SARASOTA – Stressful is the word Suncoast college students say sums up their feelings about student loans. But with President Obama announcing a plan Wednesday to lower student loan payments, those same students say they may finally be able to catch a break.

Rebecca Gutherz is a senior at USF Sarasota-Manatee. She's looking forward to graduation day and the real world, but knows that the real world comes with a price. “I've taken out $45,000 in student loans."

It’s something she says she'll start paying off in the next couple of months. She says it’s stressful, especially when you’re right out of college and not always making top dollar. "Each semester, when I have to take out my student loans, I just kind of cringe."

But she’s hopeful that President Obama's announcement to help lower student loan payments will help.

Mark Bukowski, assistant director of admissions at USF Sarasota-Manatee, is also a student himself. "I actually finished my master’s degree in 2005, and now I am working on my PhD."

The years of schooling has caused Bukowski to rack up about $25,000 in student loans. “You’re always thinking about will you make enough to pay them off? So that can be a distraction to your academics.’"

He says the president’s plan to reduce the maximum required payment on student loans is something that will take a load of stress off of many students, including himself. "He wants to push forward the income-based repayment for students who qualify. Right now it tops out at 15% of your discretionary income. My understanding is that he wants to push, starting next year, that it would actually go down to 10% of your income. Right now that’s scheduled to start in 2014. He wants to push it to starting in 2012. It's absolutely wonderful."

There is some negative feedback about the president's plan. Some say it isn't an answer to stimulate the economy. But then again, the majority of people ABC 7 spoke with Wednesday said that the more people graduating and getting jobs, the better our economy will do.