Nomination of Sylvia Mathews Burwell to be Secretary of Health and Human Services -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut for referencing a measure in which we both share an interest. He is right; a student loan is not like another loan. It is not like the mortgage on your home. It is not like the money you borrowed to buy a car or a boat or a line of credit you might have needed at some point in your life. A student loan is a debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. No matter how bad things get, you are going to carry that debt with you to the grave, and believe me, they will pursue you all the way.

We just had a report in the Wall Street Journal. There was a grandmother receiving Social Security benefits. They levied her benefits because grandma decided to befriend her granddaughter by cosigning her student loan, on which her granddaughter defaulted. So now grandma finds her Social Security check being levied to pay off her granddaughter's student loan. It never ever ends.

So I support my colleague from Connecticut. He and I both believe this ought to change. This is awful. For goodness' sake, we have to have some recognition of what is happening with student debt today. It is not the way it used to be. Those of us fortunate enough to get the early government loans--the National Defense Education Act, that is how I went to college and law school. Scared to death when the Soviets launched sputnik, this Senate and the House created a loan program for kids like me from East St. Louis, IL, to borrow money to go to college. I had to pay it back over 10 years with 3 percent interest. I did not think I ever would, but I did. Now look at what students are faced with.

Hannah Moore, of the suburbs of Chicago--I have gotten to know Hannah. I want to tell you Hannah Moore's story. This young lady went to community college first. A good idea, right--affordable, a local college. Then she decided to sign up at the Harrington College of Design. They were going to give her a special education. Well, they sure as heck did. The Harrington College of Design is a for-profit college. Hannah Moore signed up for the course. It is owned by Career Education Corporation. It is a for-profit school. You ought to know something. Career Education Corporation is under investigation in 17 different States for their activities in luring students into worthless college courses. Hannah Moore was one of those victims.

What happened to Hannah? Well, at the end of the day, when she finished her so-called course at the Harrington College of Design, she ended up $124,000 in debt, and it is growing. She cannot keep up with it. She cannot earn enough money to keep up with it. Do you know what has happened? She has moved into her parents' basement. That is where she has to live now. Her dad has come out of retirement to help her pay off the loan. That is what she faces.

So we are going to do something about it with the help of a few Republicans. I hope a few of them will stand and join us. We are going to give students across America who are not in default an opportunity to refinance their college loans with lower interest rates. Those of us who have had a few mortgages in our life know what that means--a lower interest rate, a lower payment or more money reduced from the principal. It is the only way some of these people ever get out from this burden of student debt. Senator Elizabeth Warren put the bill together. I have cosponsored it with a number of others. We think this is the only way that students deep in debt have a fair shot at a future; otherwise, they are going to be swamped with debt and never get out of it.

The prospect of going back to school for Hannah? Impossible. She cannot borrow money for that. Buying a car? Out of the question. Her own apartment? No, sorry, you cannot do that either. I have met young couples who have said: We are putting off raising a family because of the debt.

Now we have a bill that is going to be introduced by Senator Warren, brought to the floor, and we need Republican support. We cannot pass it without Republican support. So far not one Republican has joined us--not one--for refinancing college debt. But that can change. It will change if our Republican colleagues will simply go home to their States and have a town meeting and ask the people in attendance: What do you think; should we give college students a lower interest rate? Should the Federal Government make less money off these college students so they can get out from under this debt once and for all?

They will find what I found in Illinois--overwhelming support for this approach.

So if we are going to do something in the Senate Chamber that really affects the lives of working families--where young people and their parents can say, well, thank goodness somebody in Washington is finally listening to problems families face--this is it: refinancing college student loans. This is our opportunity to give a fair shot to kids from working families all across America, the kind of opportunity I had, the kind of opportunity millions of others have had.

There is a lot more we need to do to clean up this mess when it comes to college loans and when it comes to the schools that are ripping off students, but let's start at the right place. Let's help students in debt get out from under that debt.

I yield the floor.

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