[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 106 (Thursday, July 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H7993-H7994]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1700
                    UNDEREMPLOYMENT THE REAL PROBLEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, like the previous speaker, I would first 
like to start by expressing my very great sympathy for all of those who 
lost loved ones in this terrible explosion and crash of the TWA Flight 
800. As chairman of the House Subcommittee on Aviation, I can assure 
the previous speaker and all the Members of this body that we will be 
doing everything possible to look into this terrible tragedy and to 
take every step possible to make our aviation system and airport 
security the very highest priority in this country and do all that we 
possibly can to solve this horrible situation that has occurred.
  The U.S. aviation system is by far the safest in the world. We have 
had approximately 12,900 deaths in all U.S. aviation accidents combined 
since the Wright Brothers flight in 1903. Unfortunately, that many 
Americans are killed every 4 months on the highways of this Nation. But 
our goal is to have no fatalities whatsoever, and certainly we are 
going to be doing everything we possibly can to achieve that goal.
  Mr. Speaker, I previously requested this time to talk about another 
subject.
  I have previously mentioned on this floor my great concern about 
certain trends I see in regard to our economy and employment in this 
country.
  We had a trade deficit that cost us 3 million jobs last year alone, 
and that trade deficit is continuing at a rate of several billion 
dollars each month.
  Leading economists tell us that we lose, conservatively, 20,000 jobs 
per billion.
  We have had at least 1\1/2\ million jobs lost due to corporate 
downsizing in the last 3 years.
  One recent report on the network news said that unlike the eighties, 
people who lost their jobs in the nineties were having to take 
replacement jobs at much lower pay and after being out of work for a 
much longer period between jobs.
  We have several million college graduates who cannot find work in the 
fields for which they trained, with huge surpluses of lawyers, 
teachers, and now even doctors with the possible exception of in very 
rural areas.
  There is certainly nothing wrong with working as a waiter or 
waitress, but we are now ending up with the best educated waiters and 
waitresses in the world.
  Our unemployment problem is relatively low, but our underemployment 
problem is terrible.
  It is really sad when parents and grandparents bring their college 
graduate children and grandchildren to me because they can't find good 
jobs.
  And then we have many thousands of young people who have incurred 
large debts to gain these degrees, and oftentimes these are debts they 
are going to be unable to repay or at least have great difficulty in 
doing so.
  Robert Sammuelson, the columnist for Newsweek and the Washington 
Post, wrote a few days ago concerning our $34 billion in Federal 
student grants and subsidized loans: ``Arguably the easy availability 
of so much Government money is one reason that college costs and 
tuition have skyrocketed.''
  In other words, it is entirely possible that the main reason college 
costs have gone up so much and so fast in recent years is because of 
the Federal Government.
  These tuition rates have gone up far faster than the rate of 
inflation.
  We should restructure the Federal Student Loan Program so that the 
most favorable loans go to the students at schools that are decreasing 
or at least holding down the great increases in college tuition.

[[Page H7994]]

  We should not do something that might cause college costs to 
skyrocket even more.
  Now, while I am usually for increasing tax deductions, Mr. Sammuelson 
voiced his concern that a new tax deduction for college costs might 
encourage further increases. ``By making tuition more `affordable' the 
proposed new tax deductions might encourage further increases in 
college cost and tuition.''
  It is a good thing to get a college degree, Mr. Speaker, but it is 
not much good to get one that is worthless on today's job market. Also 
it is not good to go head over heels in debt.
  I am just urging both parents and students to be more careful, to 
look before they leap, so to speak.
  Last week, the Osgood File, on CBS Radio--a very entertaining 
program, has a segment by Gil Gross, on this subject, in which he told 
about talking to a college dropout who said he just decided he didn't 
want to incur loan payments of $1,000 a month for as far as the eye 
could see.
  Mr. Gross said:

       The college dropout rate has hit an all-time high. One 
     reason seems to be many students are not prepared by high 
     schools to succeed in college, but another reason seems to be 
     the cost. A college education has become incredibly 
     expensive. When you consider that some of this money is 
     wasted on things such as communications degrees, something 
     that was invented so you could become a local TV anchor 
     without actually having to know when the War of 1812 began, 
     this is pretty amazing. It seems add that colleges where 
     bright people congregate to solve problems can't seem to 
     tackle this one. With all the new-fangled tools they have 
     such as the internet and CD-ROMs, you'd think they could 
     package a college education for far less than they do.

  I would like to place this Osgood File program in the Record at this 
point and urge my colleagues and everyone to do everything possible to 
hold down college fees and tuition and to urge young people to very 
carefully choose a field of study that has at least some decent 
prospects for a good future.

                     The Osgood File July 12, 1996

       I'm Gil Gross for the vacationing Charles Osgood on the CBS 
     Radio Network.
       The college dropout rate has hit an all-time high. One 
     reason seems to be many students are not prepared by high 
     schools to succeed in college, but another reason seems to be 
     the cost. A college education has become incredibly 
     expensive. When you consider that some of this money is 
     wasted on things such as communications degrees, something 
     that was invented so you could become a local TV anchor 
     without actually having to know when the War of 1812 began, 
     this is pretty amazing. It seems odd that colleges where 
     bright people congregate to solve problems can't seem to 
     tackle this one. With all the new-fangled tools they have 
     such as the internet and CD-ROMS, you'd think they could 
     package a college education for far less than they do. What 
     will happen if a little bit of knowledge continues to be an 
     expensive thing? The answer after this:
       I was talking to a college dropout and was trying to 
     convince him to go back because any chance he had for success 
     depended on it. He was resolutely unconvinced.
       You can't afford not to get a college degree, I said. 
     College graduates make much more than high school grads. He 
     was having none of it.
       Do you know how much my 4 years of college would cost, he 
     asked? About $100,000, and that doesn't even count four years 
     of lost income. Yes, but 4 years of a low lost income, I 
     said. And do you know how much debt, I'd be carrying, he 
     asked? About $85,000, which means, he explained, I'd probably 
     be paying almost a grand a month in loan payments as far as 
     the eye can see, unless I'm in a field where I also need a 
     graduate degree, a law degree or a medical degree in which 
     case I have a decent chance of being out of debt when I'm 40, 
     if I don't buy a house and if I don't have kids and if, 
     saying I do have kids, the public schools are good enough 
     that I don't have to consider private schools and then if the 
     kids are bright enough to send them to college which will 
     probably be $500,000 a year by then.
       Your point is what, I asked, though I already guessed. My 
     point is I can't afford to go to college and be successful. 
     I'd be broke the rest of my life! And you're satisfied with 
     being a meter reader, he said its wonderful work. It involves 
     math and I get to see what everyone's basement looks like. 
     You realize what you've given up, I asked. Success comes at 
     just too high a price, he said. Besides, he said, without a 
     great job I don't get the credit rating to get head over 
     heels in debt. No, he decided, the one thing you can say 
     about failure is it's affordable.
       I looked at him, struggling to think of one more thing to 
     say and then I did. Look, I said, ummm could I borrow five 
     bucks from you 'til Monday? The Osgood file. I'm Gil Gross on 
     the CBS Radio Network.

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