[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5929-5935]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             STUDENT LOANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, I thought, not to speak 
personally, but as I listened to the gentleman from Florida, as I have 
listened to Members as they've taken the floor today, I thought I'd 
like to share a story with the American people, Mr. Speaker, and it's 
my own story.
  I went to college at Wake Forest University. I remember the day I was 
accepted, I was so excited. My parents were excited, too, but we knew, 
as a family with six children, my father having served in the United 
States Air Force for 30 years, that they wanted for me what they wanted 
for all of us, and that was the chance for the American Dream in a 
different way than they had.
  We knew that in order to do that, that it would take a combination of 
academic scholarships, grants, loans, and savings to put together what 
it would take to receive a college education, and so that's what we did 
as a family. I stand here today to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that it 
gives me great sadness to know that Republicans on the other side of 
the aisle would have student loan interest rates increase, double, by 
July 1 without acting in this Congress.
  Today, very sadly, what we did was we said to families--and 
particularly to women, girls who want to go to school--that you have a 
choice: We'll either double your interest rates to 6.8 percent 
beginning in the first year of your college loan or you can have 
preventive health care services. Imagine for the young women across 
this country that their choice is preventive health care services or 
the ability to go to school on a student loan, have that loan, the 
interest rate low, and then pay back that loan over a period of time. 
What a horrible choice.
  Now, we've listened earlier as people talk about building the 
American Dream and climbing the ladders of opportunity to success, but 
that ladder has rungs. One of the rungs of that ladder, as my family 
well knew when I became a freshman in college, is the opportunity to 
get a college education, to do better than the previous generation. 
It's what we want for all of our children.
  I went to school on student loans, and I went to school on student 
loans at a time when, between undergraduate school and then law school, 
I effectively had almost $100,000 in student loans. A quarter of that, 
about $25,000 of that, was paid out to some bank that made a profit.
  Instead, what we have done as Democrats is we, in 2010, passed a 
package of reforms for student loans, lowered the interest rate of 
student loans so that it was affordable, made those loan payments 
affordable and manageable, made sure that when you were coming out of 
school, if you had a job that didn't pay you as much as you needed or 
wanted, that your student loans would be able to be managed and at an 
interest rate that was affordable. That's not what I had, but it's what 
we were able to give our young people today.

                              {time}  1340

  It's what Republicans in this Congress have decided to take away. So, 
then in 2007, we passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. It 
provided relief to students from high interest rates by lowering those 
interest rates. When I came out of undergraduate school and law school, 
I had this array of student loans that had different interest rates. 
Little did I know that when I tried to consolidate those loans, I 
actually ended up paying the higher interest rate.
  Today, when students are graduating from college under what Democrats 
did in 2007, we actually, in this Congress, made sure that the interest 
rates would be affordable, that students would then be able to manage 
them, and that they would be able to pay their loans back. So I want to 
tell you something that I'm not really proud of, and that's that I also 
got in trouble paying my loans back. I didn't make as much as I needed 
to pay those and to balance my other responsibilities. It was 
difficult, but over a period of time, because the program, in fact, was 
affordable, because I knew that we all had--my neighbors--we all had my 
back, that I could pay those student loans back over a period of time.
  Do you know, Mr. Speaker, just 1 month before I was elected to 
Congress, I paid my last student loan? I can still remember that day in 
January writing that check to pay the last of my student loans. Do you 
know how proud I am to have been able to do that? The reason is because 
I knew that when my son was going to college, we were doing the same 
things that my parents did when I went to college, collecting the 
savings and academic scholarships, but also putting together a package 
of loans that would be affordable for him to go to school.
  It's what we do. It's sort of that contract that we have from one 
generation to the next generation. I borrowed for my student loans; I 
paid those student loans off. My son borrowed some for his student 
loans and is now in the process of paying those off.
  But let's look at what Republicans would have us do. First of all, we 
know that if we don't act by July 1 that interest rates will, in fact, 
double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent for 7 million students across 
this country. Already, students across our country bear nearly $1 
trillion in student loan debt, and they struggle in this difficult 
economy, as many are struggling, to pay those loans. But think what 
would happen if the interest rate on those loans was allowed to 
increase to 6.8 percent, to effectively double that interest rate.
  Well, what does that mean for your average student? Well, Mr. 
Speaker, what it means is that a student on average coming out with 
$23,000 in debt would have to pay roughly an additional $11,000 over 
the course of that loan period to make up for that additional interest. 
This makes no sense whatsoever.
  I think that students across the country must be wondering what it is 
that Republicans are doing here in Congress that would have them double 
their interest rate, especially when we're talking about a part of our 
population that's done everything that we've asked of them. They 
succeeded in high school. They're going on to college. They are coming 
out with a promise of a hope for a good job and to be able to do better 
than the previous generation. And we're saying to them--Republicans in 
this House are saying to them, instead, we want to double your interest 
rate. We want you to pay not just the $23,000 that you owe, but an 
additional $11,000 in interest.
  More than that, what we've heard from some even on this House floor 
is that there are many on the other side of the aisle who don't believe 
that we should have a federally subsidized student loan program at all, 
education for those who are wealthy who can afford it, but for middle 
class families, not the ability to get a student loan and to pay that 
loan back in a manageable way over a period of time.
  So we stand united as Democrats and say we are not going to sacrifice 
middle class families and stack them up against women's health care. We 
want to make sure that we pay for these lowered student loan interests 
by ending a corporate tax break. That seems fair enough. Yet, 
Republicans on the other side of the aisle will simply not be 
reasonable and agree with what the

