[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 125 (Friday, September 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S10649]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HIGHER EDUCATION ACT EXTENSION

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today to support the 
extension of the Higher Education Act. However, I would like to raise 
two issues.
  First, I would have preferred a clean extension of this act as the 
other extensions have been.
  Second, I am concerned about the impact this extension will have on 
the many other graduate students nationwide who rely on financial 
assistance, including students at Florida's Nova Southeastern 
University.
  Nova Southeastern University's student body is unique with eighty 
percent pursuing graduate studies. This is the opposite of typical 
institutions where 80 percent of students are at the undergraduate 
level.
  Nova holds the distinction of leading the Nation in postgraduate 
degrees awarded to Hispanic students.
  Nova is also the largest originator of School as Lender loans in the 
country, and thus, is disproportionately affected by changes to the 
School as Lender Program.
  The School as Lender Program allowed Nova to provide hundreds of 
millions of dollars in low-cost loans to students.
  Premiums from the sale of those loans provided the university with 
millions of dollars annually which it used to educate its students. 
Nova maintains it helped keep their tuition rates down.
  Denying Nova its ability to use these premiums for all students will 
hurt thousands of Nova students each year.
  This extension also eliminates the ability of school lenders and 
eligible lender trustees to issue low-cost PLUS loans to graduate 
students. This change could increase the cost of graduate school for 
many students who need multiple loans to finish their degree.
  For these reasons, I am disappointed this is not a clean extension, 
and I will continue to engage our Senate Education Committee leaders 
about this issue in the months ahead.

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