[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 71 (Monday, May 12, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2894-S2896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           STUDENT LOAN DEBT

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, like many of my colleagues, I have 
attended and spoken at a number of college and law school graduations 
and commencements.
  I had the great privilege of speaking to the graduates of Post 
University on Saturday and at the Quinnipiac Law School just 
yesterday--both wonderfully exciting and rewarding days full of 
celebration and pride, well-justified joy and pride in the great 
accomplishments of these graduates, and more than their past 
accomplishments, their contributions of the future. These young people 
are our future. I spoke to them about the challenges and 
responsibilities that come with the great privilege of having an 
education from great colleges and universities, undergraduate and law 
school, the opportunities for public service, to be a champion of right 
and responsibility, to advocate for people who need their voices and 
their advocacy, and the responsibilities and opportunities for public 
service.
  Each of them has a great opportunity to give back to our country and 
to use that education to better all of us as well as themselves. Yet 
they are leaving college and law school burdened with debt that would 
have been unthinkable and even unimaginable a decade or so ago. The 
average in Connecticut is $27,000 of debt per graduate from 
undergraduate education today.
  What I have done over the last 2 days, over the last 2 weeks, over 
the past month, is really listen to our students at every level--high 
school as recently as Friday at Bassick High School in Bridgeport, 
colleges throughout the State of Connecticut--crisscrossing our State 
to talk on campuses, at roundtables, with students who are burdened--
indeed, financially crippled with debt that would have been unthinkable 
and unimaginable when I was going through the same education. In those 
days, working to pay for college was possible. Today, the tuition costs 
are so high it is impossible.
  Listening to students across the State of Connecticut, I have heard 
their stories. I have listened to the amounts they owe and the levels 
of interest they have to pay. Each of them,

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by first name--whether it is Buckley at $56,000 or Jerry at $260,000--I 
could go through them one by one, story by story, voice and face, each 
with great accomplishment and great potential achievement for the 
future, for our Nation. Yet they leave college and law school burdened 
by these debts. These are only a few.
  I have promised to come here to tell their stories. I will tell their 
stories--not all of them but as many as I can, not all today but as 
many as I can over the next days and weeks--because each of them simply 
wants a fair shot at American opportunity, at the American dream, at 
the America all of us thought was possible for all of us when we went 
to school, a fair shot at the American dream and opportunity in the 
workplace, at home, in our society.
  I venture to guess that every Senator in this body would agree that 
higher education offers a path to success for hard-working students. 
There is nothing controversial or partisan about that notion. An 
opportunity to move more Americans into the middle class is what 
education does for our Nation. It secures our middle class and enlarges 
and enhances it.
  So investing in higher education really offers a fair shot to 
everyone seeking to make something of himself or herself to earn a 
higher standard of living, the professional innovators, business 
creators, and thinkers whom the system will give us from all kinds of 
backgrounds all across the country and certainly in Connecticut. So 
what we need is to maintain educational success so we can sustain our 
success in the global economy and confront the challenges ahead.
  Attending college or graduate school or technical school is a great 
opportunity but also a great responsibility. Students understand that 
they are taking on a significant trust obligation with the 
understanding that they will pay it back. None of them goes into these 
debts lightly, thinking that they can just avoid it. They are well 
aware that these debts, by and large, are nondischargeable in 
bankruptcy, unlike most other debts. They are told and they rightly 
expect that these additional qualifications will enable them to find a 
good job and go on to a successful life and have a fair shot at the 
American dream. They are willing to work for that success. They are 
willing to pay back these debts. But too often they are not given or 
afforded the opportunity, realistically, to earn at a level that 
enables them to reach these goals, which leaves them with a financially 
crippling debt that serves no one.
  Working people who bear a heavy debt burden have to make tough 
choices about getting married, buying homes, and having children. 
Entrepreneurs are blocked from starting new businesses. The risk takers 
and job creators of America have to go to other lines of work where 
their contribution is derivative, dependent on others rather than 
inventing and innovating and starting new businesses.