[[Page 5930]]

overwhelming majority of American people agree to, and that is that we 
should have student loans that are available and accessible to middle 
class families.
  So I'll have more to say on this, Mr. Speaker, but at this time, I 
would like to recognize the gentlelady from Oregon, new to the 
Congress, who will join me in this discussion about student loans and 
student loan interest, Ms. Bonamici.
  Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you to my colleague for yielding. I'm so happy to 
be here today with my colleagues in support of preventing a drastic 
hike on student loan interest rates. Education truly is the key to 
improving our economy and ensuring a strong America for generations to 
come, but current barriers to higher education jeopardize those goals 
for too many. Education needs to be accessible to everyone, not just to 
those who can pay tuition out of their pocket.
  I'm proud to be a cosponsor of the Stop the Rate Hike Act, which will 
prevent a jump in student loan interest rates, but not at the expense 
of health care for vulnerable populations and women.
  Federal student loans play a significant role in improving access to 
education. If we allow interest rates to double on July 1, this key 
component of college affordability will become an increased burden on 
millions of students across the country who currently have student 
loans. The average amount of loan debt for these students is more than 
$23,000, and if we don't prevent this hike in interest rates, they will 
see their debt burden increase by an average of $1,000 just this year.
  Now, I'm pleased that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
recognize the importance of preserving affordable interest rates for 
students, but I'm disappointed in proposals that would guarantee these 
rates at the expense of other struggling populations. The prevention 
and public health fund is a critical tool that decreases costs and 
improves access to health care for a number of populations, including 
women and children. If fully funded, in 2013 women and children will 
have access to many lifesaving screenings and preventive care, like 
funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings and childhood 
vaccinations. Without this important fund, many women and children 
would not be able to access these tests, leading to poorer outcomes and 
increased costs on our health care system in the future. Now, I'm 
hopeful that the Senate will act to prevent a jump in loan interest 
rates and send a bill back to the House that does not cut preventive 
health care funding.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to improve our education 
system, create jobs, and continue our economic recovery without 
reversing the important steps forward we've made to improve access to 
health care.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I thank the gentlelady from Oregon, and I was just 
reminded as I listened to her that in her State of Oregon, something on 
the order of 119,000 students will see an increase of about $93 million 
in interest rates if this takes place on July 1.
  In my own home State of Maryland, 103,400 students would see an 
increase in interest rates if the rate is allowed to go up from 3.4 
percent now to double at 6.8 percent, and in Maryland, that would be to 
the tune of $80 million. These are extraordinary numbers, and that 
burden would be borne by those to whom we've said, you've done the 
right thing, you've gone to college, you've paid for your college, and 
now you're going to be able to repay your loans, but we want you to pay 
additional student loan interest because the Republicans have refused 
to act without also taking away preventive health care.
  These are really extraordinary numbers, Mr. Speaker, and I think when 
the American people hear about the danger that is afoot come July 1 
with the increase in student loan interest, middle class families all 
across this country will be completely outraged.
  With that, I'd like to yield a few minutes of time to my colleague 
from New York (Ms. Clarke).
  Ms. CLARKE of New York. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. Today, 
the House passed H.R. 4628, the Interest Rate Reduction Act, or, as I 
like to refer to it, the ``take from the poor--give to the poor not in 
our interest act.''
  This Republican-led bill will prevent the student loan interest rate 
from doubling to 6.8 percent, but in doing so would effectively gut the 
prevention and public health trust fund, a key component of the 
Affordable Care Act. When my Republican colleagues finally acknowledged 
the need to prevent student loan interest rates from rising on July 1, 
I had a glimmer of hope, hope that somewhere in their hearts remained 
some small bit of compassion for their fellow Americans. But I was 
quickly slapped back into reality when I saw that the Republicans 
intended to pay for this bill, as they usually do, on the backs of 
middle class families and the poor.
  The prevention and public health trust fund was created to ensure 
adequate funding for preventive health initiatives. These initiatives 
help to improve the health of poor and middle class families and, by 
improving health, also help to lower health care costs.
  Initiatives supported by this fund are successful because they are 
community-based, and as such, are uniquely tailored to the needs of 
targeted communities. Already, there are several key initiatives 
supported by the fund that benefit Americans. Two of the initiatives 
which directly benefit the 11th Congressional District of New York are 
the Chronic Disease Prevention Act, which enables communities to use 
evidence-based intervention to reduce chronic conditions and prevent 
heart attacks, diabetes, strokes, and other conditions; and the HIV/
AIDS Prevention Act, which focuses on HIV prevention in high-risk 
populations and communities by increasing HIV testing opportunities, 
linking HIV positive persons with needed services and filling critical 
gaps in data collection.
  To eliminate funding for programs that improve the health and lives 
of millions of Americans and lower health care costs is not prudent, 
which is why this ill-conceived bill is the wrong way to address this 
crisis. Luckily, there are two ways that this crisis can be averted. 
Specifically, I ask that Speaker Boehner bring to the floor either H.R. 
3826, a bill introduced by my friend and colleague, Representative Joe 
Courtney, or H.R. 4816, a bill introduced by another of my Democratic 
colleagues, John Tierney.
  While both bills will prevent an increase in the student loan 
interest rate, H.R. 4816 would also pay for this by decreasing the 
amount of subsidies given to Big Oil companies. So, as opposed to 
paying for this interest rate freeze on the backs of the middle class 
and the poor, the Democratic-sponsored H.R. 4816 would require that Big 
Oil companies pay their fair share.

