Pell Grants

Floor Speech

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. We have just passed through a very significant landmark in this country which is that student debt, the burden of college loan debt Americans have to carry, broke through $1 trillion. That is $1 trillion in debt. And because of the laws that have been set up to favor the banks, in particular in this Congress, the debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. That is a $1 trillion burden on folks who required loans to get through college that they can never shake off that is going to stay with them for their lives, for as long as it takes to pay it down even when things don't work out for them. So it is a very significant milestone when it hits $1 trillion of this particular kind of very onerous debt.

One of the responses to it is the Pell grant.

The Pell grant helps people who can't afford college have the chance to go to college. It helps them pay their way through college, and it does so without leaving that burden of debt behind. It is named after Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, a Senator and a man who was very important to me in my life and in my development as a political figure in Rhode Island. He was a very dear friend and went almost inexplicably out of his way for me on many different occasions. I am deeply indebted to him. But I am also extremely proud to represent Rhode Island in the Senate and to represent a State that produced Senator Claiborne Pell and, particularly as we face this massive burden of debt, to come to the floor to participate in this colloquy in support of the Pell grant.

I will turn to my colleague, Senator Tester, in one moment. First, I wish to say how important this is to individual people who wouldn't have the chance otherwise. I was at the University of Rhode Island just a few weeks ago. I met a woman named Amber, who is 29 years old. She is not the standard ``come out of high school and go on to college'' student. She is actually a mom. She has two kids. She works full time and she goes to school full time and she is the mother of two kids. This is a very busy person and a very energetic and capable person. The only way she can make things work in her life and enable her to be a full-time mom, a full-time employee, and a full-time student is because the Pell grant that she gets bridges the gap between what she can earn, what she can borrow, what she has to pay, and gives her the chance to move into the college-educated status.

As we know from looking at this recession we are in right now, there are two economies in America. There is an economy for college-educated people--an economy in which the top unemployment rate is below 5 percent--and then there is the economy for people who have not had the benefit and the good fortune of a college education, for whom unemployment is nearly twice as high and for whom the suffering brought on by the Wall Street meltdown and the subsequent recession has been much more acute.

I will turn now to Senator Tester. I appreciate so much that he has come to join us today to help our colleagues, I hope, come to the realization that cutting Pell grants as we face our debt and our deficit problem would be a wild mistake, a terrible mistake, would undercut the progress we are trying to make, and would be one of the worst places to go for spending cuts. Even though I admit we need to make them, the Pell grant is the wrong place to look.

I yield to my distinguished colleague, Senator Tester.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Senator. As my colleague knows, we have a very distinguished colleague from the Senate who has now gone on to be the Secretary of the Interior of the United States, Ken Salazar. I see former attorney general and now Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut has joined us for this colloquy, and he knows Ken Salazar was the attorney general of Colorado, an attorney general with both of us. Ken grew up on a farm in Colorado that, until his generation, didn't have running water and didn't have electricity. His generation was the first generation to go to college. When I got here, he was a Senator and his brother was a Congressman. It never would have happened if it hadn't been for the Pell grant. It was the Pell grant that allowed those boys, from a faraway corner of Colorado, who were eighth-generation Americans, to be the first generation that got their foothold in college and were able to propel themselves from that to remarkable leadership of our country. It shows what ordinary Americans are capable of when the Pell grant gives them that launching pad.

I appreciate that the Senator from Montana brought up the effects on Indian Country as well.

I know Senator Blumenthal wishes to say a few words.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I say to Senator Blumenthal, one of the things that has taken place is that the value to the individual student of the Pell grant has actually declined quite a lot over the years since it was first initiated.

When the first Pell grants came out, they paid for nearly three-quarters of the typical 4-year public college tuition; 72 percent of that tuition. Now they are down to 32 percent; less than one-third. So there is a lot of room to increase what we can spend on Pell grants. I think it is pretty clear from what the Senator has said and from what Senator Tester has said that once someone is college educated, they step into a different economy with a top unemployment rate through this awful recession of below 5 percent, they step into a whole new set of opportunities, and they step into opportunities that have a higher income potential for them, all of which redounds back to the benefit of our country in higher revenues, in a stronger economy, and in more innovation and economic development.

So we are going in the wrong direction is the way I would respond, and it is time, instead of doing what the Republicans in the House have suggested, which is to go even further in the wrong direction, even potentially eliminating this grant, calling it welfare, for Pete's sake--remember Amber. This is a woman with two children, working full time and going to school and what enables her to tie that together--the last piece, the keystone in the arch--is the Pell grant. You call that welfare? This is a welfare recipient? I do not think so. But that is the kind of attack these things are under, and it is not just institutions like Connecticut is famous for and Rhode Island is famous for--super high-end institutions that are internationally renowned--but it is also basic community colleges and technical colleges, places where people can get a solid career.

I know Senator Tester wants to say a few words about that and then Senator Landrieu.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Yes. That is a great point, I say to the Senator. One of the unfortunate aspects of the current condition we have in Washington, DC, is that a party that has long supported Pell grants--it has long enjoyed bipartisan support--has suddenly, after--what has it been, 30 years of support for the Pell grant--has suddenly walked away from it, has suddenly decided: No, we have a new agenda. Helping people who cannot otherwise afford college to have a chance to go to college, without carrying that trillion-dollar burden of debt and to be able to move up into the college-educated economy and into the opportunities and potential that creates, that is not what we are interested in any longer. We are interested in other things.

Clearly, they are interested in protecting the tax breaks for people making over $1 million. We tried to get jobs legislation through here. It was paid for with a tiny tax only on the dollars over $1 million that people earning over $1 million earn. On the first million dollars, there is no difference. The second million dollars is where it started to kick in. No, no. We stopped jobs legislation over that. But when it comes to a kid who cannot afford college, that is a program they suddenly want to take a whack at. I think it is regrettable because there is a long history of very honorable, sincere, and enthusiastic Republican support for the Pell grant. Frankly, there is nothing Democratic or Republican about an American young person having the chance to begin to climb the ladder of success. That is a common American dream. That is common to both parties. Yet now, in this strange environment we now have to inhabit in Washington, this other party has decided: No, we are walking away from that.

In the House, they tried to knock more than $1,750 out of the average grant. They would have put nearly 5,800 students in Rhode Island off the Pell grant. When we hear from people such as Amber, who would not be able to do it but for that--this group I spoke with at URI was so impressive. We had regular students who were right in line. We had the nontraditional students, such as Amber, who had their kids. We had faculty who years ago had gotten their Pell grants and now they are teaching others. They have made a career in academia as a result of that first foothold they got in higher education through the Pell grants. How one would want to cut it at that point by that much, when we have these people--it is just enough to make it possible for them. When we cut it by over $1,750 for a lot of those kids, for a lot of those working moms, it means: No, we are pulling, as the Senator said, the rug out from under them. They do not get that chance.

We all win when young Americans step forward. Everybody in America wins when young Americans reach their full potential and create industries and do a great job and save lives as surgeons or nurses or EMTs and pay revenues through their taxes through their successes to support our great country.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I will yield the floor with appreciation to my colleagues, Senator Landrieu, Senator Tester, and Senator Blumenthal, for coming together to urge our colleagues to support the Pell grant.

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