[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 29, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11091-S11093]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HIGHER EDUCATION AMENDMENTS OF 1998

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, what is the legislative schedule now?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is an hour of morning business under the 
previous order equally divided between the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. 
Wellstone, and the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords.
  Mr. FORD. I thank the Chair.
  Will the Senator from Minnesota give me 10 minutes?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield the Senator from Kentucky 
10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized for 10 
minutes.
  Mr. FORD. Up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Up to 10 minutes.
  Mr. FORD. I may give back some.
  I rise to speak about the conference report to H.R. 6, the Higher 
Education Amendments of 1998. I take this opportunity to commend my 
colleagues on the conference committee for the truly outstanding work 
they have done on behalf of our Nation's students and the higher 
education community. This legislation includes an important expansion 
of the Pell and work study programs, provides the lowest interest rates 
in 17 years for student borrowers, provides for loan forgiveness for 
teachers working in high poverty areas, and makes a continued 
commitment to improving our teacher preparation programs.
  I know that the passage of this bill will have a significant impact 
on students and colleges in my State. While I am pleased with many 
provisions in this bill, I am extremely disappointed that the 
conference committee did not include the text of the Wellstone 
amendment. This amendment allowed up to 24 months of postsecondary or 
vocational education, removed the 30-percent limitation on education as 
a work activity for teen parents, and clarified that participation in a 
Federal work study program is a permissible work activity.
  Instead, the conference report calls for a GAO study on this issue. I 
am personally aware of at least a half dozen studies--a half dozen 
studies--which already indicate that this is a problem for many low-
income, single mothers. Why do you have to have a study to tell you 
that the more education you have the better job you can receive and the 
better the employer likes you? Instead of doing the right thing for 
these