                              {time}  1350

  So in closing, I'm issuing a call to action to all students, 
postgraduates, and their families: pick up the phone, email, tweet and 
send a Facebook message and demand that he immediately either bring 
H.R. 3826 or H.R. 4816 to the floor for a vote.
  So, my colleagues, we have a challenge ahead of us: Do we take from 
the poor to give to the poor, or do we do what is right by the American 
people? And that is, to make sure that our students' interest rates do 
not increase and that we meet the demands for health care in our civil 
society.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I thank the gentlelady from New York. And I just wanted 
to point out to her, as she well knows from New York, that 422,000 
students, if this is allowed to happen on July 1, would see an increase 
of interest rates from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. For those 422,000 
students in New York, that would mean $340 million in increased 
interest rates.
  So I think we can see all across the country and, just really, Mr. 
Speaker, would like to urge our students out there and our families to 
think about what this would mean for them, 7 million students across 
this country doing exactly what we ask them to and facing a doubling of 
interest rates on July 1.
  I notice that we've been joined today by my colleague from Ohio, 
who's going to help us understand also what's

[[Page 5931]]

happening in the State of Ohio--the home of Ohio State, where I know a 
lot of students must be paying attention to the fact that their 
interest rates will double on July 1.
  Mr. Ryan.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I thank the gentlelady, who is also a graduate of 
the University of New Hampshire Law School--two proud graduates.
  I would just like to chime in and talk a little bit because Ohio is a 
State that, since the inception of the State into the Union, we have 
always, in Ohio, made investments into our schools, our colleges, our 
universities through the land grant system and whatnot, because there 
was always this deep appreciation for education, knowing that as we 
move, as this country moved throughout the industrial age into the 
information age now, how essential it is for our kids to be able to go 
to school and to be able to go to community college and to be able to 
go to college and to be able to take a loan out, which many, many years 
ago they really didn't have to do because the Pell Grant was at a level 
that they didn't really necessarily need a loan. You could get a part-
time job or a summer job or work back in your community throughout the 
year, over the holidays, and be able to supplement. Your parents could 
help out a little bit, and you would be able to get an education.
  Today, because of the explosion in education costs, many of us 
believe that there is a responsibility for all of us collectively as a 
society to do something that we can't do on our own, and that's make 
investments in education and allow every citizen in this country, if 
they want to, to go to college. But knowing that not everyone wants to 
go to college, maybe they want to go to community college, which is 
fine, but it's about ramping up the education level in the United 
States of America, and it's about making sure that it's affordable.
  This is kind of a divisive issue here in Congress. Today, it came to 
a head right here on the House floor, where there was one side of the 
aisle that said we want to make these investments and make sure that 
the student loan rates don't double to 6.8 percent from 3.4 percent 
because that will be a burden on middle class families and that will be 
a further burden on parents who are cosigning or paying these student 
loans, or more of a burden for the student who wants to graduate from 
college and then maybe go out and have a decent start in life without a 
$20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000-a-year debt hanging over their head. That 
would do a lot to stimulate the economy. And we have the other side who 
said, well, we don't want to do that, but the political pressure got so 
hot that we're going to do that, and we're going to take it out of 
screenings for poor and middle class women to get cancer screenings.
  Now, what I really dislike about what's happened in this country in 
the last few years, it's come down to either screw the little guy or 
screw the little guy. We can't do one or the other. We can't ask for 
the Buffett rule. We can't ask for a little bit more money from Warren 
Buffett so that we can invest into these kinds of things. We certainly 
can't ask the oil and gas industry to pay a little bit more and close a 
loophole so that we can afford to pay for education for all of our 
citizens. We can't restructure the Tax Code and make investments that 
are going to yield a huge benefit for early childhood, for example. So 
what are we doing?
  This doesn't make any sense because America hasn't become successful 
because we failed to invest. We became successful because America 
always invested. We always put money into education. We always put 
money into research and development. We always made sure that our 
education level was to the level of the technology of its time.

