[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 147 (Tuesday, September 13, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4558-S4560]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Higher Education

  Mr. TUBERVILLE. Madam President, what a great time of the year--
county fairs, State fairs. The weather is changing. People are getting 
outside more. It is not quite as hot in most places. Parents have 
smiles on their faces because their kids are going back to school. 
College is starting up.
  That is what I want to talk about today. Our college campuses are 
ramping up. There are a lot of good things going on with that. A lot of 
young people are for the first time going to college, going out for the 
first time in their lives and making their own decisions, away from 
home for the first time, putting their budgets together, having to go 
by their own time with nobody to wake them up, having to wash their own 
clothes, having to do things they have never had to do before. For the 
first time in their lives, they are responsible for themselves 24 hours 
a day.
  I did that for 40 years coaching college football, coaching high 
school football. It was amazing how many young men and women whom I 
worked with never saw the Sun come up in their lives. If they played 
for me, they got to see the Sun come up. We got up early and stayed 
late.
  So it is an important time for all of our young adults in college, K-
12--very important--for our high school, elementary, and junior high 
school kids. For many, many years, it has been an important part of all 
of our lives in the United States of America, and it has been one point 
that has made us better than everybody across the world in terms of 
education. We educate our young people from K-12. Everybody has an 
opportunity to go to college for an extended education. It is a great 
opportunity. It is fun to watch. I had a chance to watch a lot of young 
people have some great opportunities and make a lot of things out of 
themselves.
  I used to tell my players when I coached that you are living in the 
greatest country on the face of the Earth. If you are born in this 
country, you hit the lottery. A lot of people don't understand that. If 
you go to some of these other countries, you will figure it out real 
quick. But the United States of America, this country, really owes you 
nothing other than one thing: It owes you an opportunity--an 
opportunity to do what the heck you want to do or be who you want to 
be. If you work hard, you might have a chance. A lot of times, you are 
going to get knocked down. Do you know what this country does? It gives 
you a chance to get back on your feet and go again. It doesn't owe you 
one thing other than that. If you take advantage of it, you can achieve 
it.
  For many years, institutions of higher education were great examples 
of the great American experiment. They were places where free speech 
was not only allowed but encouraged, and innovation and problem-solving 
were required for success. Success created some of America's favorite 
pastimes.
  College sports, which have become a piece of our national identity, 
started a couple of weeks ago. They have immense benefits for young men 
and women who get involved in sports. But higher education became the 
envy of the world, as I said earlier. Our colleges and universities 
produced new research, technologies, and medicines and molded the 
talent and the talented minds to use these new developments that make 
our country a better place and make our country No. 1.
  But this trend, I hate to say, is changing. Activists have 
fundamentally shifted higher education to become a vehicle to further 
their political agenda, and now they are set on forcing American 
taxpayers to pay for the overpriced indoctrination and taking athletic 
opportunities away from

[[Page S4559]]

