time a student or parent takes out a federal loan, the government deducts an “origination fee,” which is a pre-set percentage of the total loan amount. For the current academic year the fee amounts to 1.069% for Federal Direct Loan borrowers and 4.276% for Parent and Graduate Federal PLUS Loan borrowers.