                              {time}  1400

  And that's what we're talking about here. And in Ohio, we need these 
investments because the middle class in Ohio has been squeezed, 
consistently squeezed. For 30 years, wages have been stagnant.
  So now, if you're sitting in Ohio, and you're a member of the 
building and construction trades, plumbers and pipe fitters, or cement 
masons or electrical workers, now in Ohio, they're trying to pass a 
right-to-work-for-less legislation too, which means that the average 
worker in a State that has right-to-work-for-less laws, makes about 
$1,500 a year less than a State that doesn't have it. Their health 
insurance is 2.6 percentage points lower in right-to-work States. Your 
pensions are lower.
  So imagine you're this person who's trying to make ends meet in Ohio, 
and your wages have been stagnant for 30 years. And now they're going 
to say--the Republican Party is pushing--we'll do right-to-work. So 
you'll see lower wages, lower health care benefits, and worse pensions.
  Then the Republicans in Congress, in the House, are passing a bill 
saying, oh, by the way, you're only going to make $1,500 a year less. 
But if you have a student loan that you signed on to for your son or 
daughter, you're going to have to pay double that interest rate. Or if 
you get a student loan, you're going to have to pay double the interest 
rate that it is now.
  If you have health care, and maybe your kid was going to stay on it 
because he's under 26, or she's under 26 years old, the Republicans 
want to repeal that. So now your kid's got to go out and get health 
care and pay more on a student loan, while you're making $1,500 a year 
less, and your pension's going to be less, and your health care's going 
to be less.
  What are we doing? This is not the kind of America that we all 
believe in. And the student loan issue, I think, cuts right to the 
heart of it.
  Then you have this compounding assault on the American worker, 
whether it's right-to-work-for-less, or whether it's destroy collective 
bargaining, as they tried to do in Ohio last year. And now it's the 
student loans. And now we can't even ask Warren Buffett to help out.
  I think it's time for us to all wake up as Americans and say, wait a 
minute, where's the balance? Where's the fairness? Where's the 
investments into our future?
  Many of us are either sons and daughters or grandsons and 
granddaughters or great grandsons and great granddaughters of 
immigrants. And the value placed upon education in those families is 
because that was the way out. That was the way out. That was the way to 
have success in America.
  And what scares me about this is that this is not the kind of America 
many of us believe in. This is not the kind of America many of us want, 
and this is the kind of America that is very, very shortsighted and 
where we're going to end up.
  Let me just say, lastly, and I'll yield back to the gentlelady, do we 
really think, with 300 million to 400 million people in America, do we 
really think that we're going to be competitive with 1.3 billion or 1.4 
billion people in China, 1.2, 3 or 4 or 5 billion people in India, if 
we're not making the adequate investments into education?
  And so these folks at home who will have to deal with right-to-work, 
student loans, less pensions, less health care, less this, less that, 
at the same time the tax burden is going to be pushed onto them. 
They'll be forced to vote on the local property tax for police and 
fire. They'll be forced to vote on a local property tax for their local 
school levies, mental health, the whole nine yards. And it's getting 
continuously squeezed for the middle class. And this student loan 
issue, and what's happening with the rates here and the cuts that are 
being made here are a major part of that.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I'd like to thank the gentleman. And I'm reminded as 
he's speaking that there are middle class families in Ohio and all 
across this country for whom this isn't just about feeling good about 
making sure that young people can go to college. It's about making 
certain that our middle class families aren't just struggling, but 
they're really surviving in this economy and in the economy going 
forward.
  I was reminded again that in Ohio 379,000 students would see an 
increase of about $294 million if this increase in student loans is 
allowed to go forward.

[[Page 5932]]

