Debt-Free College

Floor Speech

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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 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.

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