[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 2, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2180-S2183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 RECESS

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate stands in 
recess until 5:30 p.m.
  Thereupon, the Senate, at 4:30 p.m., recessed until 5:30 p.m. and 
reassembled when called to order by the Presiding Officer (Mr. Rounds).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


                          PROTECT Students Act

  Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague from 
Illinois, Senator Durbin, to discuss the work we are doing to protect 
students and taxpayers from predatory higher education practices. I 
want to thank Senator Durbin for his incredible and steadfast 
leadership on this issue.
  All hard-working students deserve the opportunity to receive a 
quality education that will prepare them to compete in this 21st-
century economy. Education is the cornerstone of expanding opportunity, 
and it is vital that we ensure that more students have access to 
quality, affordable higher education that will help them thrive.
  Unfortunately, too often, hard-working students, including our 
veterans and servicemembers, are taken advantage of by predatory for-
profit colleges. We have seen this issue time and again.
  Years ago, we witnessed the collapse of Corinthian Colleges, Inc., 
and ITT Tech. Recently, we saw the collapses of Education Corporation 
of America, Vatterott College, and Dream Center Education Holdings. 
Students attended these institutions with the hope of furthering their 
education and building better lives for themselves and their families.
  In reality, though, these companies were raking in billions of 
taxpayer funds that enriched their executives and investors, all while 
their students were receiving subpar degrees at high costs even though 
they were often recruited with the promise of a good-paying job after 
graduation. This has left tens of thousands of student borrowers with 
huge amounts of debt that they will never be able to repay, credits or 
degrees of little value, and few job prospects.
  Unscrupulous actions by for-profit colleges have also widely impacted 
our country's veterans who bravely fought in defense of our freedoms 
and then, in turn, were taken advantage of by predatory, corrupt 
schools.
  Our current system has done little to stop these bad actors. Students 
and taxpayers have been exploited in astounding ways and to an 
outrageous degree. We need to do more to address and to stop these 
predatory practices. That is why I was pleased and honored to join with 
Senator Durbin last week to introduce the Preventing Risky Operations 
from Threatening the Education and Career Trajectories of Students Act 
of 2019, otherwise known as the PROTECT Students Act.
  This legislation would implement a number of commonsense protections 
to hold predatory institutions, including for-profit schools, 
accountable when they engage in unfair, deceptive, and other fraudulent 
practices.
  To start, the PROTECT Students Act would safeguard our veterans and 
servicemembers from predatory practices. It would close a loophole in 
existing law that allows colleges to count GI benefits as non-Federal 
dollars toward a required 10 percent of their revenues that must be 
from a non-Federal source. This has led some predatory for-profit 
schools to deliberately and aggressively recruit veterans and even 
provide false information to them regarding their programs, including 
the expected level of student debt and what kinds of jobs would be 
available to the students once they graduate. By closing that loophole 
through the PROTECT Act, we can eliminate the incentive for these 
schools to prey on veterans and prevent veterans from going into 
significant debt for a credential or degree of little practical or 
economic value.
  Next, this legislation would add a new review process for for-profit 
institutions that seek to convert to nonprofit or public status--
something they have been doing as a strategy to escape key 
accountability requirements.
  Our bill would also take steps to ensure that career education 
programs actually prepare students for good-paying jobs because if 
students invest thousands of dollars in their education, they should be 
able to find a job that will help them pay back their loans.
  The PROTECT Students Act would also codify the 2014 gainful 
employment regulation that helps prevent students from enrolling in 
low-quality programs that charge more than what a student can 
reasonably pay back after they graduate. This provision requires 
improvement by schools whose students are found to have too much debt 
compared to their earnings, and it cuts off Federal financial aid for 
those schools that don't improve. The measure also has the obvious 
benefit of preventing Federal taxpayer dollars from being wasted on 
worthless programs.
  The PROTECT Students Act would help student borrowers who have been 
cheated or defrauded by predatory institutions, including for-profit 
colleges, by improving the process for borrowers to have their loans 
forgiven if the school they attend engages in fraud.
  This legislation would increase consumer protections by banning the 
practice of mandatory arbitration, which has limited students' ability 
to seek legal action if they have been defrauded.
  These are just some of the vital steps the PROTECT Students Act would 
take. This bill would be a strong step forward for both students--
including veterans and servicemembers--and taxpayers.
  We are at a time when the Department of Education, led by Secretary 
Betsy DeVos, is doing everything in its power to undermine protections 
for students on these issues. Secretary DeVos has done a disservice to 
students by hiring into the Department officials who have close ties 
with companies that have defrauded students. They then, unsurprisingly, 
have supported her mission of rolling back student protections in favor 
of predatory companies. Secretary DeVos has worked to gut key consumer 
protections and weakened relief for students who were victims of fraud. 
This is unacceptable. By supporting the PROTECT Students Act, Members 
of the Senate can send a message to Secretary DeVos that we will not 
stand for these actions.
  I want to take a moment to thank my friend and colleague, Senator 
Durbin, for his consistent leadership on this issue. For years, Senator 
Durbin has been sounding the alarm about the dangers of for-profit 
colleges, introducing legislation, and taking to the Senate floor and 
bringing much needed attention to this matter. It is time that more of 
our colleagues listen to his calls to stop these predatory institutions 
from taking advantage of students all across the country.
  Senator Durbin, thank you again for leading on this issue. I am 
thrilled that we have been able to work together to introduce the 
PROTECT Students Act, and I look forward to working with you to pass 
this legislation as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education 
Act.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor to my colleague from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate Democratic whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from New 
Hampshire for being my ally in showing real leadership on this issue.
  As a member of the HELP Committee, you will be sitting there in those 
key hearings when we discuss the reauthorization of higher education. 
That will be our opportunity to bring in some of these reforms that 
make a difference in terms of this industry of for-profit colleges and 
universities. I thank you for that, and I join you in this PROTECT 
Students Act, as I have come to the floor so many times to talk about 
this sector.
  Most Americans don't know what we mean by for-profit colleges and 
universities. Who are they? Well, some of the familiar names are the 
University of Phoenix, DeVry University and others like it, which 
portray themselves as institutes of higher education, and in