And I think about those students at Ohio State University, at Oberlin 
College, at Xavier. I could name a lot of them.
  I remember, as a second grader, living on Wright Patterson Air Force 
base in Dayton, Ohio, and there was not a moment in second grade that 
my parents didn't impress on me that one day I would go to college. My 
mom and dad didn't know how I would go to college, but they knew that I 
had to go. And at the time I was such a fan of all those great Ohio 
universities.
  But I also knew that were I to go then or to go now, that in addition 
to our savings and to academic scholarships, and maybe even Pell 
Grants, I would also need to take out student loans. And that's the 
situation that students in Ohio and across this country face, in 
realizing that on July 1, without action by this Congress, Republicans 
and Democrats owe it to middle class families to make sure that those 
student loans don't increase. Everything else is increasing. Let's not 
increase the interest rate on student loans. And I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think when you're looking at a State like Ohio, 
and like many States, like Maryland, like Pennsylvania, where you're 
retooling your economy, you've got to grow scientists, engineers, 
people involved in technology, in math, and you've got to grow that 
field so that we can generate the new generation of jobs necessary.
  And you've also got to educate the workforce. So no more high school 
diplomas. Not even a year. But get into these apprenticeship programs 
that the unions have. Get into the community college so we start 
lifting up.
  If we want to do advanced manufacturing, if we want to sell products 
globally to the world, and wind and solar and the new renewables, 
whatever the case may be, batteries, whatever, those workers on the 
factory floor have to have skills that they're not going to get in high 
school, and this is all part of that program.
  So I want to thank the gentlelady for taking the time to do this 
Special Order and look forward to continuing to support her and the 
Democrats as we try to bring some sanity to this place.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I thank the gentleman. Yet again, here we are, we're 
talking about a situation where, since January, the President and 
congressional Democrats, since January of this year, have been urging 
Republicans to please act so that we don't see an increase in student 
loan interest from 3.4 percent, a doubling, to 6.8 percent.
  And here we are in April; and April is a time when many families, 
young people have received their notification that they've been 
accepted into college. They've received maybe notification of a 
scholarship opportunity.
  They also know that their families may have to dig into their 
savings, or they'll have to get a job; and then they begin to think too 
about applying for and receiving that student loan so that it puts 
together the full package of what's needed to go to college. Those are 
the decisions that here, in April, families all across this country are 
making. And they're making those decisions, not knowing whether this 
Congress is going to fail to act that would result in an increase and a 
doubling of student loan interests, that would cost students not just 
the $23,000 in debt that they're likely to graduate college holding on 
to and needing to repay, but an additional $11,000 over the course of 
that loan, over the history of that loan and the repayment. I think 
it's really shameful.
  I know that there are some in this country who didn't have to worry 
about how to pay for college. I know that there are some in this 
country who didn't have to wake up and know that they had to get into a 
work-study program, or do like I did, wait tables in addition to going 
to class, in addition to receiving loans, in addition to receiving 
scholarships to pay to go to school. But that's the exception in this 
country; it's not the rule.
  The overwhelming majority of students across this country who go to 
college, who want to do better because their parents want them to do 
better than they did, have to do a combination of things in order to 
afford college, whether it's a 4-year institution or community college 
and getting those skills to put you into the workforce or an 
apprenticeship program. This is the situation that our students and 
their families are facing.
  With that, I'd like to yield time to my good friend from Rhode Island 
(Mr. Cicilline).

                              {time}  1410

  Mr. CICILLINE. I thank my colleague, Ms. Edwards, for having this 
conversation this evening and to say how important it is for me and the 
residents of my State, the State of Rhode Island.
  Rhode Island is, of course, the home of the great Senator Claiborne 
Pell after whom the Pell Grants were named for his great work in 
ensuring there was access to affordable higher education. There was a 
recent report that was done that said from the year 2008 to 2018, it's 
estimated that there will be 47 million job openings created, and more 
than 30 million of these jobs will require at least some level of 
postsecondary education.
  So this is really about thinking about the future of the economy of 
our country and our ability to meet the demands of the new economy of 
the 21st century. And it's an economic imperative for families that 
they have the ability to access higher education and to do it in an 
affordable way.
  In my State, this is particularly important where we have very high 
unemployment. Young adults in 2010 from the ages from 16-24, there is 
an unemployment rate in Rhode Island of nearly 27 percent, and in 2011, 
at 22 percent for that same age group. That's between 16,000 and 17,000 
young adults without the ability to find work in those 2 years.
  This is a very important issue. I have talked to so many of my 
constituents, both students and families, who are worried about their 
ability to continue to access education, that are making decisions as 
they're getting their letters in the mail about where they are going to 
go to school and thinking about what those costs will be.
  What is incredibly disappointing is what we saw today in this 
Chamber; we've seen this movie before. We saw it during the extension 
of the payroll tax cut. We saw it in the transportation bill, this idea 
of a very urgent need that we have to address working in a bipartisan 
way and at the very final hours, some poison pill is thrown into the 
bill that is obstructing progress on this issue. Today it was women's 
health and children's health and cutting nearly $12 billion from an 
important wellness and prevention fund to do this.
  Look, we have got to do this for the sake of young people in this 
country who are in school, who have school loans, who are thinking 
about new opportunities. We have got to prevent this increase in 
interest rates. It's important to families who are struggling in a 
really difficult economy, but it's also important to the future of our 
country. We have got to be in the position to ensure the best talent 
has the ability to access education in this country.
  You know, there are so many young people who, without school loans, 
will never have the opportunity to pursue higher education and to 
pursue their dream or to make a life for themselves and their family. 
We have a responsibility to be sure that we keep these rates low, as 
low as we possibly can so that young people and families are not having 
to struggle with this additional burden at a time when we want to be 
encouraging as many young people as possible to be pursuing higher 
education and the opportunities and careers that come with it.
  I come from a State that understands that investing in education is 
critical to families and critical to economic opportunity. Education 
still is the best tool to bring people from poverty into the middle 
class and beyond, and we have got to make sure that it's available to 
every single American.
  I'm very disappointed today that the measure was undertaken in the 
way that it was, and the President has already indicated an intention 
to veto this proposal. There are other proposals that we have in this 
House I'm a

