The Future Forum
Floor Speech
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I thank the gentleman from California for his leadership on this issue and for raising public awareness about the role that Congress should play and is failing to play with regard to making college more affordable.
This morning I had the opportunity to meet with the chancellor of one of our flagship State universities in the district I represent, the University of Colorado at Boulder. Chancellor Phil DiStefano came by, and we talked a lot about college affordability.
Now, the university, in its own right, I am proud to say, is doing what they can. They are creating a new 3-year program, where students can graduate in 3 years and only have to pay for 3 years of tuition. They are also creating an interest-free installment program, where students can pay their fees spread out over a longer period of time without interest, financed through the university.
And I am very proud to report that CU will only increase student tuition by 3 percent this year, which is the lowest increase in several decades.
Now, moving from what many of our universities are trying to do in their own right to what Congress can do is where we need to shift the discussion here. Making student loans more affordable, reducing the interest rate, and in some cases, raising the cap available are all absolutely, absolutely critical to help young people afford a higher education that enables them to succeed in the workforce.
We are not doing enough. We ought to address some of the cost drivers within higher education. I think we took a good first step with the Affordable Care Act, with looking at some of the costs of health care in education.
Another example is looking at some of the costs of content acquisition. Dr. Phil DiStefano was telling me that their library costs of acquiring material and keeping their professional journal subscriptions is increasing at 15 percent a year. One of their cost drivers. That is why some of us here supported a bill--and President Obama took the first steps on this--to make sure that taxpayer-supported research, money that is funded through NIH research--it is funded through NIH or NASA, taxpayer-funded research--is made freely available to the public and is not only available in prescription journals that not only raise the costs for our universities but make access to the very science that we, the people, financed less egalitarian by limiting it to those who can pay for it.
In addition, we talked about open source textbooks. Would you believe that after you pay tuition, after you finally, you know--oh, my gosh, with this debt and my parents' help and my job--oh, but then guess what? $1,100 for textbooks. I kid you not.
I had heard from a lot of students that their textbooks were $1,100, $1,200. And I asked the chancellor today. I said, Am I hearing from the students in the worst-case scenario? He said, No, that is average. That is average. It is costing the average student $1,100 a semester for the textbooks they need to succeed. We don't need that. We can, through innovation, disintermediate that and have collaborative open source content of the same or superior quality that professors put together for students and is available for free or near free.
It doesn't matter if people want it online or as a textbook. The physical act of producing a textbook is only $3 or $4, not $50 or $100. Most of that profit margin goes to textbook companies. Very little is with the authors or the professors who contributed the work. They largely do it for professional consideration and prestige. And if we can build a culture that supports and empowers content platforms that are open source, we can truly bring down those textbook costs which are so onerous for students in higher education.
So we should challenge Congress to do something about the looming student debt crisis, not just for the students that are accruing it today, but for people who graduated 5 or 10 years ago and are still suffering under the yoke of the debt that they incurred that allowed them to have a decent job in America.
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We can't forget students who financed their education at higher interest rates, when inflation was higher, who years after their graduation still suffer under the yoke of debt. That is the reason why Representative Courtney brought forth his bill.
And when I hear from constituents, that is one of the top things that I hear. I hear from people who might have graduated 3 years ago, 5 years ago, even 20 years ago, but their debt load is impacting their ability to live their lives; their ability to buy a home, which they can't do because of it; their ability to have a family simply because of the way or the manner that they financed it or the time they financed it.
So I think it is absolutely appropriate for us to find a way to make sure that people are rewarded for their educational achievement and not penalized.
The greatest asset our country has is our intellectual capital. It is the ideas and knowledge of our people. That is our greatest asset. Yet in this day and age the fact that we are penalizing people for bettering themselves and for acquiring knowledge that is needed for our economy to succeed is absolutely ridiculous, and that is exactly what we need to do.
I invite the gentleman from California to talk about how some of these issues were highlighted in the recent budget debates we had because when a lot of people hear, oh, the Democrats and Republicans are fighting about the budget, it seems very esoteric. They say: What is this budget? What is that budget? Well, these are very important statements because it shows how each party would govern. Specifically, the visions that each budget set forth with regard to higher education, college and how to afford it are night and day.
I am hoping that you can talk about, just moments before on the floor of this very House, the budget that, unfortunately, our Republican colleagues passed and then contrast that with the budget that you and I voted for which would have made college more affordable and helped families afford college.
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