Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act -- Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. I rise to address an issue affecting millions of families across America, and that is our rising student loan debt and the impact it is having on the vision of opportunity for every single American. As college students return to campus this fall, they are thinking about their hopes and dreams for the future, but increasingly, they are also thinking about how that future might be constrained by the debt load they will carry by the time they graduate.

Education is the key to the pathway for the American dream. When I was young, my father took me to the schoolhouse doors and he said: ``Those are the doors to opportunity. If you study hard, you can do or be just about anything here in America.''

My father was a millwright, a mechanic who keeps the sawmill operating. The vision he had for America and the vision that I have for America is that every child should have the opportunity to thrive whether you are the son and daughter of a CEO or you are the son and daughter of a millwright. But the cost of college and the consequential student loan debt is diminishing, degrading, and destroying that vision.

I was the first in my family to go to college. I never dreamed I would have the chance to end up in this esteemed Chamber fighting for the vision of the American dream, but throughout my service in the Senate, that is exactly what I will do. It is the heart of what our Nation is about. It is the ``We, the People's'' vision, not the few and powerful's vision, but the ``We, the People's'' vision of our Constitution, that everyone should have the opportunity to thrive.

Today we are competing in a national and world economy that is much more knowledge based. It is a global knowledge economy, and we have to be able to compete, and that often means a path to career technical education and a path to college. But for too many young folks today, the doors to college are looking a little less like doors to opportunity and a little more like trapdoors. They see those doors and they are not sure they see opportunity and mobility. They are concerned they see a lifetime of unaffordable and inescapable debt.

I live in a blue-collar community, and I hear this all the time--parents wrestling with whether their children should incur the debt necessary to go to college, knowing that debt might be the size of a home mortgage and will be hung around their neck like a millstone and that possibly their monthly wages will not even be enough to pay the loan payments. The prospect of a high level of debt and low level of pay has parents sending a different message to their children--not the message my parents gave to me, that everyone has the opportunity to thrive in America, even from our blue-collar community. They are sending the message to their kids that the path of opportunity is being diminished by the enormous debt load and cost of college.

This situation is unacceptable. It is a threat to the future of our children, and it is certainly a threat to our economy. The economies that thrive in the world are the ones where the students have the education to compete in the global economy, and that is certainly destroying the aspirational vision of America--the American dream. There is a lot we can do to take on this challenge. We are not helpless in this effort. We must control the galloping costs and galloping inflation of tuition. We need to invest more in our community colleges because it is the most cost-effective portion of our higher education system. We need to enhance the bridges between our community colleges and our 4-year colleges and our high schools. We need to make sure students have the opportunity to get some college credit in high school through AP classes, the cheapest possible place to get that credit, and that gives them a step up in their route to college so they can see that vision and that path.

We should explore new models of financing, such as the pay-it-forward model, that would eliminate the fears students have between high debt and low pay. When Pell grants are not enough, when the job you carry at college is not enough, when tuition is too high and students of modest means still need loans, then those loans should be at the minimum possible interest rate.

Loans should never be viewed, as they have been by my colleagues across the aisle, as a source of profit to the U.S. Government. That vision is the wrong vision for America. That is why I so strongly support Senator Warren's proposal that our students get the same low interest rate on their student loans that our big banks get when they borrow money from the Federal Reserve.

Moreover, we should enable every American to refinance their student loans, taking advantage of today's low interest rates.

In my home State of Oregon, there are 500,000 folks with student loans, many of them at high interest rates. These students would benefit enormously from being able to refinance. Just as you can refinance a mortgage or refinance a car, they should be able to refinance those loans, and not only would that help those individuals a lot--500,000 people in a State of about 3.7 million, which is a lot of people--but the additional purchasing power they have would enable them to contribute to the economy and raise everyone up, making them more likely to buy a house, for example.

Did you know that for the first time we have a situation where those young adults 25 through 30 who have gone to college and have graduated are less likely to own a home than are high school graduates? The reason is simple: They are burdened by massive student debt that doesn't give them the credit standing and income necessary to buy a home. That shows how much is wrong.

So those individuals on this floor who are trapped in the few and powerful vision of America and have forgotten the first three words of the Constitution--that we are fighting so we can enable every child to thrive--they need to rethink their position. They need to quit blocking the bill that would allow every student to refinance their student loan.

Forty percent of graduates with student loans have delayed making a major purchase such as a car, 25 percent have put off continuing their education or moved in with relatives to save money. In other words, this is not an imaginary problem. This is extraordinary. It is real, and it is having a dramatic impact.

Let us give a fair shot for every child to thrive. Let us let every parent say to their children with confidence: If you go through the doors of the schoolhouse and work hard, you can do just about anything here in America.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

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