by title he built to amend and extend the higher education act of one hundred sixty five and for other purposes pursuant to the rule of the bill is considered read the first time the gentleman from california mr miller and the gentleman from california which was reported by the committee on education labor with the unanimous bipartisan support this legislation strengthens and reauthorizes our nation's higher education programs with our recent enactment of the college costs we duction access act this congress has already taken a historic step by providing the single largest increase in federal student aid says the g i bill but we all know that there are still work to do to ensure that the doors of college are truly open to all qualified students our forty one thirty seven helps us reach this goal today students and families face a number of challenges on the path to college for skyrocketing college prices to needlessly complicated student aid application process to predatory tactics by student lenders the college opportune afford ability act will address these challenges by reshaping our higher education system so that once again it operates in the best interest of students and families the bill will create a higher education system that is more affordable and fairer an easier to navigate for consumers for years prices have been skyrocketing at colleges and universities around the country and we can all agree that the increase in college aid was vital but there is no question we must also begin to address these rising tuition prices this legislation would create a new user friendly website for families with helpful information on college pricing that and the factors driving to ition increases the website would also publish a list of the most expensive schools the least expensive schools and schools with the largest percentage increase in tuition prices colleges with the largest increases intuition prices be required to report the reasons why these price hikes and to create a task force to examine how they can work to keep their prices lower and the bill would also ensure the states would hold up their end of the bargain by providing higher education by establishing state mation nations maintenance of efforts to requirements we cannot just keep putting in federal taxpayer dollars at the top and having states take money out of the bottom the bill would restore trust and accountability to the student loan program it would also provide students and families with better protections when it comes to the awful murky world of college loans the protections for students and parent borrowers in our bill form a bill of rights for college consumers including fair disclosure loan terms b of federal and private loans in addition the bill with simplify the federal student aid application process and provides damage with extra time to plan for their college expenses the bills would also make the pell grant scholarship available year round for the first time  he the authorisation for that program strengthen the trio and year of college readiness and support programs that are helping so many students discover that they can not only attend college they can succeed in college and graduate expand the funding for graduate programs at the historical black colleges universities and hispanic serving institutions and minority serving schools increase college age and support programs for veterans and our men and women in uniform to ensure equal opportunities for an affair learning environment for students with disabilities and to make our college campuses safer the bill does all of that and it's an important and important change in the higher education responsibilities of the federal government and in the support for our higher education institutions and in our education committee but i just want to say that much of this bill reflects a lot of work that was done by mr kalar by mr mccain certainly the provisions dealing with college cost we flecked an awful lot of work that was done by mr  mccain when he was in that when there was in the majority as the subcommittee and the full committee by mr tierney on our side as on our side of the committee to bring this to fruition so finally we can start to not only make greater contributions in terms of assistance to families but also help institutions rein in these costs discuss these costs with parents and students so that they can make smart choices i would also like to thank my committee staff are helping us craft a strong bill including denise forte stephanie changes that need to be made and also to voice support for this for this legislation and a very important part of this of this process i think the entire house can be proud of this legislation and i think it will help us build a better future for our students and for our economy and for our country both in terms of our economic security and our national security and i think it will help fulfill the vision that all american families have for the members of their family to be able to participate in a higher representatives in a holster and keller the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee for their efforts representative castle has also been a close partner of mine in the effort to rein in college costs in fact as our effort to address the college cost crisis that is the centerpiece of this legislation we know how important higher education is both to individuals and to our nation a college degree can be a ticket to the middle class it helps individuals prepare for good and allows them to pursue new skills in a changing economy higher education also has important societal benefits college as educated citizens are healthier more civically minded have lower unemployment rates and use fewer government benefits an educated citizenry is also vital to maintaining our competitive edge in a changing world because higher education is so important we made it a priority to ensure all americans have access to a quality affordable college education in addition to making close to one hundred billion dollars in financial aid available to students the federal government also spends billions each year to institutions support for college access programs investments in research and development and many other avenues that support higher education despite the considerable federal investment or perhaps in part because of it colleges and universities have increased to wishin and fees year in and year out the increases have come in good economic times and in bad with steady enrollments and surging enrollments it seems the only thing consistent about college costs is that they're going up and fast with this bill we hope to change that our principles for reform are based on the idea that by giving good information to consumers we can empower them to exert influence on the marketplace through the power of sunshine and transparency where lifting the veil on college costs and holding institutions of higher learning accountable for their role in the cost equation those principles of sunshine and transparency are hallmarks of this bill and not just in the area of college costs we're also letting the sunshine in on college operations and quality through enhanced institutional disclosure and a more transparent accreditation process there are numerous positive reforms in this bill too many even for me to name there are also a number of problems with the bill that i hope we could resolve through the amendment process unfortunately republicans were blocked from being full participants in this debate i urge the majority to work with us as we go to conference to resolve these issues so we can get the strongest possible bill to the president's desk i'm particularly concerned that in its zeal to print prevent conflicts of interest in student lending this bill creates a patchwork of new requirements that conflict with existing truth in lending rules and disclosures i'm a firm believer in disclosure but i also recognize that if we overwhelm borrowers with too much paperwork filled with confusing and conflicting information we may undermine the consumer protection we're actually trying to achieve right now we know that many lenders whether their banks or state agencies are providing sound disclosures to borrowers on their student loans i'm hopeful that as we move in the conference we can take that information and use it to develop meaningful disclosures that will ensure borrowers receive the same type and quality of information from each lender i'm also concerned about the number of new programs created in the bill rather than trying to micromanage from washington by creating a brand new program for every possible contingency we should focus on a less red tape and local flexibility later today i plan to offer an amendment that moves us in the right direction by identifying duplicative burdensome or unnecessary regulations imposed on our higher education system from throughout the federal government this amendment builds on an initiative i began in two thousand and one in partnership with the late representative patsy mink known as the fed up project mr chair there is always room to improve a bill and the college of opportunity and affordability act is no exception however on the whole this bill is an achievement of persistence and commitment it updates programs to meet the needs of students in the twenty first century and the use of the power of sunshine and transparency to transform all aspects of our higher education system above all else this bill reeve offers real solutions to the college college opportunity and affordability act this legislation will complete our work on the reauthorization of the higher education act and build on the historic investment we made last year in the college cost reduction and access act we opened the hundred tenth congress taking a fresh look at our higher education los specifically we called for ideas to close the college act and completion gaps for low income and minority students to improve the financial aid application and delivery system turn prove preparation so that low income and first generation college students are ready to succeed in college academically financially and socially leverage more resources for need based aid and yes to address the escalating cost of a college education this bill offers comprehensive bipartisan solutions to all of these issues i would like to thank chairman miller and the ranking members of the f committee and the subcommittee especially to my good friend congressman mckeon of california and congressman keller of florida for working with us to craft a bill that every member of this chamber should be proud to support mr speaker and we must be strong and determined to pass h r forty one thirty seven because we are falling behind in producing college graduates during our hearings we learned that the united states has gone from first to fourth place in the world for college graduates in the workplace where only one of two industrialized nations where older workers are more likely to have a college degree than younger workers this comes at a time when the bureau of labor statistics projects a shortage of three million college educated workers as early as the year two thousand and twelve the gaps in college access and completion is large and growing for low income and minority students because of the high cost of a college education according to the education trust since hundred four white students have increased in college completion by ten percent african american students have only increased by five point five percent and the hispanic students only and decisively to close the gaps mr speaker this is what the college opportunity and affordability act will do h r forty one thirty seven will close