[[Page 5933]]

cosponsor of that will do this in a responsible way that have 
bipartisan support in the Senate. We have got to do this for the sake 
of young people in this country, and we owe it to families to ensure 
that this rate does not double on July 1.
  I thank the gentlelady for her leadership on this, and I am proud to 
continue to be part of this important fight for the sake of the future 
of our young people and for the sake of the future for our country.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentleman from Rhode Island and just 
want to point out to him, as I've pointed out to others of my 
colleagues here, and thank you so much for your eloquence, not just 
about what those loans mean to individual families, but what they mean 
as an economic imperative for the 21st century. As Democrats, we 
recognize that.
  I would note that in the great State of Rhode Island, we have an 
opportunity for 43,000 students in your State, Mr. Cicilline, to make 
sure that students aren't facing an additional $34 million in increase 
because of what might happen on July 1.
  As Republicans and as Democrats, we can do something about this. We 
don't have to get to a point where we're saying to students for the 
future that we really don't care about you. We don't care about the 
fact that we helped you do and be all that you can through high school, 
but now we're going to dump you when it comes to going to college.
  So I thank the gentleman for his leadership.
  Up until today, the Republican majority has simply refused to 
acknowledge that this hike would affect millions of students and 
families, 7 million students across this country. Perhaps today after a 
reversal by the assumed Republican Presidential nominee, we voted on a 
bill that would finally address the issue. But it's so sad that they 
did that at the expense of health care for working families.
  No one understands that more than the gentlewoman from the District 
of Columbia, my friend and my neighbor. I'd like to take a moment to 
recognize her and her leadership. If I recall, she taught at a law 
school and understands those students who really struggle to get 
through and make sure they're doing what they need to do academically, 
but that they're able to pay for a quality education; and I'd like to 
recognize the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).
  Ms. NORTON. I want to thank my very good friend from Maryland, 
Congresswoman Edwards. It's so typical of her to come to the floor on 
an urgent issue like this.
  I have to chuckle when you say about my having been a tenured 
professor of law at Georgetown, the gentleman from Rhode Island who was 
one of my students and the gentleman from Detroit was another. So it 
makes me feel pretty ancient, but it makes me feel very good, also, to 
see that my students got elected to the Congress while I was still 
here.
  I can't imagine what the gentleman from Rhode Island went through 
because I never experienced it, but he probably had college loans 
coming out of college. Don't even let me talk about tuition at 
Georgetown Law School. A very good law school, but one of the most 
expensive in the country.
  As a matter of fact, I'm still a tenured professor of law at 
Georgetown because under the rules of the House, you can teach and 
still be a Member. So I teach one course there every year. I'm coming 
to the end of the school year. I go over every other Monday just to 
keep my brain intact. Sometimes this is a place that gets your brain 
out of order. It's certainly out of order when it comes to student 
loans.
  The notion that we have to come to the floor today to plead for 
student loans during a recovery from the great recession, when these 
great people get out of school, they are not likely to get a job. The 
very least you would think this Congress could do effortlessly would be 
to say, Look, you had to take loans; you have to pay interest. We know 
that means that you're going to be delayed years from doing what all of 
us did, which was to buy a house pretty early in our careers.
  These students will not have the credit to buy a house. First of all, 
they'll have to pay off their loans. They can't liquidate them in 
bankruptcy. As with other debts. Now they face the possibility of a 
doubling of their interest. When Democrats were in power, we adjusted 
those interest rates. What a cruel hoax, to let them double, 
particularly since we're just coming out of a recovery.
  College students are now beginning to get jobs for the first time. 
They have started out their careers without any jobs and are faced with 
humongous loans. I don't know how people go to graduate school like my 
good friend from Rhode Island.
  Of course, if you go to certain kinds of graduate schools, there are 
stipends but for people in graduate education, there are only loans on 
top of their undergraduate loans. If you go to law school and medical 
school, you're really on your own. Those are professional schools. 
You're going with a huge amount of debt.
  In my own district, which, remember, is only one city, the borrowers 
this year were almost 65,000, and if the interest rates increase, it 
will bring them to something over $13 billion.

