[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 97 (Tuesday, July 9, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5537-S5539]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             Student Loans

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, we are here today because, unfortunately, 
the financial burden on our Nation's college students dramatically 
spiked overnight 8 days ago, including for over 100,000 students across 
my home State of Washington, where 56 percent of college graduates 
leave school with a student loan debt, and the average amount they owe 
is more than $22,000. Just when they are getting started on their 
careers, instead of buying a house or buying a car or just paying the 
bills, their student loan bills are piling up with interest.
  Now interest rates for Federal student loans, which have been kept at 
a low rate of 3.4 percent, have doubled to 6.8 percent. For these 
students and for millions of students across the country, that is a tax 
hike of $1,000. That is not fair to students, and it is certainly not 
good for our economy. Congress has to act to fix it.
  This isn't just an abstract issue for me; it is very personal. Pell 
grants and student loans were what allowed my six brothers and sisters 
and I to go to college after my dad got sick and had to leave his job. 
They are what made college affordable, and they are what allowed each 
one of us to pursue a career and give back to our communities. Because 
our government was there to help my family and help us through hard 
times, those seven kids in my family grew up to be a firefighter, a 
lawyer, a computer programmer, a sports writer, a homemaker, a middle 
school teacher, and a Senator. In my book, that was a good investment 
by our country and our government.
  My family's story is far from unique. In fact, last week I traveled 
around my home State of Washington listening to student after student 
after student describe the real-life impact this rate hike would have 
on them. Students such as Elizabeth from Vancouver, WA: She is a 
sophomore at the University of Washington. She comes from a family of 
five children with immigrant parents who work hourly low-wage jobs.
  She told me growing up, the idea of paying for college was 
overwhelming, but thanks to scholarships and grants and loans she is 
able to pursue her dream of becoming a broadcast journalist. However, 
her part-time work-study position barely covers her bills, and she says 
she is constantly plagued by stress as she worries about how she is 
ever going to overcome what she calls her ``debt sentence.''
  The reality is this is a simple issue. College is already too 
expensive for students such as Elizabeth, and Congress shouldn't make 
it worse. So I am very proud to join my colleagues in supporting the 
Keep Student Loan Rates Affordable Act to extend the 3.4 percent 
interest rate, and I urge our friends on the other side of the aisle to 
join us and pass it.
  With student loan debt now exceeding $1 trillion, students and their 
families deserve due process and thoughtful consideration of issues 
such as financial aid. Students have already contributed billions to 
deficit reduction, but the problem is the Senate Republican leadership 
has insisted in all of their proposals that we balance the budget on 
the backs of struggling students and their families. So far, they have 
refused to put the interest of students and tomorrow's middle class 
ahead of Tax Code spending that benefits the wealthy.
  What they have introduced is a bill that includes no cap on how high 
student loan rates could go--something CBO tells us would mean students 
could be locked in at rates over 8 percent in just a few short years. 
In effect, it would be better to do absolutely nothing now than to take 
up and pass the Republican bill.
  I bet everybody listening knows a family member or a coworker who is 
up to their neck in student debt. It is a weight that keeps them from 
helping to grow our economy or start a family or take risks with their 
careers, and it is a weight that is not easily shed.
  We can't continue to do this to generation after generation of 
college students and expect to be able to compete in the 21st-century 
economy. We have to do everything we can to remove barriers to 
education, not erect new ones.

[[Page S5538]]