the college access and completion gaps by increasing the authorized pell grant maximum to nine thousand dollars and providing access to the pell grant and the academic competitiveness and smart grants a year around the legislation recognizes the critical role that minority serving institutions will have to play if we are to produce the college graduates our economy needs to thrive they sensed it to sions represent less than one third of all of the colleges and universities in our country but they enroll more than half of all minority students and post secondary education h r forty one thirty seven authorizes increased investments in building the capacity of these essential institutions and ensures that they are full partners in teacher preparation and our national competitiveness and innovation agenda additionally r forty one thirty seven includes the minority serving institutions digital and wireless technology opportunity program which is a major step forward in ensuring that these colleges and universities can maintain a state of the art educational delivery system i am particularly proud of our whole committee's work to strengthen minority access to the stem fields through the stem partnerships and programs that focus on preparing teachers for these high need fields the college opportunity and affordability act also addresses gaps at the post level it has been exactly ten years since i introduced legislation to create a graduate program for his panic serving institutions and with the passage of this long awaited legislation we will be one step closer to enacting this long overdue program additionally our bill includes the patsy mink fellowship program to provide support for women and minorities to complete graduate degrees and join the ranks of university faculty where they are the very early under represented h r forty one thirty seven will improve early college preparation by strengthening programs that are very important to fill the pipeline such as gear up the trio program the help and the camp programs and in for sizing financial literacy and early financial aid estimates i'm a strong believer of reading and writing literacy and that's why i am so in favor of programs such as the reading is fundamental which is going to help us in graduating more students from high schools this bill will leverage resources through great partnerships one example is the new grants for access and persistence program which will leverage states and private resources to increase student aid so that low income first generation college students are prepared to enroll in succeed in college this bill takes real steps to address college costs through public information accountability and incentives at the state and institutional level to keep tuitions increases slow and college within reach of all students legislation h r forty one thirty seven protects students and families by bringing sunshine and real consumer protection to the student loan programs both at the federal and the private level finally the legislation before us today recognizes our collective obligation to the men and women returning from war and seeking to re sume their lives our nation owes all our veterans the support to achieve their dreams through a college education after so valiantly serving our country h r forty one thirty seven establishes a new scholarship program for veterans and their families it ensures fairness for veterans in student aid it also authorizes centers of excellence for veteran students success to provide a one stop support system on college campus to help veterans succeed in college and to graduate mr speaker this legislation is then vicious and thorough because that is what these times demand i encourage all my colleagues in congress to vote r forty one thirty seven let us get this job done thank you mr speaker and i keep the balance of my time so my reserves this time zone from california happy to yelled at this time to the ranking member on the subcommittee that has the jurisdiction over this higher education bill and commend him for all the work that he's done for college students across the country the gentleman from florida mr keller three and a half minutes jennifer ford recognized for three and a half minutes i think the gentleman for yielding mr speaker i rise today in strong support of h r forty one thirty seven the college opportunity and affordability act which reauthorizes the higher education act i support this legislation because it will expand college access for millions of worthy students primarily by strengthening and  student loan program i know that these programs work well because i wouldn't have been able to go to college if it wasn't for pell grants and student loans also as the chairman of the higher education subcommittee and now it ranking member i know that over five and a half million students get pell grants each year and over five hundred thousand of these students also get perkin student loans which together are the passports out of poverty for so many of these young people i'm going to limit my remarks today to the pell grant and park and loans sections of the bill since they are in my view the heart of this legislation first with respect to pell grants pell grants our money we give to children from low and moderate income families to pay for their college tuition books and fees that they never have to repay this bill strengthens the pell grant program by providing year round pell grants to help college students get through college quicker and by increasing the authorization levels this legislation also at my request has included language which eliminates a wasteful spending loophole that has allowed convicted pedophiles and rapists to get even though congress passed a law in one thousand nine hundred four making it illegal for prisoners to get pell grants and my home state of florida for example this loophole was exploited by fifty four sexual predators who were able to get over two hundred thousand dollars in by passing this legislation we will take money out of the hands of convicted predators and put it back into the hands of needy law abiding college students where it belongs with respect to the perkins loans program these are very attractive low fixed rate at five percent student loans from children for children from low and moderate income families this legislation will strengthen the perkins loan program by increasing the loan limits for undergraduates and graduate students and expanding loan forgiveness to now allow firefighters to have their perkins loans forgiven as well as nurture nurses teachers and police officers in closing i want to thank the chairman miller for his hard our ranking member mckeon and the chairman in the house of a working together and a bipartisan spirit this legislation is good for students it's also good for our treasury the expert studies show that by investing sixteen billion dollars in pell grants it can help you yield up to eighty five billion dollars in additional tax revenue because the average college graduate makes seventy five percent more than the average high school graduate i urge my colleagues to vote yes on h r forty one thirty seven let work together in a bipartisan manner to make sure that all children rich or poor have the opportunity to get their dream of a college education and i yield back the balance of my time gentleman yield back this time gentlemen from texas mr speaker i am pleased to recognize distinguished gentleman the majority whip of our caucus the gentleman from south carolina mr clyburn jones recognized for how many minutes recognize it for two minutes president recognized for two minutes thank you for the putting together a bill that will add thousands of needed students as a speaker this legislation will ease the financial burdens being placed on working families pay and costs for post secondary education passage of this bill will make post secondary education more attainable and affordable for all americans it's our forty one thirty seven allow students to receive pell grants year around this bill also provides incentives grandchildren this legislation will hear up to maintain america strong global standing by providing now students with the tools and resources they need to be competitive in a trans national economy i encourage my colleagues to support this n our differences in this body can be fairly sharp and they we are disagreements can be fairly significant over which direction our country should actually head and such debate is very healthy in a democracy in vital to getting good policy but there are other times when in fact we can work together in this bill is an example where we we can work together one there are multiple examples in this bill where fundamentally we agreed and then there are other things we work through in the amendment process one important component of this originally congressman schock of a ta and i sponsored it was originally called high hopes for his and clinton adopted that is as gear up as one of his major programs obviously this was a little difficult on the republican side but we managed to pass it through in a republican congress with a democrat congress we held it as a republican congress with a republican president and now with a democrat congress and a republican president europe continues to expand and be a very effective way for low income students to have the ho e if they keep good grades stay out of trouble to be assured that they can be eligible for student loans tell grants and other things to provide a promise of future education we also worked as we try to tackle things like long distance learning and online learning which is a a growth category i appreciate the majority and a willingness to work and how colleges and these new experimental universities can work towards distance learning and expanding without having the heavy hand of government make determinations of when they can and when they can't they're asked to be substantive directions not arbitrary guidelines and they worked on the language to make sure that was the case we had another technical issue on cohort measurements on student loans that some private universities particularly those that are more trade oriented as well as minority based organizations in the original draft of this bill could have seen them go into default in many low income minority and trade  colleges and so on would have been in deep trouble but the majority took an adjustment in that cold hard yes if a college is underperforming and not providing education that's so necessary to students it should be disqualified from the student loan program but we have to make sure that that colleges and trade areas in particular don't get arbitrarily knocked out because often the reaching the very people we're trying to track into higher education i appreciate the majority's there's also been a provision that add in the higher ed bill years ago that caused some consternation i want to make sure that the record shows that we were able to work on the student loan provision that says if you get convicted of a drug crime you are suspended from your student loan that that we have provisions in this bill working with the majority to make sure that the how the drug tests are done so that if you test clean twice you can get your loan back that we have provisions here that make it clear that each institution of higher education shall provide each student upon as a deterrence not as a punishment if a student is at a party and somebody says hey you want to try this yada try this pot this might work really well this will give you hi this is this method may keep you so you can stay awake to study that you can say look i could lose my loan here or lose everything i have it's one more