[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 18, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1243-E1244]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  STATEMENTS BY JESSA BLACK, CURTIS WHITE, AND EVAN PAPPAS REGARDING 
                    FEDERAL AID TO HIGHER EDUCATION

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 18, 1997

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would 
like to have printed in the Record these statements by high school 
students from Vermont, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on 
issues facing young people.

       Mr. White. The state government is not providing sufficient 
     funding for higher education and the federal government is 
     not providing the incentive for states to increase that 
     funding; especially in Vermont, the state with the lowest 
     provision for funding of higher education this has a 
     profoundly negative impact. The students from Vermont leave 
     the state as the out-of-state tuition at many other state 
     universities is less expensive than the in-state tuition of 
     that of the University of Vermont which is $7200 a year. The 
     tuition at SUNY Stonybrook, U.C. Berkeley, North Adams State, 
     U. Mass. at Amherst and almost all midwestern universities is 
     lower for an-out-of-state student than that of UVM. This 
     causes a drain of the best of the best students in Vermont 
     essentially.
       With the best students leaving the state, industry does not 
     want to come with so few educated workers for hire. With no 
     industry there is no incentive for people to move to the 
     state who would then bring in revenue. With less revenue the 
     state has less money to pay for higher education, and it is 
     quite frankly a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.
       Mr. Pappas. The federal proposals to offer help in paying 
     for higher education do not remedy this problem. The 105th 
     Congress law, HR 318 provides for federal income tax credit 
     for tuition. There's a proposal of a $10,000 Hope scholarship 
     tax deduction and one that would bring Pell Grant increases. 
     Bill HR 2050 from the 104th Congress would restore the 
     deduction for interest on higher education loans and permit 
     penalty-free deductions from retirement plans. All of these 
     proposals would bring relief if families are already saving 
     or if they qualify for the grants that would help. However, 
     all these bring individual relief only. They do not bring any 
     state initiative to fund higher education.
       Ms. Black. We propose that when states fund higher 
     education above a certain minimum percentage, the federal 
     government will provide matching funds. These funds can be 
     drawn from the federal income tax. This small, relatively 
     small drain would have numerous benefits. This will allow for 
     lower tuition costs making higher education available to more 
     people in the State of Vermont as well as the rest of the 
     nation. When you create a more educated work force, you bring 
     in more industry, increase the economy and raise property 
     values and with more funding of education, the more 
     participation there is in the democratic process, and this 
     would help.

[[Page E1244]]

       Mr. White. A loss of industry or a lack of industry rather 
     because who wants to come and set up business in a place with 
     no educated work force. It's not good for industry, it's not 
     good for business and it's not good for the economy of 
     Vermont.
       Ms. Black. There there's the cycle that if industry doesn't 
     come because there's not an educated work force, we don't 
     have any incentive for out-of-state families to move in 
     because they realize there's not a future for their children 
     here and then there are even less people in which case there 
     is less of a tax base to help pay for the higher education 
     and less people that will stay.
       Mr. White. The University of Vermont, for example, even for 
     an in-state student, as we said, charges more than SUNY at 
     Stonybrook or any of the--U.C. Berkeley. It's very expensive 
     for a Vermont student if they want to stay in state or go to 
     UVM or Castleton or any of the number of state schools. It's 
     just far too expensive, $7200 in tuition.
       Ms. Black. In state and for students in the southern area 
     of Vermont, North Adams State is almost closer than the 
     University of Vermont and it's almost $2,000 less expensive 
     for an out-of-stater from Vermont than in state in--in 
     Vermont, so why would they stay?
       Mr. White. We're exporting basically our best and brightest 
     out of state. In Europe, at least in Germany, they have a 
     system where you can go for free but the only--the only-- the 
     drawback to that is you have to be in the top of the top of 
     the top. Not everybody gets an opportunity to go on to 
     university in some European countries.
       Ms. Black. In the midwestern states there's both state and 
     federal funding. Well, in every state there's both state and 
     federal funding to public higher education, but in Vermont 
     it's a lot lower. And if we had the process where the federal 
     government would match state funds, it would give smaller 
     states like Vermont more of an initiative to fund the higher 
     education.
       Anybody who has the ability should be able to go to their 
     state university. I mean, not everybody could get into the 
     top schools, but everybody should have the chance to go to a 
     school for higher education because it's getting harder and 
     harder to get a decent job where you can make any sort of a 
     living without a college education.
       Mr. Lafarge. More and more people are going to college 
     every year, but even people that get say a four-year degree 
     aren't even going to make as high a wage as would be 
     expected, so people who just go to high school are going to 
     be left behind and may be stuck to factory jobs or, you know, 
     just----
       Mr. White. The numbers, in fact, show the disparity between 
     even a master's degree--a person with a master's and a person 
     with a four-year degree and a person with a high school 
     degree. It shows the disparity, the numbers which I don't 
     have obviously, but there's a great disparity between the 
     amount of money that each of those people would make.
       Twenty percent of our budget is spent on defense. Well, it 
     seems to me that since there are no real wars going on, and 
     not to parrot what everyone else has said, but it seems as 
     though really defense should--shold and could be cut.
       Ms. Black. I think that even if it would mean raising 
     income taxes and I know people are complaining that taxes are 
     too high and that education is too expensive, but you've got 
     to--you know, the public needs to understand the long-range 
     effect of having education accessible because if they were 
     willing to put up with a small increase in the income tax or 
     the taxes that this money could be drawn from, then if people 
     could go to college, they would--they could make more money 
     and the economy would be increased as a whole and the 
     property values would go up as a whole and in the long term 
     that small increase would not seem as large.
       Mr. White. Plus it's cheaper to educate people and to have 
     them get jobs than to support them on welfare or to support 
     them in other ways when they can't find jobs down the line. 
     It's a lot cheaper, it's a better investment.
       Ms. Black. I think in fact that--I think taxes are high for 
     everybody now and I think hopefully what this raising the 
     taxes would do would be to give aid to the people who 
     couldn't normally attend college and you'd--although I know 
     people who don't have as high incomes don't feel like they 
     want to be paying taxes, it seems as if it would benefit them 
     the most if they could help--if everybody had their taxes 
     raised a small amount, it would benefit them as well.

     

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