[[Page S2181]]

some respects, they bear similarity. Yet when it comes to the actual 
performance of these schools, it is much different. Many families don't 
know the difference.
  I find in the city of Chicago, IL, that students--particularly when 
they reach their junior and senior years--are inundated with all this 
advertising on social media about for-profit colleges and universities.
  I would say to Senator Hassan, there was a time in Washington before 
she arrived where you could find television ads that showed a young 
lady who appeared to be about 20 years old, in her pajamas, saying: I 
am here in my pajamas going to college at a for-profit college and 
university.
  They tended to make it sound like it was a pretty easy formula. All 
you needed to do was log on, and the next thing you knew, you had a 
diploma, a certificate, and you were off for employment. That is not 
the real-world of for-profit colleges and universities. The real world 
is a much starker place.
  I have often said that you can define this issue between for-profit 
colleges and universities and non-profit and public universities and 
colleges in America with two very simple numbers. This will be on the 
final. The numbers are 9 and 34. For-profit colleges enroll 9 percent 
of all postsecondary students. Nine percent go to for-profit schools. 
Thirty-four percent of all Federal student loan defaults are students 
from for-profit colleges and universities.
  Nine percent of the students and 34 percent of the loan defaults. 
What is going on here? The answer is very obvious, and it really tells 
the story about for-profit colleges and universities.
  They charge too much. All the surveys we looked at say their tuition 
is higher than you might run into at a local community college or a 
public university or a not-for-profit school. They charge too much 
tuition.
  Secondly, too many students drop out before they finish. They are in 
so much debt, they can't continue.
  Third, those who do finish and get a diploma find out it isn't worth 
much. They don't really end up in a job where they can pay off their 
student loans, so they stumble and fall despite their best efforts, 
deep in debt from these for-profit colleges and universities. Along the 
way, they learn something interesting: These credits they are 
supposedly earning at the for-profit colleges and universities often 
can't be transferred anywhere. No one recognizes them.
  These students have been lured into something called a ``college'' or 
``university,'' lured into deep debt, and if they finish, they find 
they have something that isn't worth a job in the future. Senator 
Hassan and I are trying to protect these families and these students 
from this type of exploitation.
  We know and I think most Americans know that going to college can be 
an expensive experience, but it can be a life-changing experience for 
the better. If you pick the right school and get yourself a college 
education, you will be in a better position, in most cases, when it 
comes to your future life. Right now, we are finding that when it comes 
to these schools, there is a much different outcome.
  Throughout this higher education debate, you are going to hear a 
common refrain from this industry. They often say that different types 
of institutions of higher education shouldn't be treated differently 
under the law, that everybody should play by the same rules. They go on 
to say that any regulations or requirements that apply only to for-
profit colleges discriminate on the basis of tax status.
  Last week, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos accused me of 
discriminating based on tax status, for-profit versus nonprofit. I 
couldn't care less, from my point of view, whether it is for-profit or 
nonprofit; the question is, What are they giving to these students? 
What are the students receiving for the money that is being paid?
  In her final report to Congress, retired Department of Education 
Inspector General Kathleen Tighe wrote: ``The [for-profit college] 
sector continues to be a high-risk area for the department.'' She went 
on to say that the industry's own practices and performances ``provide 
a clear demonstration of the need for particular accountability.''
