Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, we are here today because, unfortunately, the financial burden on our Nation's college students dramatically spiked overnight 8 days ago, including for over 100,000 students across my home State of Washington, where 56 percent of college graduates leave school with a student loan debt, and the average amount they owe is more than $22,000. Just when they are getting started on their careers, instead of buying a house or buying a car or just paying the bills, their student loan bills are piling up with interest.

Now interest rates for Federal student loans, which have been kept at a low rate of 3.4 percent, have doubled to 6.8 percent. For these students and for millions of students across the country, that is a tax hike of $1,000. That is not fair to students, and it is certainly not good for our economy. Congress has to act to fix it.

This isn't just an abstract issue for me; it is very personal. Pell grants and student loans were what allowed my six brothers and sisters and I to go to college after my dad got sick and had to leave his job. They are what made college affordable, and they are what allowed each one of us to pursue a career and give back to our communities. Because our government was there to help my family and help us through hard times, those seven kids in my family grew up to be a firefighter, a lawyer, a computer programmer, a sports writer, a homemaker, a middle school teacher, and a Senator. In my book, that was a good investment by our country and our government.

My family's story is far from unique. In fact, last week I traveled around my home State of Washington listening to student after student after student describe the real-life impact this rate hike would have on them. Students such as Elizabeth from Vancouver, WA: She is a sophomore at the University of Washington. She comes from a family of five children with immigrant parents who work hourly low-wage jobs.

She told me growing up, the idea of paying for college was overwhelming, but thanks to scholarships and grants and loans she is able to pursue her dream of becoming a broadcast journalist. However, her part-time work-study position barely covers her bills, and she says she is constantly plagued by stress as she worries about how she is ever going to overcome what she calls her ``debt sentence.''

The reality is this is a simple issue. College is already too expensive for students such as Elizabeth, and Congress shouldn't make it worse. So I am very proud to join my colleagues in supporting the Keep Student Loan Rates Affordable Act to extend the 3.4 percent interest rate, and I urge our friends on the other side of the aisle to join us and pass it.

With student loan debt now exceeding $1 trillion, students and their families deserve due process and thoughtful consideration of issues such as financial aid. Students have already contributed billions to deficit reduction, but the problem is the Senate Republican leadership has insisted in all of their proposals that we balance the budget on the backs of struggling students and their families. So far, they have refused to put the interest of students and tomorrow's middle class ahead of Tax Code spending that benefits the wealthy.

What they have introduced is a bill that includes no cap on how high student loan rates could go--something CBO tells us would mean students could be locked in at rates over 8 percent in just a few short years. In effect, it would be better to do absolutely nothing now than to take up and pass the Republican bill.

I bet everybody listening knows a family member or a coworker who is up to their neck in student debt. It is a weight that keeps them from helping to grow our economy or start a family or take risks with their careers, and it is a weight that is not easily shed.

We can't continue to do this to generation after generation of college students and expect to be able to compete in the 21st-century economy. We have to do everything we can to remove barriers to education, not erect new ones.

The clock has run out. We need to act now because for millions of Americans, affordable college has been the ticket to the middle class, and we can't allow it to slip away. We can't allow access to college to become unattainable for so many of our families.

I urge our Republican colleagues to join us in investing in America's future by reversing this student loan increase and making college more affordable for America's middle class.

I yield the floor.

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