                              {time}  1420

  I don't even want to tell my constituents that. They're depending on 
me to do something about it. And here on the floor we hear nonsense 
about ``how are you going to pay for it?'' Are you going to pay for it 
by stripping health care for women, children, for your parents in order 
to keep your interest rates from going up? Are you going to pay for it 
by leaving Big Oil alone in order to keep your interest rates from 
going up? Our values are way off-kilter when we haven't reached a 
solution by now, when we're this close to a drop-dead date. That's what 
it will mean for many students.
  We haven't come to an understanding, first, that we'll raise it. The 
President had to go around the country, making it clear that this issue 
was on the front burner, because it certainly wasn't there until he did 
so. Now people come forward. For example, Mr. Romney said, he's for 
making sure these rates don't go up. But does he have an idea about how 
to make sure they don't go up? Why doesn't he tell our colleagues here 
in the House how to make sure they don't go up so that they don't hurt 
one group of citizens in order to help another group of citizens?
  So we come to the floor today--I along with the gentlelady from 
Maryland and the gentleman from Rhode Island--because we don't intend 
to let this issue go until we, in fact, find a way to pay for the loans 
we have told young people to take.
  We told them, Go to college. Yes, you'll have a little debt, but go 
to college and you are made. We've already broken that promise because 
they come out of college now, and they don't have the workforce 
opportunities that we, ourselves, had. Let's not break another 
promise--the promise that they will not be stuck with a debt which is 
much greater than the debt they already pay. The debt they already pay 
will delay their coming into the same kind of life style that their 
parents have. Yes, they're going home to live with their parents 
because, if you've got this student debt, you're hardly able to go out 
and rent an apartment in Washington, in Maryland, or in Rhode Island. 
Yes, they're going home. If we want to make sure that they're able to 
strike out on their own, the one thing we don't want to do is to burden 
them with a greater debt than they already have, and they have on the 
average a $25,000 debt.
  Even when I got out of school--you know, that was sometime in the 
18th century--I cannot imagine what I would have done with a $25,000 
debt. Even in real terms today, that's a lot of money, friends. If we 
care at all about our young people, we will find a way that does not 
rob Peter to pay Paul in order to relieve them of this debt.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentlewoman and thank her especially 
for her leadership.
  As you were speaking, I was doing a little calculating. I went to 
undergraduate school at Wake Forest University. I had academic 
scholarships

[[Page 5934]]

and some student loans, and I also waited tables in order to pay for my 
expenses. Had I not been able to get those student loans, having only 
the combination of academic scholarships and waiting tables, I would 
not have been able to have afforded to go to school. I came out with 
student loan debt from undergraduate school, and then I worked for a 
time, saved a bit, and went to law school. But even out of law school, 
I still couldn't pay all of my living expenses and all of my tuition 
without also taking out student loans.
  When I finished law school, the combination of my loans from 
undergraduate school and my loans from law school totaled about $75,000 
plus. Over the period of time that I paid that back, I paid back a 
total of about $100,000 because of the combination of interest rates 
over the period of time. I paid my last student loan payment almost 1 
month to the day before I was elected in my primary election in coming 
to Congress.
  My mother raised six children. We knew almost from the time that we 
could speak a word that we would go to college. My father was in the 
United States Air Force. He served for nearly 30 years. We lived all 
over the country and around the world. They worked really hard, but 
with six children on a military income and retirement, they knew that 
they wouldn't be able to fully pay out of savings--what savings with 
all those mouths to feed?--in order for us to go to college. They 
wanted their children to go to college. They wanted their children to 
have the kind of opportunities for the future that they did not have 
for themselves.
  My story, though it happened some time ago, is the story of American 
families today, whose young people are preparing to graduate from high 
school. They're preparing for high school graduations over these next 
couple of months. They want to go to college, and many of those 
students right now, today, in having received those April notices of 
college admissions and financial aid determinations, know that through 
some combination of savings and loans and Pell Grants and work and work 
study that they will put together the puzzle pieces of a college 
education so that they can afford it. Parents and students all across 
the country are making this decision.
  For those students who are coming out of high school in this season, 
July 1 is our deadline. July 1 is our deadline to ensure that interest 
rates will not double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent because, by 
August 1 and late in August, those students will have to pack their 
trunks and their bags in order to go away to college. We owe them the 
commitment to know what their obligation is going to be for the 
repayment of those student loans and to know that they will not be 
faced with a doubling of interest rates over the course of their period 
of time in college.
  Let's think of what this means to them. What it means is that we're 
saying to our students, we want you to study engineering and science 
and math and technology. We want you to come out of school and to be 
teachers and to be inventors and innovators and entrepreneurs. But we 
are unwilling to make sure that you're able to do that by giving you 
the tools that you need for success.
  One of those things for some students across this country--for many 
students, for 7 million students--is the ability to get student loans 
that are affordable, and to have some sense that over the period of 
time that they're in college and they graduate college and the economy 
is better and they get jobs that they will be able to repay those loans 
so that some other generation of students can also go to school and do 
the same thing.
  So why am I passionate about this? I am passionate about it because 
it's my story, and because it's the story of middle class families all 
across this country who know that they want to do better, who struggle 
to do better, and who experience the rug being ripped out from under 
them because we want to ask our middle class families to either double 
your interest rates or sacrifice your health care. Those are the 
choices we're asking our middle class families to make. In today's 
economy, there is not a greater predictor of individual success than a 
good education. This is a fact. But if it's a fact, then we need to 
make the investment that makes that fact a reality for our students 
across this country.
  Right now, as many have pointed out on this floor, the unemployment 
rate for Americans with a college degree or more is about half of the 
national average. That means that, when you graduate, even if you have 
student loans that are affordable and can be repaid, you have some 
opportunity to do that because you will have done better, and you will 
have had the opportunity to do better than the student who only gets a 
high school education. The incomes for those who graduate from college 
are twice as high as those who don't have a high school diploma.

