[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 16 (Thursday, February 26, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               HIGHER EDUCATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, last fall in preparation for the 
reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, Members of the 
Congressional Hispanic Caucus and I, along with several of our 
colleagues, introduced H.R. 2495, the Higher Education For the 21st 
Century Act.

                              {time}  1230

  Not only do our colleagues want to express our concern and our 
support for this bill, but nationally, from West Coast to East Coast, I 
am happy to say that Latina Style Magazine, a national periodical, we 
have leaders like Edward James Olmos and Rita Moreno, who are 
expressing their support for access to higher education for all 
students to reach their full potential. Each mind is a world, they say, 
and this bill helps us in moving towards that end.
  Our bill would expand access to higher education for minority and 
disadvantaged students. I am pleased that the bill has over 55 
cosponsors. Our intention in introducing the bill was for its 
provisions to be incorporated into the ATA reauthorization when the 
Committee on Education and the Workforce takes up the legislation next 
week in March.
  In crafting H.R. 2495, we did not seek to create any huge new 
programs or promote untested models for increasing access. Rather, we 
looked at the existing programs and determined how they could be 
modified to reach more students, especially those who are most 
disadvantaged or who are totally lacking in services.
  In some cases that meant asking for increased dollars. In others it 
resulted in program modifications to focus on the most needy students. 
H.R. 2495 amends several titles in the Higher Education Act. We 
included proposals that will strengthen the outreach components of 
Title IV higher education programs and will enable disadvantaged 
students greater opportunities while they are attending college as well 
as when they graduate.
  Our bill also amends Title III of the Higher Education Act to expand 
opportunities for financially needy students and the institutions they 
serve. Title III institutions play such an essential role in providing 
education for minority students. They allow students to attend colleges 
in environments that are sensitive to their needs and dedicated to 
making them academically successful. We therefore expanded Title III to 
include a separate part for both hispanic-serving institutions and 
tribally controlled Indian colleges and universities because of the 
preponderance of low-income students these institutions serve.
  Many of them are desperately in need of resources such as 
laboratories, libraries and administrative improvements. The 
unqualified success of part 3 of the Title III in enhancing the 
capacities of historically black colleges and universities indicates 
that a separate part is a powerful tool in helping such institutions 
and in ultimately helping the students they serve. Currently, Hispanics 
have the highest drop-out rate in the Nation, nearly three times that 
of Caucasians and African-American students. They also have the lowest 
rates for attending college.
  This is a national tragedy. It must be changed, and I believe our 
bill facilitates that change.
  Our bill also addresses the Trio programs. Trio has been instrumental 
in recruiting talented disadvantaged students to go to college and in 
providing them with assistance in meeting obstacles along the way. 
However, over the past decade the Nation's demographics have changed, 
while the majority of the Trio providers have remained the same. 
Therefore, many areas of the country with high numbers of disadvantaged 
students who desperately need Trio services are unable to receive them 
because there are no local programs.
  H.R. 2495 seeks to remedy that problem by rewarding applicants for 
Trio projects that will serve areas where those programs are currently 
lacking, and at the same time we are working to insure that funding for 
the programs are significantly increased. We want Trio to continue to 
serve the same areas as it has historically served as well as reach 
tens of thousands of new capable and deserving young people.
  H.R. 2495 would also help young people with their loan indebtedness. 
Many students today are forced to take on huge loan burdens to pay for 
their college education. They then must turn their backs on professions 
such as teaching, nursing, and social work because such jobs simply do 
not pay enough to allow them to make their loan payments. In the end, 
we all lose.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to say that we are very interested in making sure 
that we change the way in which HSIs can get their funding. HEP 
provides programs to help migrants students who have dropped out of 
high school, obtain their GED while CAMP recruits migrant students to 
go on to college and provides them with counseling and other services 
during their first year. These are the only exemplary programs 
dedicated to enabling migrant students to pursue postsecondary 
education. They have achieved phenomenal success rates with 17 percent 
of the market students in the HEP program receiving their GED, and 96 
percent of the CAMP participants going on to college.
  Mr. Speaker, we urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
support this important legislation.

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