National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Chair, I thank the ranking member for yielding.

I rise today in opposition, as well, to this amendment which seeks to limit education choices for our Nation's servicemembers. Under current law, institutions receiving Federal funding must meet the financial responsibility standards under the Higher Education Act. That is why the Department of Defense and the Department of Education are already required to oversee and evaluate an educational institution's fiscal health and academic programming. Let me repeat, they are already required to do that.

This amendment is not only unnecessary, but it is also misleading. Let's be honest about what this amendment is really about. It is just another effort at eliminating all for-profit higher education institutions.

Just a few weeks ago, I met with a group of veterans from my district who are attending or recently graduated from YTI Career Institute in Lancaster. They each shared similar stories about how traditional institutions of higher education--and I have a lot of good ones in my district--but in this particular instance they did not meet their needs.

YTI Career Institute in Lancaster, a for-profit institution, did meet their needs and offered them a pathway to fast-track them into the workforce.

Why should we take this option away?

These veterans were very concerned that the programs which have worked so well for them and many others may be eliminated by this overregulation.

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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Chair, if my colleagues truly were interested in improving accountability, then they would apply these standards to all institutions of higher learning, not just the ones they dislike.

I strongly oppose this unneeded amendment.

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