                              {time}  1430

  Higher education, whether we're talking about a 4-year institution or 
a 2-year institution at a community college, is the clearest path that 
we have to middle class success. If we are going to build a ladder of 
opportunity for the American people, then one of those rungs has to be 
student loans and another rung is a Pell Grant; another rung is job 
training; another rung is to make sure that our families are eating and 
that our children are immunized. There are many rungs. And this 
Congress has an obligation to make sure those rungs of that ladder are 
available to the American people.
  Democrats and Republicans both say they want to build a competitive 
workforce, but let's be clear that it's the Democrats--my colleagues 
here in the Congress--who time and time again actually stand up for the 
students with the skills that will be needed to comprise that 
competitive workforce.
  So I look at the things Democrats have done over this period of time. 
We've increased the maximum Pell Grant from $4,050 in 2006 to $5,550 in 
2010. We created the American Opportunity Tax Credit that provides a 
maximum of $2,500 in a tuition tax credit to eligible families and 
students. We created income-based repayment to ensure that graduates 
can manage their loan repayments during stressful economic times.
  I remember when I came out of undergraduate school and law school and 
really wanted to work in the public-interest sector, and I did. But I 
wasn't paid as much as some of my colleagues who were going into law 
firms and other kinds of practice. Would that I could have paid my 
student loans back based on my income.
  Well, that's the kind of opportunity that we've provided for students 
for the future. We've provided loan forgiveness for graduates who 
actually go into public-interest careers, who go into teaching careers 
after 10 years of loan payments. We've required schools to have an 
online calculator so that students and families can estimate their 
costs based on their family's financial situation. We've supported 
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving 
institutions. This is the way that Democrats have supported middle 
class families and poor families in their ability to achieve the 
American Dream. I would only ask that my colleagues on the Republican 
side of the aisle do the same.
  With that, we have about 5 minutes left to continue our conversation 
with the American people. So I will yield just a moment to the 
Congresswoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).
  Ms. NORTON. I want to thank my friend from Maryland.
  I want to add to her list because importantly when our party, the 
Democrats, took control, the interest rates were where they will go in 
July. They were at 6.8 percent. We felt the pain, and we lowered those 
rates to their present 3.4. But the way they were phased in, they would 
go up again to 6.8. Do you see what we were trying to do in 2007? We 
recognized this was a major issue and took those rates down, which I'm 
sure encouraged many people to go to college in the first place.
  Now we have young people with an unemployment rate of about 14 
percent if you're between 20 and 24. That's terrible when you consider 
that nationally it's about 8 percent. And I'm very distressed that 
already there is an almost 15 percent increase delinquency

[[Page 5935]]

rates in student loans, which will add to the interest rates were 
talking about and the interest rates that we're trying to keep at least 
level.
  I want to thank you again for leading this Special Order so that 
America knows before it's too late.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I thank the gentlewoman.
  Now I would like to recognize for a moment the gentleman from Rhode 
Island (Mr. Cicilline).
  Mr. CICILLINE. I want to thank the gentlelady for yielding.
  I want to say that the gentlelady from the District of Columbia is 
right, Georgetown Law School is very expensive.
  I too had student loans to go to law school and worked two jobs also 
as a waiter to do that. And I didn't know anybody who was in law school 
with me that wasn't there with some loan. I didn't know anyone that I 
met that either they or their parents wrote a check for the tuition. 
That's the experience of millions and millions of families all across 
this country.
  I was listening to the gentlelady recount all of the work that the 
Democrats have done in investing in education, and it's because we 
realize it's not about us. It's about the future of our country. These 
are investments in young people who are going to be the leaders of this 
country, and access to education is so central to the American Dream.
  I really just want to conclude by thanking the gentlelady for leading 
this conversation. I hope it will help really be a call to action for 
young people all across this country on Tuesday. I'm having a call-to-
action in my district encouraging young people to demand that Congress 
do the responsible thing, prevent this rise in interest rates, but also 
continue to make the investments we need to make in education for their 
sake and for our sake.
  I thank the gentlelady for the time.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I thank the gentleman, and I thank all of our 
participants today in calling attention to the fact that Democrats have 
proposed ending tax subsidies for oil and gas companies so that we can 
use those savings and actually help to pay for need-based college loans 
where they are and to help pay down the deficit.
  Republicans are cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and 
they're throwing that debt onto students and families.
  To be clear, this is not a partisan issue. It's a student issue; it's 
a family issue; it's an American issue. It's about our competitiveness 
in the economy. And I want to call all young people across this Nation 
of all political persuasions to reach out to their Members of Congress 
and say, stop the increase on student loans from doubling from 3.4 
percent to 6.8 percent, costing millions of dollars to students across 
this country.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________