[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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