Conference Report On H.R. 2669, College Cost Reduction and Access Act
Floor Speech
CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2669, COLLEGE COST REDUCTION AND ACCESS ACT -- (House of Representatives - September 07, 2007)
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, this bill does absolutely nothing to improve access to a college education. It's a sham. It's another move toward socialism and taking away personal responsibility in our country.
I probably have the most experience in this area of anybody in Congress. I worked my way through college, through an undergraduate and doctoral programs without any loans whatsoever. It can be done. It is not necessary for people to borrow $19,000 a year to go to college or come out with that kind of a debt.
I've served in the field of education. I've been a school board member, higher education administration. I've directed Upward Bound special services programs, and I know what it's like to have, to be operating these programs. We have absolutely no accountability in the programs that we are passing here, and we need to be doing that.
The American people want significant and strong education, but they do not want to see us wasting money like we're wasting here. This is called the College Cost Reduction Act. It does absolutely nothing to reduce the cost of going to college. But it starts out a long list of complex new entitlement programs, and my colleagues have spoken very, very eloquently about that.
We still are going to have college students stuck with college costs that are going up every week because the Federal Government is involved. We're doing nothing to help the Federal Work-Study Program, which has been one of the most successful programs that the Federal Government has ever gotten into.
I can't support a bill that raises the cost of going to college instead of lowering the cost of going to college. This is going to make it even more complicated to do financial aid regulations, even though we're reducing the size of the form. What we need is a workable Federal financial aid system that helps students get a high quality education. But this bill falls far short of that standard by shifting Federal money to the institutions and to loan relief for college grads.
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