  Let's start with the basics. As I said, 9 percent of the students; 34 
percent of the student loan defaults. Students at for-profit colleges 
graduate with an average debt of nearly $40,000; students at nonprofit 
and public colleges and universities, $28,000. In 2014, more than half 
of the top 25 schools whose students held the most cumulative student 
loan debt were for-profit colleges. Eight of the top 10 students with 
the most debt were for-profit colleges. The average cohort default rate 
over 5 years at these eight colleges was 33 percent. Over 5 years, a 
third of the students were going to default on their student loans.
  The average, incidentally, for the two not-for-profit institutions in 
the top ten was 6 percent. So, at the end of 5 years, one-third of the 
students who graduated from for-profit schools in the top ten for 
cumulative student debt had defaulted. For the students from the 
nonprofit schools in the top ten for cumulative student debt, it was 
only 6 percent. These for-profit schools are notorious for luring these 
students and sometimes their families into debt, and then the students 
can't find the jobs to pay off the debt.
  A basic reminder: Of all of the debt you can incur in the United 
States of America--think about it--that being for your home, your car, 
your boat, whatever it happens to be--there is one category of debt you 
can never discharge in bankruptcy: a student loan. You are going to 
carry student loan debt with you for the rest of your life.
  We have a case in which a grandmother literally cosigned a note so 
her granddaughter could go to college, and the granddaughter defaulted 
on the student loan. Guess what happened to the grandmother's Social 
Security payment. The government came and took part of it in order to 
pay off that student loan.
  It never, ever goes away. It is a loan--a debt--for life. That is why 
it is different. We can make a mistake on a home; we can lose a job or 
have an illness in the family and default on a mortgage and have the 
debt we owe discharged in bankruptcy, but it is not so when it comes to 
student loans.
  In a 2017 letter to Secretary DeVos and congressional leadership, 19 
State attorneys general, led by then-Illinois Attorney General Lisa 
Madigan, wrote: ``Over the past 15 years, millions of students have 
been defrauded by unscrupulous for-profit postsecondary schools.''
  These chief State law enforcement officers noted the specific risks 
to students from the for-profit college sector.
  The recent closures of so many of these schools have left these 
students stranded. Imagine if your son or daughter were going to one of 
these for-profit colleges or universities, and then it went out of 
business. Would that mean you would have to pay off your student loan? 
Technically, yes. In order to be relieved from your student loan, you 
would have to submit a borrower defense claim to the U.S. Department of 
Education.
  How often do these schools fail? Let me read to you a list of some of 
these for-profit colleges and universities that have gone failed: 
Corinthian, ITT Tech, Education Corporation of America, Vatterott, and 
Dream Center.
  How many students who attended these schools were left high and dry 
when the schools went out of business? There were 140,000 students. Of 
the more than 218,000 borrowers who have sought discharges from the 
Department of Education as a result of being defrauded by their 
institutions, the vast majority have been students from for-profit 
colleges.
  The for-profit colleges promised them jobs that never materialized. 
The for-profit colleges said: If you take the following course, you can 
become a computer technician of some kind. It never happened. They were 
defrauded by these schools. They signed up for the loans, and then the 
schools went out of business. So here they are with the loans and no 
jobs.
  We have this borrower defense process by which the students can go 
through the Federal Government to try to be relieved of their student 
debt. Yet I can't understand this. The U.S. Department of Education is 
not processing these students' borrower defense applications. When we 
said to Secretary DeVos, ``Come on. Give these young kids a break. 
Their lives are on hold until they figure out what has happened to 
their student loan debt