  The clock has run out. We need to act now because for millions of 
Americans, affordable college has been the ticket to the middle class, 
and we can't allow it to slip away. We can't allow access to college to 
become unattainable for so many of our families.
  I urge our Republican colleagues to join us in investing in America's 
future by reversing this student loan increase and making college more 
affordable for America's middle class.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am glad I stayed to hear the Senator 
from Washington speak because I think this highlights the issue. That 
is a terrific political speech, but it bears no resemblance to what is 
actually happening in the student loan debate.
  The distinguished Senator from Washington talked about rates going 
up. Rates are going up for over 7 million--7 million--middle-income 
students in America who are going to be taking out loans this year, and 
the Democratic proposal does nothing for them. Their proposal does 
nothing for them.
  All the Democrats are trying to do is a political fix for 1 year for 
students taking out 40 percent of the loans who are already the 
beneficiary of Pell grants, as she so ably expressed, who have their 
interest paid while they are in college. These students are borrowing 
subsidized loans. These students may receive a Pell grant of up to 
$5,550. They have their interest paid while they are in college. This 
accounting system used by the Congressional Budget Office is very 
generous to students as opposed to taxpayers, because it is done under 
the Federal Credit Reporting Act, which is more generous to students, 
in this case, than taxpayers.
  What about the over 7 million middle-income students who are just 
swinging in the wind under the Democratic proposal? It does nothing for 
them.
  On the other hand, we have the President of the United States, a 
Democrat, and we have the House of Representatives, a majority of 
Republicans, and they fundamentally agree on one idea: Let's have a 
permanent solution. Let's figure out what it costs the taxpayer to 
allow the government to issue loans--the government is lending over 
$100 billion a year--and loan it to the students at no profit--at no 
profit--so the students can use it--all of them, not 40 percent of 
them, not just low-income students but middle-income students as well--
and all of them will have their rates lowered.
  So what will the effect be? Their proposal would fix at 3.4 percent 
for 1 year the student loan interest rate on 40 percent of the loans. 
Our bipartisan proposal would fundamentally--as does the President's 
proposal and the proposal passed by the House of Representatives--lower 
the rate to 3.66 percent for all undergraduates. It would be not just 
for the students borrowing 40 percent of the loans but for all middle-
income students and graduate students as well. Their rates would be 
lower than 6.8 percent.
  What is good about a short-term political fix that makes middle-
income students and graduate students pay hundreds of millions of 
dollars more over the next 10 years? What is good about that? All it 
does is provide an opportunity to make a well-rehearsed political 
speech about student loans.
  We all want to encourage students to go to college. We are looking 
for a way to give them some predictability and some certainty so 
students don't have to worry, when they graduate from Maryville High 
School in Tennessee where I went, that Congress isn't going to do its 
job. All the other side is going to do is stand up and make political 
speeches that have nothing to do with the issue.
  In this case, the President has done his job by recommending a long-
term solution. The Republican House of Representatives has done its 
job. It passed a long-term solution that lowers rates for everybody. A 
group of six Senators are doing our jobs. We have introduced a 
bipartisan proposal that reduces rates for everybody, and it is a long-
term solution, while a number of the Democratic Senators are playing 
political games. They are ignoring reality. They are going to freeze 
for 10 years higher interest rates on loans for over 7 million--7 
million--middle-income students across this country who are headed to 
college--rates that are nearly twice as high as the bipartisan proposal 
here, which is fundamentally like the proposal by the President and the 
proposal by the House of Representatives.
  What is the wisdom in that? I don't see it, and I don't think the 
students will see it.
  As far as balancing the budget on the backs of students, the only 
people around here who have done that are the Democrats when they 
passed the health care law. They put in that law a takeover of the 
Federal student loan program and, according to the CBO, they had an 
amount of savings of $55 billion, and they used part of it to reduce 
the debt.
  So the CBO says these are savings because the Democrats took over 
student loans and the Democrats said they will use it to reduce the 
debt, use it for the Pell grant program, and they used it to help pay 
for the health care law. Every single year for the next several years, 
students are being overcharged to help pay for the health care law.
  So if we want to get into a big political discussion about who is 
overcharging students in order to reduce the deficit or pay for the 
health care law, we can have that. But that is not what we want to do. 
We want a result, and we have suggested to the Senate--and I am going 
to say it one more time: Instead of a 40-percent political fix for 1 
year, we have suggested a long-term solution for 100 percent of the 
students. It reduces their rates. It cuts nearly in half the interest 
rate for every single undergraduate loan--every single one, which is 
two-thirds of the loans--and it is based on an idea that was in the 
President's budget, that has already been passed by the House of 
Representatives, and that has been introduced by three on that side of 
the aisle and three on this side of the aisle.
  A Senate that is interested in a result instead of political 
gamesmanship would be sitting down and trying to work that out. That is 
what we want to do.
  We can play games, too, I suppose. I can go get my statistics and 
come back to the floor and say those over on the Democratic side, when 
they passed the health care bill, did it on the backs of students. When 
they balanced the budget--which they haven't done--they tried to do it 
on the backs of students. And when they found some money for Pell 
grants, they overcharged the students to whom they were loaning money. 
That is true. I could do that, and I could say that, but I didn't come 
here to spend all my time saying that. I came here to get results.
  So this is not a game for 11 million students across this country. 
They are trying to figure out how they are going to pay for college. 
Just as the Senator from Washington said, it is not easy to do. They 
expect us to come here with our backgrounds and say: We are going to do 
the best we can. Instead of making this similar to what we call the 
doctors fix, where every year we play a little politics and add a 
little money to pay doctors who work with Medicare patients--that is a 
terrible thing to do, but we do it every year--and now we are going to 
treat student loans in the same way. In a Presidential election year, 
everybody will make a big speech about it. Eleven million students will 
sit around wondering how they are going to pay for college, waiting for 
the people in Washington to make a decision about that. We should not 
be doing that.
  We have great promise here. We have a President making a long-term 
solution, the House of Representatives of a different party agreeing 
with him, and six of us on both sides of the aisle proposing a solution 
that is a permanent solution for 100 percent for the 11 million people 
who will be borrowing over $100 billion this year.
  Why would they on the other side of the aisle insist on a solution 
that forces 7 million mostly middle-income students to pay 6.8 percent 
when they could be paying 3.66 percent? Why would you do that? Because 
you have not thought about it, I think.
  A lot has been going on. We have had an immigration debate and a 
number of other things, so maybe Senators have not taken a look at 
that. I have. I have had a chance to do that. I have been the president 
of a university. I have been the Education Secretary. I know

