Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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By Mr. WYDEN:

S. 2098. A bill to support statewide individual-level integrated postsecondary education data systems, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, when we went to college, usually things were different. Often a student took out a loan, but those loans were manageable, and usually there were jobs waiting. Today, too often that is not the case. In fact, the students today who take out loans will leave school weighed down, on average, with $25,000 worth of debt. They are going to be trying to get into a labor market where there are more than four unemployed Americans for every available job.

It has been noted that for the first time student loan debt exceeds credit card debt, and that now totals over $1 billion. Now, clearly, investment in higher education is an economic imperative. Education is the great equalizer. It enables upward economic mobility, and it breaks down class structures that impair many countries' ability to grow their economies. A highly-skilled and educated workforce is the basis for a healthy economy, and it is the linchpin to our economic future.

In every major economic decision our people make, they try to evaluate the value of that decision. Like prospective homeowners who inspect and assess the potential value of their future home, in my view future students should be able to comparison shop and choose a school and a program based on what their return on investment will be.

Our capital markets work best when we can accurately measure the value of the things we choose to invest in. We saw what happens when this is not the case when the housing bubble burst, and our economy is still struggling to recover from the mortgage meltdown. In many instances, consumers who didn't have all the facts bought a product based on misleading information and fell victim to predatory lenders looking to make a profit off that growing bubble.

Consumers must know what they can expect from their investments, and students are entitled to know the value of their education before they go out and borrow tens of thousands of dollars from the banks and from the government to finance their choices. Right now, consumers don't have this information, though the information exists. It is unavailable to students and families too often when they are making perhaps the most important decisions that affect their future--both their financial future and their career.

That is why today I am introducing the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act, which would help college students get the information they need about their education. This proposal would ensure that future students and their families can make well-informed decisions by having access to information on their expected average annual earnings after graduation; rates of remedial enrollment, credit accumulation, and graduation; the average cost, both before and after financial aid, of the program, and average debt upon graduation; and, finally, the effects of remedial education and financial aid on credential attainment and a greater understanding of what student success can mean.

For markets to work, there has to be good information available, and until now it has been extremely hard for students and families to collect this data in a cost-effective way while at the same time ensuring student privacy. However, the States, as we have seen so often--the Presiding Officer of the Senate and I have talked about this from time to time--the States have piloted their own programs and proved that the technology exists to enable our ability to generate and share this information in a way that students and consumers can use while at the same time protecting their privacy.

This technology, in my view, makes it possible to ensure a return on their investment for students, for parents, for policymakers, and taxpayers. It is going to help us create a workforce that meets the demands of the businesses that employ it and ensures that our workers can successfully compete in the global economy.

One last point, if I might. I think it is clear that access to higher education is an integral part of the step ladder to success and particularly success for the middle class who built this country. Chairman Harkin, of course, the chairman of our committee who deals with these issues, has probably done more than any other Member in the Senate to put a focus on this issue and how important it is to grow the middle class and address the big concerns they have faced.

Middle-class people haven't had a pay raise in a full decade. It seems to me as part of the agenda--and Chairman Harkin has had some excellent hearings on these higher education issues--one of the best ways we can come together on a bipartisan basis is to empower students and empower families to be in the best possible position to make the college choices that are going to pay off in the years ahead.

That is what this legislation, the Right to Know Before You Go Act, would do. I hope my colleagues will consider it in the days ahead.

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