[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 64 (Thursday, April 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H4396]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             HIGHER EDUCATION ASSISTANCE NEEDED IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I take the well tonight to talk about 
student loans and what is happening with our young people. We have had 
several events in my district on student loans. When you look at the 
numbers in the State of Colorado, over 90,000 young people are 
receiving student loans. They are very concerned about having to start 
paying interest from the minute they get that loan while they are in 
school, because it will really increase the price.
  We have also had a lot of the direct lending going on in Colorado, 
and that makes a tremendous amount of sense, because it cuts out the 
middleman and gives you more money for loans, and it also means that 
the school is much more involved with the young person and the young 
person is not as apt to take the money and go spend it for something 
other than school. If the school is doing the lending, the school is 
going to be much more certain that the student comes and the student 
goes to class. If they are not and they bought a pickup with it or 
something instead, they will know.
  I think the most moving thing that happened at our very first student 
loan meeting in Colorado was that Dikembe Mutombo came. Maybe many of 
you do not know him, but he is a very prominent basketball player for 
the Denver Nuggets. He got off the plane, went to the meeting, and went 
immediately back to the airport to meet his next game.
  He said he knew personally how very, very, very much government aid 
can help in getting an education; that he would not have gotten even 
his education if it had not been for the U.S. Government helping him 
and Georgetown helping him, and he could not possibly believe we would 
be doing anything to make this more difficult in this country.
  You see, today we had a vote on the tax cuts, and people said well, 
that is the crown jewel of the contract. Let me tell you, I think the 
crown jewels of this country are our kids, and we have seen a 
tremendous war on kids I think these last 100 days. Whether you are 
talking about knocking out Big Bird and Bert and Ernie, about the only 
decent things left to watch on TV, whether you are talking about 
cutting back on the nutrition programs, whether you are
 talking about the great cuts in the math and science programs for 
public schools, whether you are talking about doing away with summer 
jobs, we totally zeroed that out, whether you are talking about what we 
did to the National Service Program, which was the program that allowed 
young people to work in their community and for that get credit for 
going on to school or get credit that would be relieving them from some 
of their student loans. That got really devastated. We had 511 kids 
that will be knocked out in my district on that alone.

  So we are starting to get all these phone calls from young people 
saying well, what happened? My city tells me there will not be any 
summer jobs. And we say that is right. Zero means none.
  I do not know what happens in the cities this summer. I certainly 
hope people find other ways to do it. But you know, you cannot keep 
telling kids to say ``no'' to things if there is nothing for them to 
say ``yes'' to. And if they do not think they can go on to school, and 
they are certainly going to think that as you see Pell grants reduced, 
the work study programs reduced, national service dissipated, and 
obviously we are taking in fewer and fewer young people in the 
military, so the Montgomery GI Bill is going to be less and less of an 
option for many, they are seeing doors slammed in their face every 
single day. And these young people are the stockholders in the 21st 
century. They are going to be the ones that provide either that this 
country has great leadership and continues to remain prominent on the 
world stage, or, if we do not have them educated, if we do not have 
them prepared to compete, they are the ones that are going to allow 
this country to sink.
  So I think the one thing that we ought to be doing in this Congress 
is hold young people harmless from this debt and all these cuts we are 
making in order to provide tax cuts. I think we ought to do that 
because these young people did not cause this debt. They are going to 
inherit it, and they are going to need all the skills they can have to 
be able to figure out how to deal with it. And I just find it 
absolutely amazing they are the first ones we are offering up as a 
sacrifice to the debt.
  Every American home I know, when that family is in trouble 
economically, they sit at that kitchen table and they work that budget 
every way they know how to hold those children harmless as long as they 
possibly can from any economic downturn in the family. We all know the 
stories. We have all heard about our own families and the sacrifices 
they made to get us where we are.
  I think it is outrageous that we go after the young people first. 
That is what we did in these first 100 days, and I hope it stops.


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