Higher Education

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, almost exactly a year ago, when the Trump administration came into office and the new Republican majority again elected its leaders, they promised to focus on the forgotten American, the middle class families that have been left behind, according to the speeches that were given at that time.

Well, there is no issue which I think resonates more powerfully with middle class families than the unrelenting rise in the cost of college and higher education.

Again, the numbers surround us: $1.3 trillion in student loan debt, according to the Federal Reserve Board.

Just a few weeks ago, some colleges and universities, the real flagships of our Nation, the Harvards, the Yales, announced that tuition, room and board now will exceed $70,000 a year.

Again, not every college charges that much, but, unfortunately, if you look historically, as those colleges and universities surpass these unfortunate milestones, most colleges follow right in the wake.

We need action and we need change in terms of making sure that that ticket to success, whether it is in science, technology, engineering, and math, for young Americans is actually going to exist, and this Congress has neglected and failed to move forward.

Just within the last month, what we have seen is the following. The IRS just issued their follow-up rules to the Republican tax bill, which clarifies that families can no longer deduct home equity loans to pay for college. So for a family who has diligently paid their mortgages, whose kid has been accepted to a college and university, who doesn't qualify for Pell grants, who has exhausted their Stafford loans, because those are capped, and who wants to actually use the equity in their house to help pay for college, they can no longer deduct the interest on those payments.

I am very much thankful to the Republican tax bill, which, again, took great care of people who earn over $400,000, whose top marginal rates were drastically cut, or corporations whose rates were drastically cut; but middle class families are, again, now being asked to bear a higher cost for college by cutting off that avenue that, again, millions of families have used over the years in terms of using their home's equity.

In addition, the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos--400 days in office and she has never stepped foot in the Education and the Workforce Committee, which I sit on--last Friday, issued a rule that basically preempted the ability of States attorneys general to issue rules and regulations to protect students and families from unscrupulous loan servicers.

Again, our offices get flooded with calls with frustrated students who graduated and, again, have loan servicers who lose documents, who lose payments. And, again, what was happening at the State level, both Republicans and Democratic attorneys general were putting into place rules and regulations to protect those people caught in these predicaments.

On Friday, the Secretary of Education, a Republican, who supposedly believes in States' rights, told those States that they will be issuing rules preempting States from protecting those people caught in these situations. Unbelievable.

Lastly, last week, the Office of Inspector General, which is a nonpartisan arm of government--its job is to look at government negligence and malfeasance and problems--issued a warning that the Republican higher education bill, which was reported out in December, the misnamed PROSPER Act, will, again, lift all the regulations on for- profit colleges, which, again, take advantage of students, overpromising skills and degrees that turn out to be worthless at the end. Again, we know about ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, which was shut down by the last administration because of the outrageous practices that they were involved in.

The PROSPER Act basically lifts all of those controls that the Department has over them, and it is open season in terms of students who are going to be subject to that kind of environment.

By the way, the group that is probably the most vulnerable are veterans, because their GI Bill is so rich in benefits, those are the ones that for-profit colleges target.

Why do I know that?

Holly Petraeus, General David Petraeus's wife, who was in charge of warning veterans about these problems a couple of years ago--again, the term that she uses is that for-profit colleges see servicemembers as nothing more than dollar signs in uniforms--again, has warned us that this sector of the higher education community needs more scrutiny in terms of making sure that there is real gainful employment for people who go through these colleges, and to make sure that those colleges actually do not siphon off precious GI Bill dollars, Pell dollars and Stafford loans.

It is time for this Congress to wake up and respond to what was one of the most powerful issues in 2016 about the cost of colleges drowning middle class families. But just again in the last month, we have seen this Republican administration and this Congress go in exactly the opposite direction. We need better

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