NEW YORK (MainStreet) — First Pell Grants got whacked. Now it's Stafford loans.

The Pell spending freeze that appeared in the Republican's budget blueprint on Tuesday would cap the max Pell Grant for ten years and roll back recent expansions of the program. Some student advocates thought the worst was over. But tucked into it was a plan to wipe out Stafford loans' in-school subsidy, reverse a roll back an expansion of income-based repayment of these loans and call a halt to the forgiveness of loans made by the Department of Education (ED).

These changes would save taxpayers more than $60 billion during a 10-year period based on the budget estimates. But they would also make student loans more expensive for borrowers--who are themselves future taxpayers--and leave them with less disposable income to put back into the economy.

Interest on subsidized Stafford loans doesn't currently accrue as long as the borrower stays in school. These subsidized loans are available to undergrads from low- and moderate-income families. About half of the Stafford loan volume to undergraduates last year was in the form of subsidized loans.

"The House plan makes college even less affordable by not only forcing needy students to borrow more and raising their cost of borrowing, but also by making it harder for student to repay their loans," said Pauline Abernathy, vice president of The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS), based in Oakland. "For new borrowers after July 1, 2016, it eliminates Pay As You Earn and a related plan, both of which cap monthly payments at 10% of discretionary income and discharge any debt remaining after 20 years of payments."

”A borrower with $29,000 in federal loan debt who earns $35,000 a year repays in full under Pay As You Earn (PAYE), but his or her monthly payments are much more manageable—one-third less, initially—than under the income-based repayment plan that would remain under the House proposal--$145 instead of $217,” Abernathy said. She added that the House plan also repeals the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that would likely be available only for new loans or borrowers, which forgives any debt remaining.

Republicans have proposed similar cuts in the Pell and student-loan programs in past budgets that did not become law. But this year is different, because the party now controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and confrontation is in the wind. Seven members of the United States Student Union disrupted a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Wednesday and were escorted out of the hearing by D.C. Capitol police.

The Senate’s version of the budget blueprint stops short of the House ten year freeze Pell Grants. However, it would end mandatory funding for the program, meaning new Pell money would have to be appropriated each year. Student advocates are concerned that if all funds were discretionary, Pell Grants would have to run an annual gantlet of budget cuts.

--Written by John Sandman for MainStreet