[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8502-8503]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           STUDENT LOAN DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, costs simply explode on 
anything that the Federal Government subsidizes because there are 
simply not the same incentives or pressures to hold down costs as there 
are in the private sector.
  Over the last several weeks, many thousands of young people have 
graduated from our colleges and universities burdened with sizable 
student loan debts.
  It shocks the students of today when I tell them that tuition cost 
only $90 a quarter my freshman year at the University of Tennessee in 
1965-66--$270 for a whole school year. I once heard House Minority Whip 
Steny Hoyer say it cost only $87 a semester when he started at the 
University of Maryland.
  Students today think the Federal student loan program is one of the 
best things that ever happened to them. Actually, it may be one of the 
worst. Until that program started in the mid-1960s, college tuition and 
fees went up very slowly, roughly at the rate of inflation.
  After the Federal Government decided to ``help'' students and start 
subsidizing these costs, tuition and fees started going up three or 
four times the rate of inflation almost every year.
  Last year, columnist Kathleen Parker wrote in The Washington Post 
that since 1985, the cost of higher education has increased 538 
percent, while the Consumer Price Index--inflation--over the same 
period has gone up 121 percent.
  Colleges and universities were able to tamp down opposition to fee 
increases by telling students not to worry, they could just borrow the 
money.
  When I was an undergraduate at UT and later in law school at George 
Washington, students could work part time, as I always did, and pay all 
their college expenses. No one got out of school with a debt because of 
tuition and fees. Now almost everyone does.
  Now, 40 million Americans owe money on student loans. Outstanding 
student loan debts now total over $1.3 trillion. Some analysts think it 
may be a bubble about to burst.
  Floyd Norris, writing in the International New York Times, said: 
``Student loans are creating large problems that may persist for 
decades. They will impoverish some borrowers and serve as a drain on 
economic activity.''
  Hedge fund manager James Altucher wrote that ``we're graduating a 
generation of indentured students.''
  Ohio University economist Richard Vedder several years ago wrote a 
book entitled, ``Going Broke by Degree.''
  Richard Vedder, in an article last August, wrote that ``a political 
storm is brewing in Washington over the consequences of rising college 
costs.'' He added that ``the biggest single cause of this financial 
problem, and a contributor to many other weaknesses in our economy, is 
the dysfunctional, Byzantine system of Federal financial assistance for 
college students.''
  Mr. Vedder pointed out that before the late 1970s, Federal financial 
aid programs for colleges were modest in size, and tuition went up an 
average of only 1 percent above the inflation rate.
  ``Since 1978,'' he wrote, ``in an era of rapidly growing Federal 
financial assistance programs, annual tuition increases have been 3 to 
4 percent a year beyond the inflation rate.''
  In 1987, William Bennett, the Secretary of Education, said: 
``Increases in financial aid have enabled colleges and universities to 
raise their tuition, confident that Federal loan subsidies will help 
cushion the increase.''
  From 1939-1964, Federal student aid--mainly the GI bill--averaged 
just 2.5 percent of university spending.
  From 2002-2014, Federal student loan aid spending averaged a whopping 
33 percent of university spending.

[[Page 8503]]

  Several things, Mr. Speaker, could and should be done to start 
helping solve this problem.
  First, Federal and State legislators, parents, and even students 
themselves should speak out against tuition increases higher than the 
rate of inflation.
  Secondly, colleges and universities that hold these increases down, 
or hopefully someday even lower their costs, should be given priority 
and rewarded in Federal and State grants and appropriations.
  Third, the Congress and State legislatures should hold hearings that 
feature people who have been victimized by taking on heavy student loan 
debts at the start of their careers.
  Fourth, every college or university that receives Federal money--99.9 
percent--should be required to give financial counseling or at least 
some type of simple, easy-to-understand document to every person 
receiving a student loan warning about potential problems.

                              {time}  1045

  Lastly, but most important of all, Federal and State governments 
should give incentives to schools that require professors to teach 
classes rather than writing for obscure journals or doing esoteric 
research that produces no tangible results.
  Too many professors have lost their desire to teach. They seem to 
think 6 hours a week is heavy load. The result is that too many 
students cannot get the classes they need to graduate, and it is now 
taking 5 or 6 years to get a 4-year degree.
  This is a very serious, fast-growing problem, Mr. Speaker, that needs 
major reforms sooner rather than later.

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