Providing for Consideration of H.R. Empowering Students Through Enhanced Financial Counseling Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Ensuring Small Scale Lng Certainty and Access Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Torres for her leadership and Ms. Cheney for her hard work on the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, in 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Higher Education Act, he said that it meant ``that a high school senior anywhere in this great land of ours can apply to any college or any university in any of the 50 States and not be turned away because their family is poor.''

Unfortunately, 53 years later, the promise of an affordable education is out of reach for millions of students. In May of this year, America's outstanding student loan debt surpassed $1.5 trillion.

With the cost of college education and the debt needed to afford it growing each year, Americans are demanding action to lower the crushing costs of higher education; and thus it is imperative that we pass a comprehensive update to the Higher Education Act which deals with the full menu of Federal policy that will keep higher education affordable.

Unfortunately, the majority has failed to bring HEA to the floor in that long overdue rewrite, and today we are only left with the Financial Counseling bill that we are going to vote on, which is just a sliver of what we need to do to build America's future workforce.

In 2008, the last HEA was negotiated under then-Chairman George Miller and passed the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. Fast-forward to last December, the majority introduced the misnamed PROSPER Act, a misguided attempt to update HEA that guts $15 billion from Federal student aid and diverts taxpayer money to low- quality, predatory programs.

Unlike 2008, this bill squeaked out of the Education and Workforce Committee on a party-line vote. Fortunately, that bill has not seen the light of day ever since.

In the absence of any movement on a long overdue update of HEA, I am pleased to report that committee Democrats stepped into this vacuum and introduced the Aim Higher Act, a comprehensive approach to higher education. Under the Aim Higher Act, every student will have the opportunity to earn a quality, debt-free degree or credential that leads to a rewarding career.

This bill makes a number of changes to higher education to make degrees more affordable and easier to pay off. It provides 2 years of tuition-free community college to every high school graduate through Federal-State partnerships, incentivizes States to reinvest in their 4- year public colleges and universities, and makes Federal financial aid more generous to keep pace with increased tuition costs.

Additionally, knowing that 4-year college isn't for everyone and that our workforce needs are changing, our bill allows students to use their Pell grants for quality, short-term certificate programs that provide an accelerated path to the workforce.

As I mentioned before, our student loan debt is at the highest level it has ever been, $1.5 trillion. That is the highest amount of consumer debt outside of mortgages. This debt burden is a drag not on just the student graduate or a family, it is a drag on our entire economy that impacts when or if a buyer can buy a home, start a family, get a small business off the ground, or change careers.

Today, many interest rates for student loans are often far higher than other consumer borrowing, yet, like other forms of debt, student loans cannot be refinanced as interest rates drop, saddling 25 million borrowers with thousands of dollars in extra debt. Our bill fixes that and will allow students to refinance their loans to more affordable rates.

Looking at the nationwide shortage of teachers and primary care doctors, our bill preserves the effective Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which the PROSPER Act abolished, to encourage talented individuals to pursue careers in high-need fields.

It also expands the program to address challenges in our farming communities, where the average farmer age is now 58 years old and new farmers entering the field have drooped by 20 percent.

The Aim Higher Act isn't just focused on cutting the cost of higher education; it is also focused on improving the quality of higher education. It cracks down on predatory institutions that waste student and taxpayer money by peddling expensive, low-quality programs.

Our veterans who have earned their GI Bill benefits through service and sacrifice are frequent targets and victims of fraudulent schools, as Mrs. Holly Petraeus, the wife of General David Petraeus, crisscrossed America a couple years ago as a representative of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to warn veterans of these rip-offs.

And finally, the Aim Higher Act gives students the tools they need to graduate on time. We invest in campus childcare for student parents, subsidized housing for homeless and foster youth, faculty training for students with disabilities, and community centers to help student veterans transition to civilian life.

Policy is defined by priorities. Instead of spending limited resources on a tax cut for those who don't need it, we believe that we should invest in our children and in the future of our economy. That is what the Aim Higher Act does.

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will join us in pushing for a higher education system that puts the promise of quality, debt-free degrees and a rewarding career within the reach of all Americans.

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