arsenal in the weapon for them in your ability to fight illegal narcotics and to stay in school furthermore if you're on narcotics your performance inevitably will drop over time this provision is received bipartisan support we've continued to clarify it and want to make sure that unlike previous times where this was interpreted to apply to everybody or if you were committed had committed a crime before you could lose your loan a student is a student is a student it says if you have your loan you can lose your loan it has nothing to do with people who rehabbed it has nothing to do with people who maybe were in college for two years went out had problems and then come back we want those people in school and i hope th this time will interpret this regardless which party it is correctly and i want to make sure the germans time's expired rational records show what the medicare expired thank you john from texas mr speaker i'm pleased to recognize the gentleman from illinois the democratic caucus chair congress rahm emanuel for two minutes only recognized for two minutes thank you mr chairman the fafsa form that students and their parents have to fill out every year for student aid is over  hundred questions over eight pages long if a company is applying for an export import loan from the government it's thirteen questions a page long but a kid going to college and his parents have to fill out over a hundred questions let me read some of the questions go to page eight and complete the columns on the left of worksheets a b and c enter the student totals in questions forty four forty five and forty six respectively work jig b first of twelve items payments to tax bird pension in savings paid directly or withheld from earnings including but not limited to amounts reported on the w two form in boxes twelve a three twelve a if you can fill that out skip college go to graduate school now think thankfully to the chairman we've now put in here to streamline this and create an easy form so this is not one of the leading cause of divorce in america the college aid plan and if a company can get lawyers and accountants fill out a one page form and get a big loan for two hundred million dollars from the government taxpayer subsidies kids trying to go to college and achieve the american dream should have something as easy as a big company has and thankfully this legislation would accomplish that and i've when i'm where i am for office i used to and i still do visit fire stations and packing hoses kept in the fuzz chicago fire department was one that turn me on to the notion of what he and his wife have to do every year to try to get student aid for their kids to go to the university of illinois and every year they have to fill out a form like this the goal here is for government to finally catch up and get to where the private sector has been which is creating easy forms things that they can do online and get rid of all the bureaucracy and all the that this legislation will build on that reform so we finally make sure that college aid in that period where you earn what you learn is accessible to middle class families and their dreams that they have that their children at this time i would yield one minute to the gentleman from nebraska jennifer investors recognized for one minute thank you mr speaker since being elected to congress i've had the opportunity to speak with young students throughout the third district of nebraska they're smart and sharp and we need to do everything we can to encourage them and fortunately however many rural states have seen what we call brain drain in recent years as a depletion occurs we lose our most vital economic asset to more populated areas responsible policy is needed to retain and grow our workforce to make our rural communities more competitive in this modern economy the college opportunity in affordability acces to address this by encouraging economic development partnerships these partnerships would be formed between rural colleges and universities and rural employers this would provide additional career training to students attending rural schools in fields significant to the local economy it also would encourage world businesses to employ students once they graduate i think the chairman and ranking member for working with me to target these partnerships to the areas in the most need i yield back general job back as time donna texas mr speaker i'm pleased to recognize the gentleman from new jersey the distinguished member of our higher education subcommittee congressman rush holt for two minutes jim recognized for two minutes i thank the gentleman mr speaker i'd like to commend chairman miller and mr mckeon for producing a strong piece of legislation the college opportunity and affordability act does what the name suggests it expands affordability of an access to college education for the broadest range of americans it expands pell grants the basis of financial aid and i'm pleased to say it allows pell grants to be used year round and for certificate programs and part time students something i've been working on for a long time the bill does many other things including some initiatives that i've been working on it empowers small and community colleges to provide child care programs so that working mothers can attend school it includes grants and loan forgiveness for math and science students who pledge to to conduct service in math and science fields after graduation it includes grants for foreign language partnerships between local schools and language departments at institutions of higher learning and grants to institutions that will combine science with foreign languages i'm pleased that in the education and labor committee we were able to pass an amendment bill includes this bill will create would create an assistant secretary for international and foreign language education i'm pleased to note further that the bill will direct the institute of medicine to study how to deal with the shortage of nurses that's created by the shortage of nursing faculty these initiatives are part of a large effort to make it easier for students to finance their education and an effort to strengthen the quality of education that they receive this is a good bill i look forward to working with members of both parties to see it become law and i yield back the balance of my mr speaker the committee of the whole i was on the state of the union having had under consideration h r forty one thirty seven directs me to report that has come to no resolution there on the chairman of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports further consideration of h r forty one thirty seven pursuant to house resolution nine fifty six the chair may reduce to two minutes the minimum time for electronic voting under claw six a rule eighteen and clauses eight and nine of rule twenty without objection so ordered to the house resolution nine five six and rule eighteen the chair declares the house of the hall on the state of the union for further consideration of the bill h r forty one thirty well gentlemen from arizona mr pastor kindly resume the chair purposes when the committee of the whole house rolls earlier today the gentleman from texas mr has ten and a half minutes remaining the gentleman from florida mr keller has sixteen minutes remaining mr jonathan florida thank you mr speaker at this time i yield two minutes today gentleman from new york gentleman is recognized for two merit thank you general fueling the speaker ought to call attention to two provisions in this legislation amendment and one of the underlying legislation passes education and labor committee the first provision allows colleges and universities to apply for non federal matching grants for fire prevention technologies through an already established program via the department of education these funds will be used to professionally install fire prevention devices in student housing dormitories and other buildings on campus more people alive today we know mr speaker because a fire detection and this provision will help prevent fires in college housing and save many lives in the process we don't need to be reminded of for example seton hall university several years ago the devastating fire and one of the college buildings that resulted in student deaths the last thing i think a parent wants to discover or hear is that their child was injured or worse killed in a fire while away a college the other provision was including the management with the help of chairman miller and ranking  provision will provide colleges and universities with additional funds to acquire security cameras intrusion detection sensors sensors and other technologies to protect students faculty and campus visitors allowing colleges and universities the opportunity to use these phones will provide a higher education community with a safer environment again one where parents can go to bed at night not worrying whether or not the children are safe so far away from home as we all have colleges and universities chances all throughout the day throughout the country  our districts where the st john's university in staten island a wagon a college we all know that this this funding and these provisions will go a long way to help their campuses become more secure and more safe and without a you'll back to germany was back a time summer from texas mr speaker i'm pleased to recognize a very well respected member of our education committee the gentleman from new york congressman bishop for two minutes john has recognized for two minutes thank you mr speaker and i want to thank chairman miller and chairman  product it closely resembles the senate bill so we should be able to conference it quickly and it continues the strong work that this congress has done on a bipartisan basis to improve access and affordability for higher education we have twice now in a bipartisan basis the administration seems to turman to kill but has broad bipartisan support in this congress we've increased the maximums that students may borrow we also have a mandated that the assignment of the proceeds of defaulted loans that are collected by the department will revert reverse back to the campus revolving loan funds so that those loan funds will remain fully funded it increases the cohort of default rate window so that default rate is now measured over a three year period as opposed to a two year period that will protect students and it will also provide greater accountability and stewardship of taxpayer funds it restricts the secretary's authority with respect to negotiated rulemaking on accreditation standards and this  important as many believe that what an effort is under way to federalize higher education and we believe that they these aspects of higher education are best left to higher education professionals it reinstates the federal role  supporting cooperative education it simplifies the fafsa process has very clear language on transfer of credit and it incorporates the full provisions of our student loan sunshine act so from every vantage point this is a first rate piece of work and i urge gentleman elsley to think chairman miller and ranking member mckeon for assistance in putting a very important part into this bill you know universities have no trouble finding parents when it comes time to ask for the tuitions check and sadly schools can find parents when tragedies occur such as virginia tech when it comes time to call parents and give them bad news about what happened their student but what the greatest fear parents have their students safety while they're at the university or college in awhile ago when a gunman killed thirty two people and wounded others was just one of the tragedies occurred on our campus