[[Page S5539]]

something about the student loan program. I did not like it when the 
Federal Government took it over. I admire our U.S. Secretary of 
Education. I do not think he ought to be the banker of the year. I 
think we have banks to make loans, but that is not the way it is. The 
taxpayers now make all the government loans--over $100 billion a year.
  Students are making their plans. They are going to be arriving at 
colleges in August and September. We have a bipartisan proposal that 
will lower interest rates for every single student taking out a student 
loan. Yet our friends on the other side want to leave middle-income 
students out of it, force them to pay twice as much as they should be 
in interest rates for the next 10 years. That makes no sense. We ought 
not do that.
  Tomorrow what we ought to do is pass the Burr-Manchin proposal that 
is supported on both sides of the aisle. To the extent it differs with 
the President's proposal--which is very slight--and with the proposal 
of the House of Representatives--which is not much--we should then sit 
down, work something out over the next 3 days, pass it and send it to 
the President and go on to the next issue. Instead, we have political 
speeches about how hard it is to go to college. We all know how hard it 
is to go to college. It is difficult to do. We all want to help. But if 
we have a solution, we ought to adopt it.
  I could play politics too. I know how. Every one of us in this room 
knows how, otherwise we would not be here. This is not a time for 
playing politics. This is serious business; 11 million students getting 
18 million loans, $100 billion-plus from the American taxpayers. We 
have a proposal before us that is fair to the taxpayers--it will not 
cost them any money--it is fair to the students--it does not balance 
the budget or pay for the health care program or any other thing on the 
students' backs--and it gives students, many of whom who have no credit 
rating, no other way to get money, a chance to get several thousand 
dollars a year at one of the lowest possible rates available in the 
country. The proposal that is before the Senate that is bipartisan is a 
permanent solution. It says to the student going to the University of 
Tennessee or Alaska or Minnesota: If you get a loan this year from the 
government and you are an undergraduate, the interest rate is 3.66 
percent. Your rate on that loan won't change. If you are a middle-
income student, the Democrats' plan says it is 6.8 percent, and they 
say: Wait. Wait for what? Wait for rates to go up?
  Why don't we establish this program for students at a time when rates 
are low? That is to their advantage. Let's have a permanent solution at 
a time when rates are low. They may go up and, therefore, students may 
pay more, but they will pay a lot less than they would in the private 
market. They will have a lot more certainty than if we just come around 
and play politics with this every year to try to gain some advantage 
with this student group or that student group.
  So we have an opportunity before us. The immigration bill passed 
before the recess. It showed a good deal of the ability of people on 
both sides of the aisle to work together. We did that with the farm 
bill. We did that with the water resources bill. I would submit this is 
100 times easier than any of those bills.
  When I went home to Tennessee before the Fourth of July recess, I 
said to somebody who asked me: We are that far apart and we have the 
President and the Republican House and a bipartisan group of Senators 
all in about the same place. This ought to be easy to do.
  It is still easy to do, but I would implore my Senators to look at 
the facts--those on the other side of the aisle--and realize I do not 
think they want to go home and explain why they are leaving over 7 
million middle-income students twisting in the wind, paying twice as 
much on interest rates for the next year as the proposal that they are 
about to vote against tomorrow. I think that will be pretty hard to 
explain, and I will bet there will be a lot of explaining to do if that 
is the end result.
  So I pledge--as I have been working with Secretary Duncan, with the 
White House, with Democrats and Republicans--to try to get a result 
here. I think we can still do it in the next few days. I would hope we 
can have a vote on both proposals tomorrow. My guess would be both 
would fail at this point, but at least that would show we are seriously 
working toward a solution, and we can sit down and merge these small 
differences that exist between the bipartisan group here, the 
Republican House, and the President of the United States.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.