those who have worked so very hard to train and compete.
  Let's start with the pricetag associated with higher education. The 
cost of attending college has skyrocketed, but these institutions have 
done little--very little--to ensure their value has increased along 
with the increase in price, the increase in tuitions. Bloated school 
administrations continually drive budgets and tuitions up, to the point 
where a lot of people can't afford to go to school anymore.
  President Biden recently decided to throw gasoline on this fire by 
attempting to use Executive authority to, as he calls it, forgive 
student loan debt for millions of Americans. His plan will forgive up 
to $20,000 in student loan debt for Pell grant recipients who make 
$125,000 a year or less and $10,000 in student loan debt for all those 
under the same salary cap.
  Think about that. A college-educated person making a six-figure 
salary would essentially get a $10,000 handout from hard-working 
Americans, the majority of whom did not go to college themselves and 
are struggling to provide for their families thanks to soaring 
inflation driven by our comrades on the left, Democrats' reckless 
spending in the last 2 years.
  Despite the administration's attempt to convince the country that 
they are focused on fighting inflation, this debt transfer scheme will 
do exactly the opposite. It is going to make prices higher. In fact, 
the Penn Wharton budget model projects the total cost of President 
Biden's loan forgiveness plan and changes to the other loan programs 
could cost the American people more than $1 trillion.
  Folks on both sides of the aisle have rightfully criticized this plan 
because of its clear and indefensible cost, and I share those concerns 
with everybody that is against this.
  I am also concerned about two additional long-term effects of this 
decision. One, it does nothing to fix the broken system that led to 
soaring costs of college in the first place. It will, in fact, make 
college even more expensive. If we are going to do something, let's fix 
the problem. We are not fixing the problem. We are just adding to the 
problem. And, two, it allows students and graduates to avoid the 
consequences of their own actions, further hindering young people from 
becoming independent, free thinking, and responsible. The thing about 
education is learning responsibility, and this does exactly the 
opposite of teaching responsibility at a level where they need to 
learn.
  All Americans, including those who, like me, chose to take on debt 
attending college must be responsible for their own actions. Hard-
working taxpayers who did not go to college should not have to assume 
the debt of others because this administration decided to fulfill a 
campaign promise right before a midterm election.
  Further, this degradation of the value of college is just the latest 
in a decades-long effort by those on the left to fundamentally change 
higher education and force their agenda on campuses across our country, 
and it comes right after this administration announced its plan to 
attack another key part of the American system--athletic competition 
and the level playing field created by title IX.
  I began my career coaching high school a long time ago. But before 
that, title IX was created in supporting women athletics. I started 
coaching a few years after title IX was started, and I have seen from 
the very beginning what title IX has done for women across this 
country--girls and athletes--and how it has made leaders of young girls 
and young women who would have never been afforded the opportunity had 
title IX not passed.
  Title IX, to me, is one of the best things this Federal Government 
has ever done, bar none. It has given the opportunity of a level 
playing field for young girls to have that opportunity they would have 
never had. What it did, it said boys and girls have to have the same 
facilities, coaches, and same athletic budgets, also the same 
scholarships if they went to a university. Men could not have more than 
women. And we have seen the explosion of women sports, bar none.
  When I was coaching years ago, 3 to 6 percent of the high school 
girls--3 to 6 percent--played high school athletics. Today, we have 
close to 60 percent. Why? Because of title IX, because of more sports 
that title IX afforded and bigger budgets for women athletics. It did a 
tremendous service to women and girls across this country. I am proud 
of the progress this country has made and the immense talent that it 
has brought out because of what title IX has done.
  But this anniversary, which was the 50th anniversary in June--think 
about that, 50th anniversary, how time flies. I am not that old. But 
the 50th anniversary of title IX was in June. This anniversary comes at 
a challenging time now for young girls and women in sports. The ability 
to train and compete fairly is under attack from activists and this 
current White House. Since 2003, at least 28 biological males have won 
titles in various women's events around the world. Think about that. 
Now we are allowing biological boys and biological men to compete 
against girls and women in sports, and they won 28 titles. How fair is 
that?
  If the current administration and the activists pushing this policy 
have their way, biological males winning women's sports championships 
would become the norm. It will be an everyday occurrence. That is not 
fair. It is not fair for a young girl or woman that has trained all her 
life in a sport to, at the end of the day, have to compete for a 
championship against a young boy who says or thinks that he is a woman. 
What is right about that?
  In July, the Department of Education published and proposed a rule to 
change how title IX is implemented in order to better align with the 
administration's progressive agenda. These proposed changes would 
require schools to allow--this is in title IX now--will allow 
biological males to compete in women's sports.

  Last week, I submitted a public comment to Secretary Cardona that 
clearly and strongly condemns this new proposed rule. Expanding the 
definition of sex to include gender identity, to identify whoever you 
want to identity as, will cause lasting damage to the level playing 
field title IX originally was created for, which was for women. The 
change to title IX would be a monumental setback for the generations of 
women who have benefited from the law over the last 50 years.
  So what are we going to do now? We are going to go back to square one 
because somebody wants to change it. The Department should not move 
forward with this proposal and not change the rule but, instead, work 
with Congress on legislative action meant to strengthen protections 
afforded women in the original statute.
  As I know from firsthand experience, participating in college 
athletics is about more than winning and losing. There is a lot more to 
it. Student athletes learn many important lessons by participating. It 
sets our country apart from other countries all over the world--like 
the value of hard work, discipline, commitment, responsibility. 
Athletes learn how to work together, be loyal to each other, play for a 
cause, take responsibility for their own actions, learn how to win--
but, more importantly, learn how to lose. Perhaps most importantly, 
they teach student athletes that free and fair competition allows the 
best team to win.
  That is why I am so strongly opposed to this administration's plans 
to devalue education and unlevel the playing field in the name of 
leftwing progress and indoctrination.
  These attacks on higher education and women's sports must stop. To 
best prepare America's young people to be the next generation of 
leaders our country needs, I am fighting back against these policies, 
like dismantling title IX and haphazardly forgiving student debt. That 
encourages young adults to break the rules and ignore their 
responsibilities.
  Instead of making our colleges more expensive and less fair, Congress 
should be focused on reforms to get to the root of the cause. 
Universities should be encouraged to cut budgets and lower tuition 
rates. Students graduating high school should be steered toward career 
and financial decisions that make sense for them and that they can 
afford. Everybody doesn't need to go to college.
  Lastly, we must reject these ideologies and mobs on the left who 
don't believe in free speech in the classroom and on our college 
campuses. Our country cannot thrive without allowing young adults to 
freely and fairly learn, grow, develop, and create on

[[Page S4560]]

and off the field. We must protect that fair playing field while 
encouraging college students to take responsibility for their own 
actions and financial decisions, something all of us here in Congress 
should learn to do as well.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.