[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 108 (Wednesday, June 21, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S2171]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Student Debt

  I have one more statement in regard to education that I would like to 
give.
  Mr. President, every person taking out a loan knows it must be 
repaid. Still, we have seen lots of talk about canceling student debt 
after the debt has been assumed. But that doesn't help students who are 
not in college yet but going to enter college. It is closing the barn 
door after the horse has been stolen.
  To lower the cost of college, we need to let students be able to 
compare the true costs between schools. They can't do that now because, 
right now, schools that are upfront about their costs, meaning they 
give the students an exact figure on what they are going to have to pay 
to get a college degree, these very schools are at a disadvantage to 
their competition that doesn't play by honest rules and honest policies 
about what it actually costs to go to a particular school.
  So I am going to go into some detail about what is wrong with the 
present environment, and I am going to start with the Government 
Accountability Office taking a look at the financial aid letters that 
should show students how much they will pay. Unfortunately, according 
to the GAO, not a single college followed all 10 best practices that 
have been suggested by that Agency, the Government Accountability 
Office.
  Now, here are some examples:
  A third of the colleges confused loans and grants--how misleading. 
You think you are getting a grant, and you find out later it is a loan. 
And 91 percent of the colleges understate their true costs.
  So it is quite obvious the free market doesn't work if students only 
find out how much they owe after they have already selected the college 
that they will attend.
  That is why my bill that I entitled Understanding the True Cost of 
College Act creates a standard, easy-to-read financial aid letter. 
Under my bill, students could take this letter that they get from the 
various colleges that they have been accepted to and see, side by side, 
what each school offers them. They can compare, in other words, apples 
with apples, not apples with oranges, as is the very case today.
  Another thing that doesn't make any sense: Do you know that the 
current practice effectively encourages students to go into debt more 
than what it actually costs to get a college degree? The paperwork 
offering student loans tends to default to the maximum eligible loan 
amount, whether that maximum is needed or not, to get a college degree. 
So then, under this practice, students have to go out of their way to 
borrow less money than what is offered. But guess what. Most students 
actually do borrow the maximum.
  So, you see, we have a Federal policy that encourages students to 
take out more debt than they need to get their degree, and we shouldn't 
have the Federal Government encourage indebtedness that is not needed. 
The Federal Government, in other words, should help students borrow 
only what they need.
  So I have a bill that goes by the title of Know Before You Owe Act. 
This act would show students their estimated monthly loan payments 
after graduating. They would see it compared to the average salary for 
graduates of their particular college major. It would also require 
students to type in the amount that they want to borrow, instead of 
clicking a box that ends up with them taking the maximum that is 
allowed.
  Each of these proposals puts students, then, in the driver's seat, 
where the student should be.
  Choosing a college happens to be one of the largest purchases many 
Americans ever make. It should be a good investment for a bright 
future, not a one-way ticket to excessive debt. Students should have 
all the information they need when they are making that decision of 
what college or university to attend.
  All the ideas I mentioned here are bipartisan, and I have been 
advocating some of these issues for years. It is not a Republican or 
Democrat idea to give students the information they need to make the 
right decision for which school to attend. That is why I was glad to 
see each of these two ideas that I am talking about now included in 
legislation called the Lowering Education Costs and Debt Act.
  My colleagues in the Senate are right to focus on the start of the 
process, when students choose a college and take out a loan. Dealing 
with debt only after it is taken out does not lower the cost of a 
college education. Right now, a student can't pick a college on price 
even if they wanted to.
  I hope this is the start of a discussion to help students limit their 
borrowing on the front end and, ultimately, to put pressure on 
institutions to bring down the cost of college.
  Whereas President Biden's proposal to wipe out student debt would 
give colleges a license to pump up tuition costs, these proposals would 
pump the brakes on soaring tuition costs by empowering students to make 
smart decisions on the front end.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.