there many other stories as well in my district in pennsylvania jaylen debbie mahoney lost her son chuck to suicide as he suffered from depression his fraternity brothers his ex girlfriend is calls their college therapist etc all knew he was in danger more in the college but a legal barrier under the family educational rights and privacy act of nine hundred seventy four known as for prevented the school from notifying chuck's parents who could have gotten help he needed unfortunate shock stories not unusual each day an average of three college students commit suicide while in college eleven percent of men and one percent of women consider suicide while they may not all act on the thoughts we need to ensure schools are able to contact parents to get them the help they need not only for the safety the child but also of others on campus parents may be in the best position to help students suffering from significant mental illness by providing emotional support medical history coordinating care with various mental health medical professionals and long term follow up parents will be around long after the school has gone today we're breaking down the legal barrier preventing schools from communicating with parents section eight sixty five of the bill before us today is modeled after the mental health security for america's families and education act h r twenty two twenty which i authored it will prevent future campus tragedies by requiring the secretary of education to clarify further so schools can contact parents when a student is at risk of suicide homicide or physical assault will also protect schools acting good faith from appreciate that very much as a long time political science teacher at cornell college and well born in iowa i'm proud to join in support of this bipartisan legislation i know the college system well in addition to my teaching experience i have visited the colleges and universities throughout iowa second district i've heard firsthand the struggles students face by expanding the year round pell grant the students i've met with especially at iowa's community colleges like kirkwood and indian hills will be able to expedite their studies enter the workforce sooner and achieve the american dream and i'm also pleased to see many rural education provisions in this bill in iowa forty six percent of schools are in rural areas and they serve close to one hundred seventy thousand students iowa's rural education system is impressive but we should be doing more to give rural students the resources they need to succeed this legislation makes college more affordable and accessible to students and i strongly support it in a no small measure because again of the bipartisan support that so many folks on this committee have demonstrated now you'll back t the gentlewoman from new york congresswoman carolyn mccarthy for one and a half minutes general is recognized for one and a half minutes i thank the gentleman from texas and that is standing so in support of h r four one three seven college opportunity and what a bill of the act our nation's future is in their education and we must ensure the students have access to a foot of the higher education that will put their them to excel in the global economy i want to thank chairman miller and his staff for all the hard work they did to get this bipartisan bill out of committee and to the floor and also to a ranking member mr mckeon i would also like to thank the chairman for including some keep the priorities of mine the legislation authorizes project read usa is an ongoing federal program this national program is successfully increased the number of low income students who attend college and earn degrees we are also providing opportunities for nurses as a nation  bachelor's degree we all understand the need for increased campus security this legislation will improve current campus safety prop policies to ensure students are protected and will include and improvements to emergency response policies and technical school students but by far vying students with more opportunities to attend these violen speaker this time i openly managed to the gentleman from connecticut general recognized for three minutes thank you mr chairman and i thank my colleagues per year old ng i start with these basic truisms that higher education is not a luxury it is a public good that access to higher education is critical for maintaining our global competitiveness that many of our economic competitors overseas invest more in higher education institutions than we do and that research shows that eighty percent of the one point seven million new jobs expected to be created by the end of the decade will be occupation to requiring a higher education degree i believe the federal government has a significant role in the very earliest part of a child's education pre kindergarten providing grants to incentivize our local communities to begin to think about educating are very very young and that it has a requirement to make sure that young people in our schools don't fall through the cracks are gaping holes but i am absolutely certain in this in from my heart that the federal government needs to play a much more significant role and higher education i as a member of congress have opportunities the community meetings with constituents like all of you do and i'll never forget about five years after i was a member a young woman came to me and said i want to tell you a story and i was waiting till my youngest brother graduated from graduate school she said my mother my father died when i was twelve years old and i am the oldest of seven children she said my mother was a school teacher she said my mother had one determination that we would all graduate not just from a university college degree but with advanced degrees all seven and she said just a few weeks ago my youngest brother did in fact graduate she said there is a dr of medicine in my family a doctor philosophy at a university a lawyer a schoolteacher with advanced degrees and i'm forgetting the other three what they had but they all had advanced degrees and this was someone who knew the value of education a school teacher i am continually reminded about the impact of what we did with our g i s after world war two and  stimulation has had for our economy and i think of countries like ireland today that are providing free educate ation advanced degree education and what it is done for their economy to end this young woman with three six younger siblings all with advanced degrees said i can't say they are happier but i can tell you this that they have far more options that their income is higher and they have higher income more choices and they can make a greater contribution to society i hope that we continue to work on this legislation i think it is a mr rob andrews from new jersey for one and a half minutes john is recognized for one and a half minutes without objection thank you mr chairman i congratulate chairman and a host chairman miller mr  that work on this bill in the global economic competition the difference between winning and losing is having skilled workers or not having skilled workers this bill takes a major step forward in making sure that we have skilled workers that america puts its best team on the field at all times there's two specific areas i commend the leadership of the committee for including in this bill first tested with autistic men and women a lot of attest children make great strides in their lives and they become very able very empowered people but then they graduate from high school and they age out of their education and the supportive intensive learning environment that they need is very often no longer there this bill has provisions to help establish residential high quality post secondary education programs for autistic men and for autistic women this bill says to the men and women who wear the military uniform of our country that when they come back to campus they will be welcome an anomaly in the existing law says that a young man or young woman who's deployed and goes overseas and fights for our country when he or she comes back they may be treated as a returning student has had a gap in their student life which means they go to the back of the list for enrollment in special courses for financial aid for many other purposes this bill corrects that and recognizes that when a young man or woman serves they should be rewarded we should also tell the times all fired on a bipartisan basis so most times expired as john or from florida the speaker this time will continue to reserve the balance of our time gentleman in florida reserves this time down from texas mr speaker this time i am pleased to recognize the honorable gentleman from massachusetts congressman john tierney for two minutes john is recognized for two minutes i thank the chairman and i thank the speaker as well this is all about access and affordabilit foremost in people's minds whether to speak to people in the business community to talk to academics or elected representatives or families and students the talking about opportunity for individuals talking about the national economic security of this country and i need  innovators for leaders for people in science technology engineering and math fields in the business we're talking about global competitiveness the need to have people with more than just a high school degree and want to lead up businesses and fill out jobs this bill addresses these concerns and it builds on last summer's college cost reduction bill which put twenty billion dollars in over the next five years the digital pell grants to get more students into college and reduction of loan interest rates so it's kristen's of able to afford those lo of getting aid that other people will get this bill also has a provision for all universities and colleges that if they keep their tuition fee increases below the higher education price index the no be rewarded with additional grant money on their campuses to distribute amongst tho student recipients and if they make that promise over five years and keep it then you get additional bonuses as well we have a service pays provision there for people that are going to public service jobs from prosecutors to teachers in difficult areas to health care and public health people they'll get a loan forgiveness of up to ten thousand dollars to smooth their way on that basis alter the past the teaching of those people that are mid career decide that they want to teach we will offer partnerships to make that happen to enhance our teacher corps we have endowment information in there so we can find out whether or not the public policy of allowing people to not pay taxes if they donate to schools actually has a result of going into education expertise things are important this is a good bill jemas time as a card out of committee and unanimous  global american competitive competitiveness and ingenuity is dependent on a skilled workforce that reflects the needs of our economy as a first in my family to graduate from college i realize the value and the importance of a good education  doorway to success and a critical piece to making our country more competitive in a global economy countless studies also detail how dramatically income increases with each successive achievement in education from high school college to advanced degrees as someone who is still paying off student loans i understand the challenges faced by parents and children who watch the dramatic increases in the cost of a college education while i don't agree with every provision in this bill i'm pleased that we have a bill that aims to improve america's competitiveness seeks to make college more affordable and cracks down on fraudulent practice of