Student Loan Debt

Floor Speech

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I was the first in my family to go to college. I drove an ice cream truck to work my way through Boston College as a commuter. I did the same thing to go to law school. I lived at home all the way through college and law school in order to be able to afford to go to college. As a result, I had to take out Federal loans like so many millions of American students have to do today. But here is the thing. If the owner of the ice cream truck company I worked for wanted to refinance the loan he had for the trucking fleet, he could do that. If my parents wanted to refinance the mortgage on their house, they could do that. But if I wanted to refinance my student loans as would every single student today, I was out of luck, and that is not right, that is not fair, and that needs to change.

In Massachusetts, as the Presiding Officer knows better than anyone, we recognize that education is a ladder of opportunity that allows every child to maximize their God-given abilities. It is the best path to middle class success and economic opportunity. The big dreams of college should never be thwarted by the small print of student loan agreements. The economic opportunities that students have because they graduate should not be accompanied by the hopelessness from overwhelming debt--almost like the mythical Sisyphus with a boulder on his shoulders, trying to go up the side of a mountain. That is how students feel with their student debt as they graduate from colleges and universities across this country. So in the same way that mortgage refinancing helps mortgage holders who are underwater, students drowning in debt should benefit from refinancing their student loans at a lower rate.

Today more than 70 percent of America's students borrow money to attend college. The average student graduates from college owing nearly $30,000. Americans today owe almost $1.2 trillion in student loans, more than is owed on credit cards. Almost 1 million people in Massachusetts currently owe more than $24 billion in student debt. Thirty percent of young borrowers nationwide are unable to keep up with their payments and are in default, forbearance or deferment. That kind of debt makes it difficult to start a family, buy a home or save for retirement. Reports show that high student loan debt deters our promising minds from enrolling in graduate programs. That means fewer highly skilled workers, which harms our economy now and makes us less competitive in the world economy in the future.

There is a way to make it easier for those of us who have student loan debts and to put more money in their pockets every single month. That is to listen to the wisdom of our Presiding Officer, to make sure that people here in this Chamber and across our country listen to this guiding light that you are creating for our country to be able to move from this present world where debt so saddles young people that they really cannot ever plan to realize all of their dreams, to a new vision of what might be possible in lowering this burden on young people across our country.

Last year the Congress passed legislation that lowered Federal student loan interest rates for new borrowers but did nothing for existing borrowers. So today interest rates for new borrowers are just under 4 percent while rates for older borrowers are around 7 percent for recent undergraduates and even higher for some older borrowers. The bill which you have introduced as the senior Senator from Massachusetts simply allows 25 million eligible student loan borrowers the option of refinancing down to the rates offered to new Federal student loan borrowers this year.

The bill allows eligible student loan borrowers to refinance their private loans into the Federal program. Many parents cosigned the private loans for their children and are on the hook if their children default on these loans. Your legislation will save existing student loan borrowers thousands of dollars to help them get ahead, not fall behind. This money can be used to help pay for the downpayment on a new home, to start a new business or to start a family. This is one more way to give Americans a fair shot at the American dream. So we thank you for your leadership on this issue. We thank you for laying out a pathway to make it a slightly easier place for young people to be as they leave college, as they have this debt on their shoulders.

When I was in school the interest rate was 3 percent. Those loans were called national defense student loans. Emblazoned over the Boston Public Library it reads: ``The education of its people is the best defense of a nation.'' That is what it says across the Boston Public Library. That is what we have to once again understand, that the first generation that was the beneficiary had 3 percent loans. This generation--in a much more wealthy country--has loans at 6, 7, 8, 9 percent and more, and that just makes it very difficult for them to maximize their God-given abilities in the same way that the Members of the Senate were able to maximize theirs.

We have a responsibility to this generation to go back to that original message, to go back to that incredible plan that was put together after World War II to finally democratize access to education for every family, for every child who wanted to work towards improving themselves. Those national defense student loans understood that the best defense of a Nation is the education of its people. That is how we preserve order and liberty within our society, and that is what your proposal does.

By using the Buffett rule, by using the offset which says to billionaires and millionaires in our country that you are just going to pay the same taxes as the middle class, well, then we finance something that is really critical. We finance the dreams and the hopes of young people in our country, so that the debt they have to shoulder after they leave college is not so burdensome that they never really can fully realize their dreams.

So I ask all my colleagues to support Senator Warren's legislation. I think it is going to be without question at the top of the list of the most important work we do in this Chamber this year, and I call upon my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to respond in the kind of bipartisan way that the American people want, those 40 million families that need relief from this oppressive burden of student loan debt.

With that, I thank the Presiding Officer for her leadership.

I yield back the remainder of my time, and I note the absence of a quorum.

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