[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 44 (Tuesday, March 13, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H1509-H1510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            HIGHER EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, almost exactly a year ago, when the Trump 
administration came into office and the new Republican majority again 
elected its leaders, they promised to focus on the forgotten American, 
the middle class families that have been left behind, according to the 
speeches that were given at that time.
  Well, there is no issue which I think resonates more powerfully with 
middle class families than the unrelenting rise in the cost of college 
and higher education.
  Again, the numbers surround us: $1.3 trillion in student loan debt, 
according to the Federal Reserve Board.
  Just a few weeks ago, some colleges and universities, the real 
flagships of our Nation, the Harvards, the Yales, announced that 
tuition, room and board now will exceed $70,000 a year.
  Again, not every college charges that much, but, unfortunately, if 
you look historically, as those colleges and universities surpass these 
unfortunate milestones, most colleges follow right in the wake.
  We need action and we need change in terms of making sure that that 
ticket to success, whether it is in science, technology, engineering, 
and math, for young Americans is actually going to exist, and this 
Congress has neglected and failed to move forward.
  Just within the last month, what we have seen is the following. The 
IRS just issued their follow-up rules to the Republican tax bill, which 
clarifies that families can no longer deduct home equity loans to pay 
for college. So for a family who has diligently paid their mortgages, 
whose kid has been accepted to a college and university, who doesn't 
qualify for Pell grants, who has exhausted their Stafford loans, 
because those are capped, and who wants to actually use the equity in 
their house to help pay for college, they can no longer deduct the 
interest on those payments.
  I am very much thankful to the Republican tax bill, which, again, 
took great care of people who earn over $400,000, whose top marginal 
rates were drastically cut, or corporations whose rates were 
drastically cut; but middle class families are, again, now being asked 
to bear a higher cost for college by cutting off that avenue that, 
again, millions of families have used over the years in terms of using 
their home's equity.
  In addition, the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos--400 days in 
office and she has never stepped foot in the Education and the 
Workforce Committee, which I sit on--last Friday, issued a rule that 
basically preempted the ability of States attorneys general to issue 
rules and regulations to protect students and families from 
unscrupulous loan servicers.
  Again, our offices get flooded with calls with frustrated students 
who graduated and, again, have loan servicers who lose documents, who 
lose payments. And, again, what was happening at the State level, both 
Republicans and Democratic attorneys general were putting into place 
rules and regulations to protect those people caught in these 
predicaments.
  On Friday, the Secretary of Education, a Republican, who supposedly 
believes in States' rights, told those States that they will be issuing 
rules preempting States from protecting those people caught in these 
situations. Unbelievable.
  Lastly, last week, the Office of Inspector General, which is a 
nonpartisan arm of government--its job is to look at government 
negligence and malfeasance and problems--issued a warning that the 
Republican higher education bill, which was reported out in December, 
the misnamed PROSPER Act, will, again, lift all the regulations on for-
profit colleges, which, again, take advantage of students, 
overpromising skills and degrees that turn out to be worthless at the 
end. Again, we know about ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, which was shut 
down by the last administration because of the outrageous practices 
that they were involved in.
  The PROSPER Act basically lifts all of those controls that the 
Department has over them, and it is open season in terms of students 
who are going to be subject to that kind of environment.
  By the way, the group that is probably the most vulnerable are 
veterans,

[[Page H1510]]

because their GI Bill is so rich in benefits, those are the ones that 
for-profit colleges target.
  Why do I know that?
  Holly Petraeus, General David Petraeus's wife, who was in charge of 
warning veterans about these problems a couple of years ago--again, the 
term that she uses is that for-profit colleges see servicemembers as 
nothing more than dollar signs in uniforms--again, has warned us that 
this sector of the higher education community needs more scrutiny in 
terms of making sure that there is real gainful employment for people 
who go through these colleges, and to make sure that those colleges 
actually do not siphon off precious GI Bill dollars, Pell dollars and 
Stafford loans.
  It is time for this Congress to wake up and respond to what was one 
of the most powerful issues in 2016 about the cost of colleges drowning 
middle class families. But just again in the last month, we have seen 
this Republican administration and this Congress go in exactly the 
opposite direction. We need better

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