diploma mills where people manufacture fake diplomas first this bill includes language that i have been working on for a couple of years to improve our competitiveness today we often hear that over half of china's undergrad undergraduate degrees  in math science or engineering unfortunately only sixteen percent of american undergraduates pursued these fields in two thousand and two foreign nationals accounted for over half of all engineering and math doctorates and almost half of all computer science doctorates to meet the demands of an increasingly technological advance global marketplace we must improve the training and the education of our nation through the burden on our scholarships we will refocus the program to award graduate and post graduate scholarships to u s students studying in math science engineering or computer science providing they agree to work in the field for five years following their graduation in addition this bill includes a compromise to incorporate adjunct contect content specialist in into the bird scholarship program to provide grants to schools to recruit adjunct content specialists from experts in math science and critical foreign languages i've worked diligently on this since coming to congress we need to allow qualified professionals to take time out of their career and enter the classroom and share the real world experience i believe our education can be improved if we allow smart and successful people like a bill gates to spend some time in the classroom however we are not simply seeing a shortage of engineers and scientists america must focus and train all demand skills including homegrown welders plumbers auto mechanics lab technicians doctors nurses and pharmacy techs in my eastern washington district manufacturers are turning away job ops applicants because they do not have the thank you mr speaker i yield back the balance of my time generally yells back attack jennifer california from new jersey mr castro one minute one minute general recognize for one minute all i got without that this is truly visionary with regard to the cost we storing integrity and accountability in expanding college access and the first member of my family to have the opportunity to go to college i deeply appreciate what the committee has done but as one part of the bill i want to make an emphasis provide emphasis to and that's the fire safety floor worked on this issue for over seven years deeply involved in the issue after the horrific fire at seton hall university in south orange in two thousand we lost three students fifty eight other students were injured severely this horrible tragedy made it clear that something needed to be done to educate students their families their faculty the staff about the dangers of fires on campuses and that's why reduced to campus fire safety act right to know act parents have a right to know and students that's thirty seconds more german strikes me i have no i don't have any additional t asked the full support of this legislation and i thank the committee members again for the great work this gentleman from florida has six and a half minutes gentleman from california has one minute to show you why so much optimism about the good things being done in this bill and others in two thousand there were three point nine million students getting pell grants this year five and a half million students are getting pell grants and two thousand the maximum award was thirty three hundred dollars per student this year it's about forty eight hundred dollars per student and based on the college cost reduction access act that president bush signed into law in september is going to go up to fifty four hundred in the next couple years two thousand our overall  seven point six billion now it is double that amount we have made a substantial investment in the lives of these young people to make sure that every single child in america rich or poor has the opportunity to get a college education we have reason for optimism we're working together on a bipartisan manner on these higher education issues and i urge my colleagues to support this legislation at this point i will continue to reserve the balance of our time zone reserves this time so i'm from california workforce committee and i'm proud of the bipartisan work that the committee has done on this legislation in fact it's one of the most important piece of legislation will be considering all year because we're talking about access and affordability for more students to be able to go on and develop the skills they need to be competitive in the global marketplace but i also want to especially think a number of individuals who helped include in this reauthorization act a real time writers act which is vitally important in the one nine hundred ninety six telecom act we mandated that every television station had to have closed captioning for the hearing impaired community the problem is we're not producing enough students with those real time captioning skills in order to meet that mandate furthermore virtually every courthouse throughout america is experiencing vash shortages of of official court reporters who are the guardians of our public record and yet we're not producing the students in order to meet that backed up in pent up demand i want to take representative andrews who are as helpful in steering this and making the part of the higher education the act mr regular i was a co sponsor of the original legislation with me senator harkin has been the leader and champion on the senate side to month to promote this bill but i also want to commend represented here  that they're going to offer later that would provide competitive grants for leadership training skills for superintendents and principals throughout the country as those on the committee are well aware we're facing a demographic challenge with over fifty percent of the superintendents and principals about to retire in this country in the next five years not only is quality teaching in the classroom important but the quality of leadership in schools and school districts around the country are vitally important as to how well those schools are going to perform for our for our students so again i commend the committee for the work product that they have before us today the bipartisan work that they've been able to produce and i encourage my colleagues to support this reauthorization and you know many of baucus carm gentleman from california  my time reserves this time gentleman from california chairman i yield of myself balance the time john is recognized the balance of the time for years republicans have fought on behalf of students and families to make college more affordable now our cause is bipartisan our vision for reform is the centerpiece of comprehensive higher education act reauthorization for students and family families grappling with rising college costs this bill establishes college affordability comparison tools to help put cost increases into perspective students will be able to search sort and compare to the cost in the caters for every school in the country we will identify institutions that are the most costly  costly and those with the fastest rising cost and for schools engaging in a pattern of extraordinarily high cost increases we demand greater disclosure and concrete steps to identify inefficiencies and fix them this legislation reflects republican principles for reform including financial aid simplification protection of student privacy safeguards for taxpayer dollars and emphasis on competitiveness and many more positive reforms we will not have this bill before us today without the hard work of staff on both sides of the aisle i want to thank gamey jones in particular for her tireless efforts to ensure this bill includes meaningful college cost reforms i also want to recognize brad thomas and suze ross on my staff along with outgoing staff director vic clapp and his successor sally stroup a higher education policy expert in her own right i'd also like to recognize chairman miller staff including gabby gomez julie that's not how it looks julie and jeff apple appelle throughout the day we will consider a number of amendments some would make the bill stronger while others are unquestionably bad policy that would send us backward however it is the give and take of a bipartisan legislative process that has produced the strong bill before us and i'm hopeful that at the end of the day we'll be able to secure a strong bipartisan passage of this bill to make our hide higher education system more accessible and affordable i yield back the bounds of my time gentleman yield back this time gentleman from california change porter member of the committee for the purpose of closing the debate one minute the germans recognize when a lady is recognized for one minute thank you mr speaker and i thank chairman miller for his leadership on this bipartisan legislation mr speaker i rise today to express my strong support for h r four one thirty seven the college opportunity in a veil for debility act last year the democratically led hundred tenth congress cut interest rates on student loans in half over a five year period in order to help american families pay for college this year we have continued our commitment to the poor and to the middle class by expanding college access college longer getting more expensive by working into student loans i was able to attend college full time but today many students can only attend part time because of financial or family obligations they also have to attend summer session so they can get through college more quickly this legislation will help them by expanding pell grant eligibility for these part time year round students one of this congress is priorities is to make it easier to earn a college education this legislation honors our commitment as a member of the education and labor committee i proudly support this legislation and i urge my colleagues do the same i has expired pursuant to the rule the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in the bill shall be considered as an original bill for the purpose of amendment under the five minute rule and should be considered read norman went to the committe order except those printed in house report one ten dash five twenty three and amendments and block described in section three of house resolution one hundred fifty six each amendment should be considered only in the order printed in the report by a member subject to a demand for division of the question it shall be in order at any time for the chair one of the committee on education labor or his designee to offer amendments and block consisting of amendments printed in the report not earlier disposed of amendments in blocks will be considered read shall be debatable for ten minutes equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member ranking minority member or the designee shall not be subject to amendment and should not be subject to a is now in order to consider amendment number one printed in house report one ten dash five twenty three for what purpose the gentleman from california arise have a manager's amendment at the desk will designate the amendment and then the number one printed in how support number one ten dash five twenty three offered by mr george miller of california pursuit house resolution ninety six the gentleman from california mr george miller and a member opposed each will control ten minutes the chair recognizes jonah from california a human myself one minute and i want to thank national one and the minority for working on this manager's amendment with this it makes additional changes to the pell grant additional changes to strengthen the trio and gear up programs as a master's programs for the