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Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, in the United States today, 42 million Americans are drowning in $1.7 trillion in student debt--42 million Americans, $1.7 trillion in student debt. Further, a recordbreaking 9 million Americans are now in default on their student loans.
Instead of providing financial relief to these Americans, the Trump administration is about to make a bad situation even worse.
As we all know, President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill--to my mind the worst piece of legislation passed in modern history--made the largest cut to education in the history of the United States in order to pay for the largest tax breaks for billionaires in American history. Not only did we throw 15 million people off the healthcare they had; we devastated Federal funding for education.
If Congress allows these education cuts to take effect, beginning on July 1, just 6 days from now, 7 million Americans will be thrown off of their low-cost student loan repayment plan, known as the SAVE plan and into a much more expensive plan.
What does that mean in real terms? It means that the average college graduate will be forced to pay $4,000 more each year on their student loan payments, about $244 a month.
At a time when tens of millions of Americans--working-class Americans--are struggling to pay for the outrageous cost of housing, groceries, prescription drugs, healthcare, and other basic necessities, the last thing in the world we should be doing is driving up the cost of student loans by $4,000 for the average student loan borrower in America.
It has been estimated that if these cuts go into effect, one out of every four student loan borrowers will be in default by the end of this summer.
So what does it mean to be in default? It means that workers could have their wages garnished to pay back their student loans. They can't pay their student loans because they are not earning enough money, and then they get their wages garnished and it will be an even worse situation.
It means that seniors who took out student loans for themselves--and I know many people don't appreciate it. They are thinking about student loans, and they are thinking about young people. Well, guess what. There are grandparents who are still paying off their student loans. And it means that these people or their family members could have their Social Security checks garnished.
Imagine going to college, paying off a student debt for 30 or 40 years, and you can't continue to do it; and they are going to take your Social Security payment. In my view, that is unconscionable. We cannot allow that to happen.
And that is why I am very proud to cosponsor S.J. Res. 196, which we will be voting on this evening. And I want to thank Senator Merkley for his outstanding work on this issue. This resolution would ensure that millions of Americans are not forced to pay thousands of dollars more each year on their student loans.
Two weeks ago, I held a roundtable with four student loan borrowers from across the country who shared their stories about the struggles they are having with their student loan debt.
I spoke with a gentleman named Jordan, from my own State of Vermont, who is a veteran and a father of two young boys. He was told that his student loan payment will increase to $1,300 per month after July 1. And other Members who talked with me had very similar stories.
Geraldine, who is 71 years of age, has student loan debt from when she went to college in the 1980s, and decades later, she is still struggling with student loan debt. Geraldine is retired and on a fixed income, and she was told her payments will be over $500 a month after July 1.
And on and on it goes.
If Congress does not pass this resolution today, working-class people all across this country will be priced out of necessary graduate training in programs like nursing, medicine, dentistry, and social work because of new restrictive arbitrary loan limits. What this means is that working-class students will either be unable to get the education they need or they will be forced to take out loans from predatory lenders that charge interest rates as high as 26 percent.
Now, at a time when we desperately need nurses and other healthcare professionals, how insane is it to force students to pay interest rates as high as 26 percent in order to do the important work we desperately need?
At a time when we have a shortage of nurses, doctors, and dentists in this country, it has been estimated that 21 percent of nursing students, more than half of medical students, and three-quarters of dental students will be priced out of a degree altogether.
In my own State of Vermont, 40 percent of students pursuing graduate education will exceed the new loan limits and will be forced to resort to private loans to make up the difference. In the richest country in the history of the world, no one should be saddled with a lifetime of debt for the crime of getting an education.
No American should enter retirement with the burden of student loan debt or be pushed into default because they can't afford their payments.
So let us prevent student loan payments from going up by an average of $4,000 for 7 million Americans. Let us prevent working-class students from being priced out of pursuing degrees in nursing, medicine, and dentistry.
I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution.
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