Student Aid And Fiscal Responsibility Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I thank Chairman Miller for yielding.

Madam Chair, expanding access to an affordable college education and job training is one of the surest ways we can build a stronger and more competitive American economy for years to come.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 is the single largest investment, the single largest investment, in aid to help students and families to pay for college in the history of this country.

I commend Chairman Miller, the ranking member, and the entire committee, especially in these severe and dire economic times and when there's so much stress on working families, to provide this opportunity to have America resume the preeminent position that it occupies economically, socially, culturally, and militarily in society. This means for Connecticut, as JOE COURTNEY, a member of the committee, reminds us, over 277 million additional dollars in funding for Pell Grants to thousands of Connecticut students.

This bill also includes legislation that I've worked on, and I thank the chairman and the members for including it, the notion of expanding opportunity to our community colleges, to expand their mission, an opportunity to reach out in these economic times for people who seek to retrain themselves and utilize the opportunities that our community colleges represent.

Community colleges reach every corner of this country with over 1,100 in urban, rural, and suburban settings. This is vitally important in this economy and as we face additional global challenges that we are able to retrain our workforce in a manner that allows them to matriculate into the job networks that will be created from the community college effort combining with the entrepreneurial and private sector to create the jobs that we need.

I commend Chairman Miller for this effort and urge support of this bill.

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