historical black colleges and universities in includes changes to encourage colleges and universities to adopt energy efficient  in their campuses in enhances the teacher training development so we can place a qualified teacher in every classroom it's a bipartisan the memmott it's been worked on by by both sides of the staffs and members on both sides of the aisle on the committee and members of the house and i urge passage joan from california from the outset of this process chairman miller has recognized that by working together we can make this bill stronger just as we as he work with us on the underlying bill he also invited our input and involvement in the development of this manager's package i believe the amendment is stronger because of it and i want to thank him for his bipartisanship anyone who has studied the colace college cost issue recognizes that there are no easy or obvious solutions it is taken five years of replying to produce the proposal we are voting on here today when this process began we identified three key principles to guide our proposals first we saw the need for sunshine and transparency in college costs students  families did not have access to accurate useful and comparable information about college costs second we recognize that colleges and universities were not being held accountable to consumers there were no consequences for schools that engaged in massive unexplained to ition increases year after year third in our effort to identify solutions it became abundantly clear that congress could not do it alone we were realize all stakeholders must come together that includes the federal government state government and local communities institutions of higher education and students and parents states have scaled back their investment in higher education and the federal government has been expected to make up the difference while some of the details have changed over time the bill before us at here as to the same three principles i want to thank chairman miller for allowing me to take the lead on these college cost provisions after years of listening to stakeholders seeking the advice of experts and studying potential unintended consequences i believe this proposal strikes the right balance on the cost issue i also want to thank chairman miller for working with me to prevent prevent this bill from limiting access for low income first generation and nontraditional students an amendment offered during committee consideration of the bill change the way cohort default rates are calculated while the proposal did spur an important conversation about how to get a more accurate understanding of default rates in order to protect students and taxpayers the consequences of the proposal would have done far more damage than was intended i'm pleased than in this manager's amendment we were able to forge a compromise that achieves our goal of a more accurate call heart default ra calculation without putting financial aid in jeopardy for the students who need it most on these and other issues chairman miller has worked closely with me to ensure the final bill reflects the priorities of members on both sides of the aisle i thank him for his willingness to cooperate and i urge the majority to continue this spirit of cooperation to address other flaws that remain in the bill so that when this legislation is sign law it is as strong as it can be and i reserve the balance of my time gentleman reserves this time jonah from california when are you one minute to the gentleman from illinois mr davis member the committee joe is recognized for one minute think consideration of items and issues of particular interest to many students with disabilities the handling of pale grants and student loans veterans and their need to specially those who are returning and the efforts to strengthen the startling black colleges and universities so that those institutions can and have master's degree programs that allow students access to student loans when they are activated but that particular deferment only applies to repayment of the principal on existing interest on these loans it does not prevent new interest from accruing while our servicemembers are on active duty one reserve has told me that while he was granted a deferment on his loan he was told that the interest would continue to accrue while he was away and would be added on to his loan when he returned servicemembers such as this reservist already have enough to worry about when they are called to active duty but out this added burden this amendment will cover all active the service members including reserve units and the national guard according to c r s estimates this will help the average servicemembers say between twelve hundred fifteen hundred dollars over the course of a twelve to fifteen month activation period with even more savings for those activated for longer periods in addition and the best part of the c myself such time as i may consume john and recognize we're here today addressing the college cost crisis a problem that has reached epic proportions in this country there are many who believe me among them that we should never have allowed this challenge to reach a crisis point i'm pleased to be acting today but this bill serves as a reminder that congress often fails to recognize challenges in our higher education system and act quickly to solve them i'm afraid we may be making the same mistake by failing to recognize the brewing problems in our federal student loan programs since two thousand and six congress has cut nearly thirty billion dollars from the federal federal family education  loan program while many of these reforms were needed to improve program efficiency i'm afraid we may have gone too far cutting not just the fat but straight through to the bone the impact of these cuts has yet to be fully realized but already borrower benefits have been curtailed lenders have left the program and workers have lost their jobs the consequences of program cuts are being exacerbated by a crunch in our financial markets that has produced a loss of liquidity and increase in financing costs and uncertainty about the future viability of the federal loan program just a few four short months into this time of market turmoil already twelve hundred jobs have been lost and eight lenders have left the federal student loan program or severely limited participation this includes depart the departure of the seventh largest lender in the program major lenders have significantly scaled back or ended their bar or benefit programs mr chair i'm afraid this is only the tip of the iceberg i'd hope to offer an amendment today that would help ensure congress does not ignore these challenges until they to reach a crisis point my amendment was nothing more than a sense of congress but i believe it would have signaled our commitment to averting a student loan crisis before it happens unfortunately i was blocked by the majority from offering this amendment it seems we have not yet learned from past mistakes i reserve the balance of my time german reserves this time zone from texas mr speaker i am pleased to recognize the gentleman from outpaced inflation posing a financial challenges to many students and families as a former teacher school principal and school board member i am committed to providing the students with greater access to a higher education thereby ensuring that america remains competitive in the global economy having well trained teachers in our classroom is essential to preparing the children for the jobs of tomorrow it's estimated that over two million new teachers will be needed in the ten years h r forty one thirty seven provides individual seeking a rewarding career in teaching more opportunities to enroll in high quality teacher preparation programs this legislation will and has and he should work force by establishing centers of excellence in teacher training and providing grants to communicate logistic stablish or improve teacher preparation and professional development programs forty one thirty seven will also help improve reading for as many as ten million struggling readers during my tenure as a school administr successfully established jonas concert soon recognize an additional thirty seconds thank you we stablished a program for students with dyslexia central to this program was a specialized training every teacher  received on how to address the needs of students with reading difficulties after more than twenty years there still appears to be a gap between what is known about effective reading instruction and how teachers i've been trained forty one thirty seven includes provisions to expose this gap highlight a few aspects of this bill that i worked to include during can stay committed consideration of the bill i offered and pass the amendment to encourage colleges and employers to form partnerships that identify high demand occupations and create educational pathways for students to pursue them these partnerships will help students succeed in the job market and provide local businesses with the skilled workers they need to grow this bill also includes my legislation that requires the department of education to forgive the student loans of veterans who are determined to be totally and permanently disabled by the v a this will end the duplicative and burdensome process that disabled veterans currently must endure it also includes my legislation to provide grants for teacher preparation courses at minority serving institutions to help them recruit prepare the teachers of tomorrow this legislation will expand our teaching pipeline and improve the diversity of our nation's teachers and teaching force the college this time i'm pleased to recognize the gentleman from minnesota mr waltz for one minute jones recognized or it looks like jonah from washington will be recognized for one minute add a little green idea to our higher education bill i want to think a chairman miller for incorporating an idea that i had proposed into this manager's amendment which will really help colleges in some of the terribly exciting work they're doing to green up their campuses i visited a plymouth state university in new hampshire while back who has built the langdon woods dormitory its one hundred thousand square foot dormitory it's a beautiful dorm and they are saving enormous amounts of energy because they built a green with good insulation cogeneration a triple play in windows it's a great idea so we have an amendment that's been incorporated in this that's going to help colleges move forward in three ways first that will call for those who use these federal funds for the colleges to meet or exceed minimum energy efficiency standards for their new renovations or construction is developed by the e chairman on the on the full committee ranking member now mr castle from delaware two minutes gemma's recognized for two minutes  thank you very much and i thank the same wish ranking member for yelling for a moment there i thought i was a chairman again but i guess that's not quite the case i am very pleased to rise in support of the legislation to rise in support of the manager's amendment i hope that  everybody who is considering this bill today is paying attention to what i think all of us are hearing at home and that is that the cost of college education is going out faster as a cost of living increase than anything including health care that is a vital part of our economy that if we do not produce good college graduates and graduate students of beyond that that we will be hurt that greatly from an purpose of dealing with looking closely at a college costs and asking them to pay attention to it we've had a number of hearings about this and some have produced good testimony