[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 16, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H545]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     INVESTING IN AMERICA'S FUTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, we will invest in America's future 
tomorrow by making college more affordable and accessible for over 5 
million Americans. We are going to cut the interest rate in half over 
the next 5 years for undergraduates with subsidized student loans. 
Interest on those loans will drop from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over 
the next 4 years.
  Investing in America's future is long overdue. Now, the question is: 
Who benefits? Ordinary Americans, that is who. This legislation will 
help low- and middle-income Americans who rely on subsidized loans to 
make college a reality. It gives them a real shot at the American 
Dream.
  We know that an undergraduate college degree is a minimum education 
requirement for participating in the hope and opportunity of the 21st 
century. We also know that our sons and daughters have been forced to 
take on significant debt in recent years to pursue that college degree. 
In the last 5 years, undergraduate students and their families have 
seen tuition and fees rise over 40 percent at public universities after 
inflation. At the same time, the cost of borrowing money has gone up by 
2 percent.
  It is a debt load that is forcing talented young Americans to pass up 
a college education and America cannot afford to let that happen. 
Americans with an undergraduate degree earn much more on average than 
Americans without one. In 2005, the average earnings of someone with a 
college degree was 60 percent more than someone with only a high school 
degree. In today's dollars, we are talking about $37,000 versus $67,000 
for a college graduate.
  And there is every reason to believe this income gap will widen in 
coming years. Making college more affordable and accessible gives more 
of our children and grandchildren access to a better life, and those 
economic benefits ripple through the entire economy.
  I represent Seattle, a city where technological innovation is a daily 
ingredient of our local economy, from Boeing to Microsoft, through a 
thousand start-ups. These companies need an educated workforce to 
succeed. Like it or not, we are competing in a global economy, and 
Americans deserve every fair advantage.
  A college education is one of the best advantages, and it isn't just 
about making money. With a college degree, students have more careers 
to choose from. In other words, a college degree is a key that can 
unlock your own personal happiness. Imagine working at something you 
want to do every day instead of something you have to do.
  Today, too many promising young Americans are not going to college 
because it costs too much, not because they do not have the ability to 
succeed. And we know there are racial and gender disparities that make 
it imperative for us as a Nation to make college more affordable, 
accessible, and available.
  For those who do go to college, the typical student graduates over 
$17,000 in debt. So we are making a downpayment in this bill on 
America's future by cutting the interest rate on subsidized student 
loans, and we would be wise as a Nation to do more.
  Today, the United States accounts for 14 percent of the world's 
college graduates. That is just half of the percentage we accounted for 
30 years ago. In other words, knowledge is power, and other nations 
have dramatically stepped up their efforts.
  A few months ago, the nonpartisan National Center for Public Policy 
and Higher Education released a new report that ranks the United States 
16 among the 27 industrialized nations in the world for the number of 
students who complete a college education or advanced certificate 
degree. The data in the report also suggests there is a shortage of 
college-educated young Americans ready to take over as the college-
trained baby boomers retire. We could be as much as 15 million college 
graduates short in just over a decade. That would be completely 
unacceptable in the United States of America.
  Cutting interest rates in half on subsidized student loans is a 
start, but it is just that. It is just a beginning. We need to find 
other ways to invest in America's future by investing in America's 
future generation. We say it over and over again, that children are our 
future. This is an opportunity to put in law the fact that we mean 
business. The 21st century will require nothing less.

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