[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 572-573]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           DEBT-FREE COLLEGE

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I wish to speak now about what 
should be a right for young people and all people in this country, 
which is the goal of debt-free college.
  Over the last months, I have held roundtables around the State of 
Connecticut--all around our State--with young people at the college as 
well as high school level who are in danger of losing the American 
dream--their dreams, their choices about where they want to go to 
school, because college for them has become unaffordable. For many who 
have already been to school, the debt is crushing--in fact, financially 
crippling. It is approaching $1.3 trillion, which affects not only 
those students who have graduated and who may be seeking to go to 
college but also our entire economy. Someone graduating from college 
with $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 or $100,000 of debt and then from 
graduate school or law school or business school with that same kind of 
financial burden can't save for retirement, can't start a family, can't 
buy a home, can't begin a business that may employ people.
  College affordability is essential to creating jobs and advancing and 
fueling economic growth. It is an engine of economic growth. It 
enhances the talents and the gifts that young people bring to the 
economy. It provides the skills that are needed now on the assembly 
line and in business. I encounter businesses across Connecticut--and I 
am sure it is true across the country--that tell me: We have jobs, we 
can't fill them, and we can't find young people with the right skills. 
That is why our community colleges play such an important role in our 
educational system.
  The agenda that we have announced today as a caucus will meet this 
need in a number of important ways. It will make 2 years of community 
college tuition-free. It will enable students to refinance their debt 
when interest rates are lower, as they can now with a loan for a car or 
a loan for a home, but not for a Federal loan. It will assure that 
people are enabled a more affordable education by holding colleges 
accountable and make them responsible for the levels of debt their 
students incur, because they should be held accountable when those 
debts default.
  It will take those measures and others that are part of a 
comprehensive agenda that will advance the affordability of college and 
make debt less burdensome, but it will also expand the availability of 
Pell grants and take other measures that will make debt less necessary, 
because the goal should be debt-free college.
  Our ultimate aspiration is debt-free college. We are beginning with 
community colleges that are tuition free, but the ultimate goal ought 
to be debt-free college. That will require expanding Pell grants and 
other scholarship aids and financial assistance programs that now are 
available but simply unacceptably in too small amounts.
  I have two measures that I have offered on my own to be taken as part 
of this total program although they are not part of the act. One would 
recognize students for the public service they perform. If they become 
firefighters or police officers or work at the YMCA or in local 
government, their community service ought to be recognized by reducing 
the debt they owe, not just at the end of 10 years as happens now but 
year by year, pro rata; not just if they stay in the same job but if 
they move from one job to another or even have to move homes, go across 
State lines, expanding the availability of public service recognition 
and credit to reduce college debt. It is much in the spirit of the GI 
Bill. I hope we will move forward to expand the availability of debt 
recognition and reduction for public service.
  I also hope that when our needier students receive assistance for 
room and board when they go to college, they will not be taxed on that 
assistance. That happens now. Why should they be taxed on the room and 
board they need and that assistance to go to college? That is wrong. 
And scandalously and outrageously, it is wrong that the U.S. Government 
makes money off the backs of our students. We should be investing in 
one of the greatest assets in a democracy--people who want to raise 
their skills and talents and education so they can better serve not 
just in the public sector but in the business world, so they can help 
create jobs themselves and become the entrepreneurs and the job 
creators. They can't do it if they are burdened with tens of 
thousands--some hundreds of thousands--in debt. The present levels of 
debt are a disservice to our Nation. They inhibit freedom, they 
undercut opportunity, and they destroy dreams.
  Some of the most moving moments of my roundtables with young people 
are to hear them describe how they could not attend their dream school. 
They called their first choice their dream school and the reason it was 
their dream school is because they could pursue engineering or nursing 
or marketing or other kinds of vitally important skills at that place 
in the best way possible. That was their dream school not because the 
weather was good or because their friends were there but because the 
skill levels and the education offered was exactly the right fit for 
their aspirations. Some cried as they described the unbridgeable gap 
between what they could afford and what the school charged. With what 
they could afford--even with financial aid, even with help from their 
families, and even with debt--they still faced an unbridgeable gap. And 
those dreams dashed, deferred, destroyed for those students are a 
national tragedy. For them, it will shape their futures, although I 
have great confidence that their drive and perseverance will enable 
them to achieve great things. But for our Nation, it means a deferring 
and diminishing of our economy and our national quality of life.
  We are the strongest, greatest Nation in the history of the world 
because we provide more opportunity and more freedom than any other 
country. We are stronger because of our diversity and because we create 
and we reward the dreamers who have the strength and the ability to set 
high standards, to aspire to be the best, and to want an education that 
enables them to achieve those goals.
  The current levels of college debt are inconsistent with who we are 
as a Nation. That is why I am proud today to join my colleagues on this 
side of the aisle and to say to our friends across the way: Join us. 
Let's make it bipartisan. If you have a plan, if you have ideas, if you 
think there are other ways to accomplish things, let's work together, 
because those students, their

[[Page 573]]

families, our Nation, the businesses that are creating jobs and want 
these young people to fill them so we can drive the economy forward all 
depend on us working together, reaching across the aisle and making 
sure that we enable every person, every student who wants to go to 
college to fulfill that dream without the financially crushing burden 
of current levels of debt.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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