some of reduced sort of marginal testimony in terms of what c done and my view is that this legislation is a big step forward to in addressing that issue i know all the college presidents and boards mean well but the bottom line is they have to serve well too and they have to make sure that college is affordable possible to as many people as possible law i will be involved in several of them emmett's later on but the basic underlying structure of what we're trying to do here today is of great importance to the entire educational economic future of our country and i hope that all of us can be as supportive as possible of the speaker i am pleased to recognize my friend and colleague from the great state of oregon mr earl blumenauer for one minute john was recognized for one minute i appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this and i particularly appreciate the chairman mr miller having incorporated into this legislation with the committee work that we've been doing for the last several years dealing with sustainability in higher education i in my own way i'd like this provision to be named after the way debbie murdock a woman that i worked with who tragically passed away make sure that we have colleges a quipped to be able to have sustainability programs this is the wave of the future this is where the jobs are this is what our companies need to be able to be competitive in a world of global warming and climate change most of them say only thirty percent of these companies say they've got the people with the skills information and personnel to meet the challenge this will enable colleges to be able to develop sustainability programs to be able to implement those sustainability programs and to be able to have the appropriate evaluation to know what works i hope this is the tip of the iceberg we can work on in the future look forward to working with the chairman looking forward to working with my friend the subcommittee chair and with that i will stop john the time's expired so men from california continue to reserve judgment reserves this time zone a from texas mr mr speaker at this time and place to recognize the gentleman from minnesota congressman watts for one minute john was recognized for one minute thank you mr speaker thanks to the subcommittee chair a special thank you to chairman miller in the ranking member as a lifelong educator and a teacher in the classroom for twenty years the understanding of the work that has been put into this piece of legislation is something i think we can all be very proud of it takes in and und erstands the investment in america's future comes in education i would like to make one comment one of the issues that doesn't come up very often the cost of college expenses is the cost of textbooks that runs about nine hundred dollars for an average student and one of the problems we've seen is small changes in textbooks that require students to buy new ones each and every year and there's a very important person in my district judge denny was the president of the one on a state university student senate and sherrod worked for years tirelessly on this issue to bring about some transparency in how textbooks are marketed unfortunately jared passed away unexpectedly over thanksgiving and i think that i meant for giving me the opportunity for the work that he did in the committee to address this very issue and i yield to the gentleman from california the students faculty college bookstores and publishers and providing an accurate description of what the revisions in these textbooks what the new edition really means very often we've been told by students and faculty and others concerned with this is you have the sometimes these changes  and so that you have to have the new textbooks you can't use the use textbook we think this will be an improvement and i want to thank you so much for hounding the committee on this on the subject think this is the beginning of increased transparency and concentration on this problem gentleman from california how much time do we have remaining how much time do we have gentleman from california has two minutes remaining gentleman from texas as one minute remaining we'll have one give further speakers i would like to reserve for our time i have one minute left is the gentleman from texas prepared to close education bill one that is going to be one of the most meaningful pieces of legislation that i have participated in together with our chairman george miller and with my good friend bu california who has been a real gentleman and a great leader in higher education i believe that this will open the doors to so many men and women throughout the country it will raise the level of education attainment in many regions of the country and all i can say is we are delighted that we could be working with later so the quality of buck mckeon mike castle they can many others on the other side of the aisle and with that  amendment number two printed in house report number one ten dash five twenty three offered by mr maine t n of california pursuant to has a delusion nine fifty six the gentleman from california mr mckeon and a member  control five minutes the gentleman the chair recognizes the gentleman from california and i'm sure you know myself such time as i may consume before this reauthorization even began i was involved in an innovative bipartisan effort known as the fed up project that laid the groundwork by reducing red tape eliminating outdated rules and streamlining federal financial aid programs the late representative patsy mink and i join together to solicit input from the higher education community to increase the effectiveness of our federal financial aid programs by cutting through the red tape and regulations we did this because over the years colleges and universities have become subject to an increasing level of federal bureau regulation unfortunately when new regulations are layered on top of the old we often end up with duplications and confusion today  we contemplate another set of new programs regulations and requirements i believe we need to renew that commitment to less red tape that's why i am proposing a comprehensive study of the regulations that impact higher education unnecessary new programs there is a danger that we may be exacerbating the college cost crisis by burdening colleges and universities with excessive new reporting and compliance costs with this study i hope we can move in a different recognize that as speaker i rise in support of the mccann amendment and i wish to give thirty seconds to the gentleman from california george miller germans recognize also want to rise in support of this amendment  he's been working on this for a considerable period of time i think it makes sense now maybe even more so now was and it was envisioned in an earlier reauthorization because it will include the programs that survive the conference committee become law it will also compare those new programs against existing programs and i ask our colleagues to support this amendment gentleman  chair i wish to thank chairman miller chairman in a host of further support for the hard work that they put into this bill and let them know how much i've appreciated working with them not just on this bill but over the years and and i hope that all of designate the amendments some block sentiments on block consisting of amendments number three eight twenty fourteen and sixteen printed in house report number one ten dash five twenty three offered by mr biggs sarah of texas gentleman from texas mr heene a house that thank you madam speaker i wish to recognize the chairman of the subcommittee on high on elementary and secondary education the honorable  it was ten years ago that mr mccain and i managed the reauthorization of this bill and it was a labor of love during that time and i think we're going to have a great bill again here today and i remember those ten years ago very finally that i'm chair simply this amendment clarifies that the secretary of education may continue to set aside a percentage of the funds appropriated for tribally control colleges and universities for a competition for grants for for civil teas at t c c use since two thousand and two the secretary has conducted this competition pursuant to appropriations language my me that these colleges have the resources they need to invest in their infrastructure that is why this competition has been so important to all the t c c use my memory is strongly supported by the american indian higher education consortium rise today to ask my esteemed colleagues for their enthusiastic support for an amendment that representative chet edwards and i are offering quite simply this amendment make certain that children and dependents of active duty service members can afford higher education it guarantees in state tuition for the dependents of military family members and it ensures that these students maintain their in state rates even if a parent or guardian is reassigned out of state in kansas we've always believed everyone who works hard should have the chance to succeed kansas believe that education should be open doors not close them education should create opportunities requiring military dependents to pay out of state tuition leaves military students the children of our nation's heroes sometimes with debt as far as the eye can see i'm proud that my state of kansas like many others extends both benefits to military dependents but now congress must act to support service members in all fifty states all the five states in america offer in state tuition to military dependents and all but seventeen because serve those at rates even if a loved one is reassign military parents like all parents want a high quality and affordable education for their children due to the nature of their job which often requires extra moves military families are too often faced with the extra challenge of making sure their children receive an affordable education without endlessly transferring schools our country service members are making the ultimate sacrifice for us madam speaker and it's our duty to do everything within our power to help them take care of their loved ones we must help them serve with a clear mind and unworried about the financial security and educational futures of their children the very last thing a soldier needs to worry about one navigating the streets of baghdad is whether or not their child can pay for college madam speaker i rise today again to ask my esteemed colleagues for their enthusiastic support of the children of these heroes of our nation's military unblocked gentlemens advised that there are five on block amendments the five number three killed the amendment the number i'm sorry number twenty three kildee number twelve davis numbers thirty seven there there are a couple of i support the amendments with a couple of caveats the emsley amendment while we are not objecting to this amendment we do have some concerns about the consequences of the the requirement the that the sustainability grants provide for greenhouse gas emissions reductions will increase operating costs for colleges and universities if that happens the result will be still higher tuition  for students at a time when we are trying to lower the cost of the higher education and some comments on the susan davis a memo and i appreciate him and i served with the mistake of us on the armed services committee and i appreciate her efforts there are some questions that i do have first what i remember and does says that an individual that is serving on active duty during a war performing qualifying national guard duty during a war military operation or national emergency and is serving in the area of hostilities in which service