Obama to Sign Student Loan, Transportation Bill on Friday

President Barack Obama on Friday plans to sign into law legislation that prevents interest rate increases on new loans to millions of college students and maintains jobs on transportation projects across the nation.

The bill signing at the White House will feature construction workers and college students. Congress approved the legislation last week with a bipartisan majority. Obama had made the expiring student loan interest rates an issue for months.

The bill allows more than $100 billion to be spent on highway, mass transit and other transportation programs during the next two years. Those projects would have expired June 30.

It also maintains interest rates of 3.4 percent for subsidized Stafford loans for undergraduates that would have doubled for new loans beginning July 1 if Congress hadn't acted.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)