[[Page S2182]]

from their for-profit schools,'' she hasn't gotten around to it, and we 
have been waiting patiently for that to happen. I thank Senator Hassan 
for putting a finger on it.
  The people who are running this Department of Education are former 
executives of these for-profit schools. So, it's no surprise.
  So, no, Madam Secretary. Meeting our obligation as lawmakers to focus 
accountability and protections where there is the greatest risk to 
students and taxpayers is not discriminating based on tax status; it is 
acknowledging reality.
  The bill we are talking about today doesn't target for-profit 
colleges, and it doesn't seek to put an end to for-profit education. It 
is not a witch hunt or a liberal conspiracy; it is a response to the 
objective risks to students and taxpayers that the for-profit college 
industry represents today.
  The PROTECT Students Act would close the 90/10 loophole. 
Incidentally, can you imagine that these are so-called for-profit 
colleges and universities and that they are the most heavily federally 
subsidized businesses in America? We took a look around. We looked at 
defense contractors and everything we could think of. The highest level 
of Federal subsidy goes to this industry.
  Imagine, a student signs up. The student may first qualify for a Pell 
grant of $6,000. The for-profit college takes that Federal money in. 
Then the student still owes some debt. They say: Well, you need a 
government loan. So the student borrows from the government. At that 
point, all we have seen across the table are Federal dollars that are 
directly out of the Treasury. The student still carries the debt, but 
the money to this so-called private business is all straight out of the 
Federal Treasury--hardly a hearty example of capitalism at work.
  The 90/10 rule was designed to prevent for-profit colleges from 
depending on more than 90 percent of their revenue coming straight from 
the Federal Treasury. It didn't work. Unfortunately, a loophole in the 
law only counts the Department of Education's title IV funds as Federal 
revenue while counting billions from the Department of Veterans 
Affairs' GI bill and the Department of Defense tuition assistance as 
non-Federal funds.
  Here is what it means: If you are serving in our military and are 
entitled to GI bill education benefits that are going to help pay for 
your education, for-profit colleges have a financial incentive to 
aggressively target and recruit you. It turns out they can take 
virtually 100 percent of their revenue directly from the Treasury by 
enrolling large numbers of students eligible for Federal benefits that 
are not included in the 90/10 rule. We think that is wrong. We think 
the 90/10 rule should count these veterans' benefits and other Federal 
education benefits as Federal funds.
  I see there are others on the floor, and I am not going to make this 
any longer. I will bring it to a close because Senator Hassan has 
covered the elements of this bill that I think are very important.
  To my friends who serve with me in the U.S. Senate, here is what it 
boils down to: Do we care about these students and their families? Are 
we worried about the fact that 9 percent of the postsecondary students 
end up at for-profit schools and account for over one-third of all 
student loan defaults? Are we willing to hold these schools accountable 
and every school accountable so they treat students fairly?
  Are we willing to say, for example, the University of Illinois has a 
relationship with its students who enroll? The University of Illinois 
does not have a mandatory arbitration clause, but many for-profit 
schools do. What does it mean? If you feel you have been mistreated by 
the school, those at the school will sit down and decide your fate 
through an arbitration process, which students virtually always lose. 
Most schools don't do that to their students, but these schools look at 
them as cash-paying customers, and that is how they treat them when it 
comes to arbitration.
  There are a lot of things we can do in this bill to protect the 
students who are currently being exploited. What is more important than 
making sure these students don't get off to a bad start in life but are 
treated fairly and honestly and not exploited at the expense of their 
families and the expense of American taxpayers?
  I thank Senator Hassan for being the lead sponsor of this 
legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.


