Student Loan Debt

Floor Speech

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, like many of my colleagues, I have attended and spoken at a number of college and law school graduations and commencements.

I had the great privilege of speaking to the graduates of Post University on Saturday and at the Quinnipiac Law School just yesterday--both wonderfully exciting and rewarding days full of celebration and pride, well-justified joy and pride in the great accomplishments of these graduates, and more than their past accomplishments, their contributions of the future. These young people are our future. I spoke to them about the challenges and responsibilities that come with the great privilege of having an education from great colleges and universities, undergraduate and law school, the opportunities for public service, to be a champion of right and responsibility, to advocate for people who need their voices and their advocacy, and the responsibilities and opportunities for public service.

Each of them has a great opportunity to give back to our country and to use that education to better all of us as well as themselves. Yet they are leaving college and law school burdened with debt that would have been unthinkable and even unimaginable a decade or so ago. The average in Connecticut is $27,000 of debt per graduate from undergraduate education today.

What I have done over the last 2 days, over the last 2 weeks, over the past month, is really listen to our students at every level--high school as recently as Friday at Bassick High School in Bridgeport, colleges throughout the State of Connecticut--crisscrossing our State to talk on campuses, at roundtables, with students who are burdened--indeed, financially crippled with debt that would have been unthinkable and unimaginable when I was going through the same education. In those days, working to pay for college was possible. Today, the tuition costs are so high it is impossible.

Listening to students across the State of Connecticut, I have heard their stories. I have listened to the amounts they owe and the levels of interest they have to pay. Each of them, by first name--whether it is Buckley at $56,000 or Jerry at $260,000--I could go through them one by one, story by story, voice and face, each with great accomplishment and great potential achievement for the future, for our Nation. Yet they leave college and law school burdened by these debts. These are only a few.

I have promised to come here to tell their stories. I will tell their stories--not all of them but as many as I can, not all today but as many as I can over the next days and weeks--because each of them simply wants a fair shot at American opportunity, at the American dream, at the America all of us thought was possible for all of us when we went to school, a fair shot at the American dream and opportunity in the workplace, at home, in our society.

I venture to guess that every Senator in this body would agree that higher education offers a path to success for hard-working students. There is nothing controversial or partisan about that notion. An opportunity to move more Americans into the middle class is what education does for our Nation. It secures our middle class and enlarges and enhances it.

So investing in higher education really offers a fair shot to everyone seeking to make something of himself or herself to earn a higher standard of living, the professional innovators, business creators, and thinkers whom the system will give us from all kinds of backgrounds all across the country and certainly in Connecticut. So what we need is to maintain educational success so we can sustain our success in the global economy and confront the challenges ahead.

Attending college or graduate school or technical school is a great opportunity but also a great responsibility. Students understand that they are taking on a significant trust obligation with the understanding that they will pay it back. None of them goes into these debts lightly, thinking that they can just avoid it. They are well aware that these debts, by and large, are nondischargeable in bankruptcy, unlike most other debts. They are told and they rightly expect that these additional qualifications will enable them to find a good job and go on to a successful life and have a fair shot at the American dream. They are willing to work for that success. They are willing to pay back these debts. But too often they are not given or afforded the opportunity, realistically, to earn at a level that enables them to reach these goals, which leaves them with a financially crippling debt that serves no one.

Working people who bear a heavy debt burden have to make tough choices about getting married, buying homes, and having children. Entrepreneurs are blocked from starting new businesses. The risk takers and job creators of America have to go to other lines of work where their contribution is derivative, dependent on others rather than inventing and innovating and starting new businesses.

The risk taking that is the foundation and core of the entrepreneurial spirit in America is inhibited--indeed, impeded and sometimes crippled by these debts. These consequences are so widely understood that I hesitate even to take the body's time to recount them now. Yet the U.S. student debt totals $1.2 trillion--much higher than it has ever been before.

I have listened in roundtables to its personal impact on our citizens and their children. I am here to tell their stories--Brittany, for example, who is the first in her family to attend college. She took out loans to attend school. She is over $100,000 in debt. Her school does not offer much in financial aid.

Alese, a mother of three, went back to school when her children were young because, she said, she ``wanted to make sure they had an example to follow when they finished high school'' and she wanted them to ``push forward and excel in their lives.'' She wrote to me, ``I knew that when I finished I would have to pay back those debts ..... what I didn't anticipate was that I would still be paying those debts when my children started going to college.'' She is now $46,000 in debt. Her loans carry a 7-percent interest rate.

Our economy is still recovering from the greatest recession probably in most of our lifetimes. We need people such as Brittany and Alese to participate, young woman to invest in the future. We need to invest in them. They need to feel secure in their ability to support their children. But the mountains of debt confronting students and graduates today are overwhelming.

I am proud to be here with my colleagues to support their fair shot--all of our fair shot in the future because we live through our children. They are our future. It is a platitude we repeat so often, but it is true.

These interest rates are, first of all, unconscionably and unfairly high. Many of them are variable so they can continue in their unprecedented rise when interest rates begin going up again.

The money that comes from increased payments is nothing but profit for the Federal Government. The Federal Government is scheduled to make more than $50 billion in profit on the loans it makes this year. We should see higher education as an investment, not as a revenue opportunity. Those students are our future, not a profit center. We ought to set repayments based on what is in students' and graduates' best interests. It is our best interest as well.

I am proud to join my colleague Senator Elizabeth Warren in introducing legislation that would allow borrowers to refinance their student loans. I am proud to join my colleagues in an effort to enable refinancing of student loans at more affordable rates, just as they do car payments and house payments. We cannot forget about current graduates with existing debt.

As much as we want to make available more aid through Pell grants, lower interest rates on loans being made now, opportunities to pay down those loans based on public service, more disclosure, and more accurate disclosure through the kinds of measures that Senator Franken has introduced and I have joined him, right now we can take this profoundly significant step by supporting a measure that enables refinancing of student loans so that everyone has the benefit of the best, lowest, most affordable interest rate.

I believe graduates who pursue public service ought to have the opportunity to pay down those debts in ways that are expanded, made more flexible and more accessible to more of these graduates. They are necessary to everyone's health and safety, whether they are teaching or policing or fire fighting or advocating for people who need legal assistance or caring for people as doctors in areas where they are needed. Those public service opportunities, as I told the graduates at Post University and at the Quinnipiac Law School, ought to be expanded and enhanced for them and all of our students around the country today, as well as those who graduated in recent years.

Let's make sure in the meantime for people who have this grinding, financial, crippling debt that overhangs them and inhibits economic growth, it is made more affordable. Let's give them a fair shot at economic opportunity. Let's give all the students who are aspiring now in high school, at Bassick or elsewhere, the opportunity to have a fair shot.

I am going to briefly quote some of what some said to me.

``There is no end in sight.''

``I feel like I will never escape this.''

``I don't own a home. I can't. I just work to pay my loan.''

These messages--and I am going to bring them again to the floor--are from the heart of Connecticut. The Presiding Officer could do the same from Hawaii. Every Member of this body could come to the floor with these same messages from the students and graduates of America, the innovators and creators, the home builders and family men and women who simply want a fair shot for themselves and their children.

One person said: ``If there is anything that can be done for struggling families with student loan debt please help.''

Let's help. Let's give them a fair shot.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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