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single mothers, trying to better themselves, our colleagues want to 
study the issue to death. What they ought to do is try living in the 
single mother's shoes for a day and see what it is to try to raise a 
family and attend school full time, while holding down a part-time job.
  As many of my colleagues know, I supported and voted for welfare 
reform. It has been almost 2 years since Congress rewrote our Federal 
welfare laws in the hopes of breaking the cycle of dependency that was 
trapping too many Americans in poverty and despair. Much good has come 
of that law, including substantial drops in the welfare rolls and 
saving States like Kentucky $14 million. But despite its good 
intentions, the new welfare law is penalizing parents, particularly 
single mothers trying to improve their chances at getting good jobs.
  Under the new law, a parent must work 20 hours to continue receiving 
aid. That might not seem particularly onerous, but the law also limits 
these single parents to just 1 year of education before requiring them 
to find work. As a result, too many promising, capable, nontraditional 
students are being forced out of postsecondary education due to the 
Federal restrictions.
  My State is not a wealthy State. There are many single mothers 
trapped in the cycle of poverty. Recently, the University of Kentucky 
released a study which demonstrated that higher education greatly 
increases a person's ability to earn a living. The study found that a 
parent living in rural Kentucky needs to earn at least $10.61 an hour 
working full time, or $19,708 a year, to support two children on a 
basic budget. The study found that only women with a college degree--
and let me repeat, only women with a college degree--earn above that 
threshold in Kentucky. This same study found that single mothers with a 
high school degree never, never reach that threshold. In fact, the 
average income for Kentucky women of any age with a high school degree 
is only 67 percent of that benchmark.
  My State wants to go forward and help these women help themselves. A 
bipartisan bill in the 1998 Kentucky general assembly to improve access 
to education for welfare recipients was ultimately scrapped. Why was it 
scrapped? Due to the fear of Federal penalties. The State wanted to 
extend the opportunity, particularly to single mothers, and they were 
fearful because of Federal penalties.
  I know the Wellstone amendment was perceived by some of my colleagues 
as an effort to undermine the welfare law and had little business being 
attached to a Higher Education Act. I am sorry that these colleagues 
decided to frame this issue in such a way. This was an amendment about 
education. This was an amendment about education. Education is the key 
to helping parents escape the low-paying jobs that only perpetuate the 
welfare wheel. If these single mothers have just a little more time to 
get an education, they will be able to compete for higher paying jobs 
which will help them keep their families from sinking.
  Although I will not be here next year, I am heartened by the fact 
that there will be joint hearings on this issue and that my colleague 
from Minnesota, Senator Paul Wellstone, will continue to advocate for 
this change.
  I urge my colleagues to learn more about this pressing problem, pay 
full attention to these hearings, and talk to people in your State. I 
believe that my colleagues will find that this is a commonsense fix 
that will improve the welfare law. As someone who voted for this bill, 
I reiterate the Wellstone amendment was not about trying to undo 
welfare reform, but an attempt to help single mothers caught in a 
Catch-22. The Wellstone amendment is about helping families help 
themselves. I hope my colleagues will look beyond party lines next year 
and do the right thing.
  I thank my friend from Minnesota and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I know the time in the Senate for my 
colleague, Senator Ford, is limited. But I want to say to him, when we 
received 56 votes for this amendment on the floor of the Senate, in the 
aftermath of that a lot of people were just thrilled around the 
country, especially a lot of these mothers and a lot of the higher 
education community and a lot of States like Kentucky, and others that 
wanted to allow mothers to complete 2 years of education. I am not 
naive about this. I don't think we would have ever gotten the 56 votes 
if not for the voice of Senator Ford.
  I wish he would not be leaving here. I don't think there is anybody 
more respected. I know we all come out here on the floor and we say 
these things about one another. But, you know what, I am sure most of 
the time it is sincere, but in the case of Senator Ford, when I hear 
him speak I just wish he wasn't leaving.
  I think what happened with him and certainly what happened with me is 
I would travel in Minnesota and I would go to community colleges and 
maybe speak at a gathering. Maybe there would be a couple of hundred 
students, the majority of them were women, most of them were older, 
most of them were going back to school, and a good number of them were 
single parents. Their plea was: Please, Senator Wellstone, the only 
thing we are asking is try and let us finish our 2 years here.
  Mr. FORD. May I say to my good friend, I found the same thing, too. 
We have several community colleges around the State. I have not talked 
to an employer yet who said he would not prefer to have an employee 
that was better educated. I have never talked to those from academia 
who would not tell me that at least, the minimum, 2 years of education 
would give, particularly a single-parent mother, the opportunity to 
secure the $10.91 per hour that was necessary to keep that family out 
of poverty. That is just a little over $19,000 a year to take care of 
three people. That does not sound like much. But you give them an 
opportunity to earn and compete. That is what this bill is all about, I 
thought, under welfare.
  So, somehow, some way, our colleagues are going to have to understand 
the employer wants a better educated employee; the single-parent mother 
particularly wants to be able to get out of poverty and get away from 
that cycle. Whatever you can do next year--you don't have to have a 
study to understand that.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. No.
  Mr. FORD. I don't understand. They just tried to throw a wet blanket 
on it to say it was undoing welfare reform because, after we have had 
it in place for 2 years we found there was a kink in it? I didn't know 
that we were perfect.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the other thing that was interesting, 
this amendment just allows States to do this if they want to. No State 
was required to. Any State that thought it would be better for many of 
these women and children and their families, to allow these women to 
finish 2 years of education so they get a better job and their children 
would be better off, would be allowed to do so.
  I will just say to my colleague from Kentucky, I was there in the 
conference committee. I think it was punitive for this amendment to be 
eliminated. I never heard anybody make a credible argument against it, 
I really didn't. There was not any credible argument made against it. I 
said here this morning, and I will say it one more time, I think this 
small story tells the larger story, the same Republican majority in the 
House, as we look to the elections in the fall, the same Republican 
majority in the same week in June--one more time, this bears 
repeating--voted to give a tax break to people with estates worth more 
than $17 million and at the same time voted to eliminate the Low-Income 
Home Energy Assistance Program and eliminate summer jobs for kids.
  This is a kind of meanness that I think is just simply not the best 
for America. I want to say to all of my colleagues, I am going to 
really miss having Senator Ford with me. The first bill that comes out 
here, the first vehicle--if it is tomorrow, it is tomorrow; if it is 
next week, it is next week; if it is after, in January or February--I 
am going to be coming right back with this amendment again, right back 
with this amendment again. Because all across our country there are a 
lot of these women who have just essentially been driven out of school.
  I cannot believe that is what we are doing. There is not one person I 
know,

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just on the basis of common wisdom about this, who doesn't know that a 
mother and her children are going to be better off if those mothers are 
allowed to complete 2 years of higher education. So we will be back. We 
will be back and we will pass this amendment.
  Mr. President, I, again, will just finish speaking about this 
amendment if I refer to Latashie Brown, who is a single mother in her 
thirties from Minnesota. She decided to return to college to enhance 
her nursing skills and improve her earning power.
  You have a single mother, she wants to go back to school, it is 2 
years to get that associate's degree to go into nursing, to be a 
nursing assistant. And too many women like Miss Brown are just 
essentially being told you have to leave school because the States get 
penalized for not meeting the work requirements. We will be back.

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