                           Electoral College

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I want to comment briefly on the proposed 
constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college that my 
colleagues are introducing this week. It is just the latest radical 
proposal by the Democrats to upend our constitutional system of 
government.
  Why all the sudden interest in these changes? It is very simple.
  The Democrats and their media wing still can't get over that they 
lost the 2016 election, so they have spent the last 2 years looking for 
scapegoats. First, it was the collusion hoax, but the Mueller report 
has put an end to that. Now they blame the Constitution itself and want 
to eliminate the electoral college, which they claim robbed the so-
called popular vote winner of her rightful office.
  Let's be clear about something up front: We have never had a 
Presidential election with a popular vote winner or loser in the 
genuine meaning of those words. It is not how we contest the 
Presidency, and it never has been. Campaigns organize their entire 
strategies around the electoral college. Guess what. Hillary Clinton 
did too. She just didn't do it very well. For the losers to complain 
afterward that they really won is like a football team that gets 
outscored but says it won the game because it made more first downs or 
like a basketball team that got outscored but says it won the game 
because it made more free throws.
  Yet let's suppose that we do change the rules of the game. Let's 
suppose we get rid of the electoral college. What would we get?
  Get ready for nationwide recounts and election contests. If you 
thought Bush v. Gore was a circus or that California's ballot 
harvesting operations were a fraud, wait until you see a nationwide 
recount. Getting rid of the electoral college would also encourage 
fringe third parties with all of the instability we see in European 
parliamentary elections. Neither candidate received 50 percent of the 
vote in 2016. Imagine an election in which a winner would not even get 
40 percent of the vote. How would the Democrats respond to that?
  Of course, getting rid of the electoral college could further reduce 
the role of the States in our elections. The Founders believed, 
rightfully, that the States were sovereign political communities that 
had real interests and real views that deserved to have a voice in the 
national government apart from simple, nationwide majority rule. The 
Founders didn't want our vast continental Nation to be ruled like 
colonies from a few coastal capitals. They wanted our one, true 
national officeholder to understand and account for the diverse ways in 
which we work and live and think.
  Under the electoral college, which I hasten to add is just like in 
the Senate, the States can express their will as States. Hawaiians get 
to speak as Hawaiians about whom the President ought to be. The same 
goes for Vermonters and Arkansans. Doing away with the electoral 
college would be especially harmful to the small States while it would 
concentrate power in big States and in a few megacities. So it is not 
surprising to see Senators from California and New York and Illinois 
supporting this radical proposal. They have obvious reasons to weaken 
the smaller States.
  I have to confess that I am a little surprised that my colleague from 
Hawaii is joining their effort because it would relegate his small 
island State to the status of a colony--ruled from afar by a few vast 
cities on the mainland. Hawaii, with its 1.4 million people, would have 
less say in our Presidential elections than would San Diego. It would 
barely outpace Dallas, TX.
  Politicians who support abolishing the electoral college say it would 
break the supposed stranglehold that rural red States have on our 
elections, but this isn't really a red or blue issue. Hawaii, Rhode 
Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia all have a greater say 
about who leads our country,

[[Page S2183]]

thanks to the electoral college, and the last I checked, none of those 
places are Republican strongholds nor does one party ever have a so-
called stranglehold on the electoral college. It is far from it. In the 
1980s, people spoke about the Republicans' electoral college lock. In 
more recent times, they have spoken about the Democratic Party's blue 
wall in the electoral college.
  My State and New Mexico, for instance, were fiercely contested in the 
Bush era--not so much anymore. In 2008, Barack Obama won Pennsylvania's 
20 electoral votes in a cakewalk. Eight years later, Donald Trump eked 
out a victory in the Keystone State. Next year, Ohio might not be a 
competitive Presidential election State, but Texas may be. Politics can 
change fast, and the electoral college changes with it, which forces 
candidates to consider our entire vast country. Without it, a candidate 
could actually ignore Wisconsin, yet still win.
  I should also point out that my colleague's amendment this week is 
not the only proposal to scrap the electoral college. A number of 
States have also signed on to a so-called interstate compact that would 
require those States to ignore the express will of their voters and 
award their electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote.
  It is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. I would 
prefer to call it the ``Small State Suicide Compact.''
  It is designed to circumvent the difficult process of amending our 
Constitution, which of course means it is unconstitutional. There is 
already a process for changing the Constitution. It is called the 
amendment process.
  So I will give some praise to my colleagues this week for filing a 
constitutional amendment to change the electoral college legally, but I 
would point out that the Democratic Party's willingness to bypass our 
Constitution to eliminate the electoral college reveals that what is at 
stake here is not really democratic principle but one single thing--
power, seizing it and holding on to it.
  Me? I think I will stick with the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton 
said of the electoral college: If it be not perfect, it is at least 
excellent.
  I am with Hamilton.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

                          ____________________