  The risk taking that is the foundation and core of the 
entrepreneurial spirit in America is inhibited--indeed, impeded and 
sometimes crippled by these debts. These consequences are so widely 
understood that I hesitate even to take the body's time to recount them 
now. Yet the U.S. student debt totals $1.2 trillion--much higher than 
it has ever been before.
  I have listened in roundtables to its personal impact on our citizens 
and their children. I am here to tell their stories--Brittany, for 
example, who is the first in her family to attend college. She took out 
loans to attend school. She is over $100,000 in debt. Her school does 
not offer much in financial aid.
  Alese, a mother of three, went back to school when her children were 
young because, she said, she ``wanted to make sure they had an example 
to follow when they finished high school'' and she wanted them to 
``push forward and excel in their lives.'' She wrote to me, ``I knew 
that when I finished I would have to pay back those debts . . . what I 
didn't anticipate was that I would still be paying those debts when my 
children started going to college.'' She is now $46,000 in debt. Her 
loans carry a 7-percent interest rate.
  Our economy is still recovering from the greatest recession probably 
in most of our lifetimes. We need people such as Brittany and Alese to 
participate, young woman to invest in the future. We need to invest in 
them. They need to feel secure in their ability to support their 
children. But the mountains of debt confronting students and graduates 
today are overwhelming.
  I am proud to be here with my colleagues to support their fair shot--
all of our fair shot in the future because we live through our 
children. They are our future. It is a platitude we repeat so often, 
but it is true.
  These interest rates are, first of all, unconscionably and unfairly 
high. Many of them are variable so they can continue in their 
unprecedented rise when interest rates begin going up again.
  The money that comes from increased payments is nothing but profit 
for the Federal Government. The Federal Government is scheduled to make 
more than $50 billion in profit on the loans it makes this year. We 
should see higher education as an investment, not as a revenue 
opportunity. Those students are our future, not a profit center. We 
ought to set repayments based on what is in students' and graduates' 
best interests. It is our best interest as well.
  I am proud to join my colleague Senator Elizabeth Warren in 
introducing legislation that would allow borrowers to refinance their 
student loans. I am proud to join my colleagues in an effort to enable 
refinancing of student loans at more affordable rates, just as they do 
car payments and house payments. We cannot forget about current 
graduates with existing debt.
  As much as we want to make available more aid through Pell grants, 
lower interest rates on loans being made now, opportunities to pay down 
those loans based on public service, more disclosure, and more accurate 
disclosure through the kinds of measures that Senator Franken has 
introduced and I have joined him, right now we can take this profoundly 
significant step by supporting a measure that enables refinancing of 
student loans so that everyone has the benefit of the best, lowest, 
most affordable interest rate.
  I believe graduates who pursue public service ought to have the 
opportunity to pay down those debts in ways that are expanded, made 
more flexible and more accessible to more of these graduates. They are 
necessary to everyone's health and safety, whether they are teaching or 
policing or fire fighting or advocating for people who need legal 
assistance or caring for people as doctors in areas where they are 
needed. Those public service opportunities, as I told the graduates at 
Post University and at the Quinnipiac Law School, ought to be expanded 
and enhanced for them and all of our students around the country today, 
as well as those who graduated in recent years.
  Let's make sure in the meantime for people who have this grinding, 
financial, crippling debt that overhangs them and inhibits economic 
growth, it is made more affordable. Let's give them a fair shot at 
economic opportunity. Let's give all the students who are aspiring now 
in high school, at Bassick or elsewhere, the opportunity to have a fair 
shot.
  I am going to briefly quote some of what some said to me.
  ``There is no end in sight.''
  ``I feel like I will never escape this.''
  ``I don't own a home. I can't. I just work to pay my loan.''
  These messages--and I am going to bring them again to the floor--are 
from the heart of Connecticut. The Presiding Officer could do the same 
from Hawaii. Every Member of this body could come to the floor with 
these same messages from the students and graduates of America, the 
innovators and creators, the home builders and family men and women who 
simply want a fair shot for themselves and their children.
  One person said: ``If there is anything that can be done for 
struggling families with student loan debt please help.''
  Let's help. Let's give them a fair shot.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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