Why the health insurance reform bill will improve access to higher education

It includes reform of federally subsidized student loans by cutting $6 billion a year in subsidies to profit-seeking financial services corporations and instead puts that money into Pell grants and "direct" (ie, unsubsidized) loans.

More money for students to go to college, by eliminating government subsidies of bank profits.

Also, some of those savings will be used to pay down the federal deficit.

[Update:] A fuller discussion of the student loan provisions.

For those who wondered what the two measures have in common, consider who is opposing them and on what grounds:

Lending corporations "have conducted an all-out lobbying effort against the bill, arguing it would cost thousands of jobs and unnecessarily put the program in the hands of the government."

In other words, what they have in common is the same absurd arguments of opposition to the public good by corporations seeking to defend unearned profits.

Note that these provisions are in the so-called "sidecar legislation," aka the "reconciliation bill," and so need to be passed by the Senate to become law.