[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18420-18421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 COST OF COLLEGE SMOTHERING OPPORTUNITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, it has now been 2 months since the Occupy 
Wall Street movement spread all across this country; and despite 
attempts to marginalize it, parody it, sometimes even suppress it, the 
fact is that one message has come through loud and clear, particularly 
from young Americans who have participated in this grassroots movement 
across the country, which is that the spiraling cost of college is 
smothering opportunity for millions of young Americans all across 
America.
  Yesterday the Secretary of Education, Arnie Duncan, presented a 
speech in Nevada which I think starkly presents the challenge which we 
face as a Nation. Today, the average student loan debt for graduating 
students is $25,000. That's the average. There are, again, millions of 
students who are graduating with six-figure debt. And in an economy 
like the one they're facing today, this is really an obstacle which 
will probably burden them for the rest of their lives. And as we are 
seeing in polls, the cost of college is discouraging many younger 
Americans, high school-age Americans from even considering the 
possibility of pursuing a higher education degree.
  First of all, let's be very clear here. The value of higher education 
is still, despite some critics, indisputable. If you look at the 
unemployment rate today, 9 percent across the board in terms of our 
country, the fact of the matter is that those who have pursued high 
school and above have much lower rates of unemployment today than those 
who have been unable to reach those training levels and education 
levels.
  Nationally, today the graduation rate of the U.S. has now fallen to 
12th internationally. Back in the 1980s, the College Board, which is 
the organization which tracks graduation rates across the globe, 
determined we were number one in the world in terms of college 
graduation rates. Yet today, in 2011, we are 12th. If anybody thinks 
that is a situation which bodes well for our ability to compete 
internationally going into the future, then, frankly, they're not 
paying attention in terms of where the high-value jobs of the future 
are. They are, in fact, in hard sciences; they are, in fact, in areas 
of critical workforce needs which, as baby boomers retire in growing 
numbers across this country, we must have if we are going to continue 
to be a great Nation.

[[Page 18421]]

  Now, let's look at what is happening here in Washington. I think one 
of the reasons why young people are going into the streets of this 
country is the fact that we have a Congress which is not only out of 
touch in terms of listening and responding to this, in fact, they want 
to take us backwards.
  When I first came to Congress in 2007, a new Democratic majority 
moved swiftly to pass the College Cost Reduction Act, which was an 
effort to try to boost the Pell Grant program, which is the workhorse 
of higher education affordability, a program which basically had been 
level-funded for 6 prior years despite the fact that higher education 
costs had gone up 40 percent. We passed the College Cost Reduction Act 
which infused new funding into the Pell Grant program. We cut the 
interest rates for the Stafford student loan program from 6.4 percent 
to 3.2 percent, and we paid for every single penny of those 
expenditures by cutting the bank subsidies which were basically sucking 
Federal dollars away from families and students who need that critical 
help.
  Last year we passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, 
again with a Democratic majority, which provides for a cap in terms of 
loan repayments of 15 percent of your discretionary income and excuses 
loan repayments after 25 years under the Stafford student loan program.

                              {time}  1050

  I was pleased that President Obama, again, just a month or so ago, 
acted to increase the benefit of that program by limiting the 
discretionary income payments to 10 percent of income and lowering the 
forgiveness date to 20 years, from 25 years. This is an administration 
which gets it. This is an administration that understands middle class 
families with children who want to improve themselves and compete in 
their futures need that kind of assistance.
  What did this Republican Congress do? We had a Ryan budget last April 
which gutted and butchered the Pell Grant program and would take us 
back to 2008 levels. So, for example, in Connecticut, where I come 
from, the University of Connecticut would have seen its Pell Grant 
revenue from 2008, which was about $8 million going into the University 
of Connecticut, it would have been cut from where it is today, which is 
$12 million of annual Pell Grant revenue--a $4 million cut to the 
University of Connecticut. And the grant level for students, the 
maximum award, would have been cut from $4,500 a year down to roughly 
about $3,000 a year. That is closing the doors of opportunity to 
millions of Americans. That's what the Ryan budget values and that's 
what its vision was at a time when, again, our country is in crisis in 
terms of needing skilled, qualified workers to deal with the future 
challenge.
  The choice is clear. For those who care about spiraling education 
costs, the Democratic agenda is the one that is on your side.

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