qualifies for special pay i'm i'm hopeful that that includes everyone that we're trying to reach in the service  and i'm and i'm not sure that that is in a totally inclusive for what she's trying to cover and and then the next concern i have is that the bar or must have obtained their loan through the government run direct loan program  currently the direct loan program only provides about twenty percent of the loans so that would mean that if one of these military personnel got their loan through the one of the other felt programs they would be excluded from this i believe her intention would be to to grant this benefit to all serving in military in war time so i'm hopeful that  we can clean that up make changes in that during the the conference because i believe that that that's probably her or her intent on that and finally i would like to also say to my good friend mr kildee the ten years have gone quickly but he looks just as young as he did ten years ago and i appreciated working with him then as i do now and yield back the balance my time gentleman yields back these amendments and block and i yield back the balance of my gentleman yells back the question now is on the amendments on block all in favor say aye opposed no the eyes have it the amendments  it is now in order to consider member number four printed in house report one ten five twenty three for what purpose does the gentleman from california write this is comes mr peters and emmett ok for what purpose does the gentleman pursuant to house resolution nine fifty six the gentleman from wisconsin mr p try and a member opposed each control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin thank you alternative market mechanism study mechanism which is before us this amendment would significantly advance our understanding of market based reforms to the guaranteed student loan program there were begun last year during our consideration of the college cost reduction act this congress has demonstrated significant interest in developing some type of comprehensive market based reform in order to overhaul the guaranteed loan program and make certain that tax payers interests are are the are better served last year i had the opportunity to offer a minute in the education labor committee to the college cost reduction and access act to study  and pilot a market based reforms such as an auction to determine how the federal government may better determine bunder yields tree duce wasteful spending in the guaranteed loan program this moment was adopted in the comm and included in the bipartisan the house passed bill last summer well i was pleased that an auction pilot was included in the in the final law there is growing concern among reformers the lending industry and the administration that the senate senate model which was adopted may have significant implementation logistical challenges however this this bill for presents us with an opportunity to further study and consider an effective market based reform proposal so the minute before us would simply amend the current option pilot evaluation language included in this bill to require the secretaries of education and the treasury in conjunction with the government accounting office the office of management and budget and the congressional budget office to evaluate the feasibility of an alternative market based reform to the federal family education loan program the alternative should reduce federal cost of taxpayers and use savings to increase need based grants to lower income students urged members to support this amendment to further our understanding of market based reform options the study would mark a important step toward fully understanding market based reforms of the program and would build on reforms amendment essentially requires that a piece ability study on market mechanisms that could then be used to determine lender returns when making student loans had we not just adopted an auction process for student loans and the recently passed budget cutting bell this might make sense this amendment may be couched in terms of a study however it's difficult to see how the secretary would study something like this without actually implement a broader pilot and that is that is the main concern that we have the department of education conducted a market mechanism study several years ago with the g a o and others that extensive study did not find auctions to be a workable mechanism for administering the student loan program taking another look several years later have shed new light on the subject we need the department to focus on the creation and evaluation of this auction before we decide to push for studies or implementations of other auctions i reserve the balance of my time loan programs and to guarantee a direct program and the guarantee program better in the past we've adopted pretty much of a political based approach of congress setting the amount of the guarantee that private lenders receive for making student loans the reform act this summer we cut that and tried to put in place a a pilot arist approach coming from the senate for a market based mechanism this would broaden the study and i think would in fact the something that will end up saving the taxpayer money if it works and if it doesn't work we're no worse off it's a study so i don't understand the reluctance to try to get the treasury department and experts in this area we have auctions for loans every every week late to finance the debt of our country and we certainly can do a better job of pricing the guaranteed student loan program an auction to see whether we can do it make it feasible this may be helpful and that's making some determinations about how we proceed on that effort and how the department proceeds on that effort so i've supported them and i think the chairman i certainly would urge the germ of the ranking minority member on the committee as they go to conference to keep an open mind on this proposal so we can do the best job with the taxpayers money and help students get get their loans chair it pains me to oppose the amendment of my good friend from wisconsin we've served now on the education committee together for almost sixteen years and he's always concerned about protecting the the taxpayer on the taxpayer dollars i think that we're i'm i'm not so concerned about the study it's it's the way the amendment is drafted that that that looks like it will impose the full  the full up program before the study so that the study could be made complete and i understand that auctions are taking place all the time but they're not generally done by the department of education they're done by the department of treasury and other other branches i'm not sure the department of education has that expertise but as we move forward on this hopefully maybe in conference this could be this could be cleared up and and  i recorded vote has said requests to pursue it to caustic several eighteen further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from wisconsin will this be postponed it is now an order to consider men at number five printed in house report one ten five twenty three for what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin write speak in support of imams the clerk will designate the members and them at number five printed in house report number one ten dash five twenty three offered by mr p try and wisconsin pursuant to house resolution nine fifty six the gentleman from wisconsin mr p tryon a member postal each control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman from  the same affordable loans to american students the federal family education or guaranteed loan program and the william d for direct loan program in the past year a significant amount of attention has been paid to the scandal ridden and wasteful guaranteed loan program reducing excessive subsidies was the primary goal of the bipartisan college cost reduction and access act that was in acted like last september and  we have seen some success but this program was so in broiled with illegal and unethical activity between lenders and financial aid officers that sweeping new rules are included in this higher education reform act aimed at ending these relationships and providing much greater transparency for students and for taxpayers given all the abuse that occurred in the garrity program imagine my surprise when an amendment ended up being adopted which had the effect of targeting the direct loan program and a seemingly innocuous amendment to audit the direct loan program contained a series of reporting requirements applied only to the direct loan program which were designed to make it appear the program was performing more poorly than the turn of guaranteed program should note that despite the scores of improprieties documented in the guaranteed loan program the direct loan program has had no similar ethical abuses further it's been scored significantly cheaper by the office of management budget c b o and g a o since its exception inception in the early one nine hundred know it would be one thing if the amendment applying applied these new reporting provisions equally to both the guarantee and direct programs and i'm encouraged that the author of the both programs but this language currently in the bill has the effect of undermining the direct loan program boosting the guaranteed loan programs performance in comparison and the amendment before us address gross's the language as chairman madam chairman what's good for the goose is good for the gander the amendment would maintain the audit and most of the reporting requirements added to the  but would also require comparable audits and reporting for guarantee agencies in the guaranteed loan program i have no doubt the direct loan program will pass the audit was shining colors and i look forward to the report i hope the same can be said of the guaranteed loan program i had asked to support for the moment and reserve the balance of my time this we've got some disagreements about it although we basically are saying the same thing that we want both of the programs to be traded equally and i certainly concur with that i also want to thank the chairman of the ranking member for their work on this as we went through committee  rise to at this time i rise though to oppose this this amendment h r forty one thirty seven the college opportunity and portability act it really has been a product of significant and extensive thoughtful deliberation over many congress one example i believe of that thoughtfulness is section four fifty four which is included in the in the manager's amendment which is a provision asking for an independent audit of the direct loan program and greater disclosure of the program's impact on the national debt  in fact that provision was unanimously adopted in our committee during markup now why is this important well it's important because the direct loan program amazingly is not currently subject to the routine audits that examine all of these issues further the government finances the direct loan program by borrowing and so it contributes in some way that we believe ought to be determined and that was the purpose of the of the amendment it contributes in some way directly to that national debt now we all talk about transparency and i'm all for transparency transparency is critical if we're going to hear in congress get a handle on evaluating the student lending programs and make the best decisions for college access and affordability unfortunately i believe that this amendment being offered undermines that congressional oversight and paralyzes section four fifty four i also believe that it weakens the independent audit portion of the direct loan program private lenders under the f e l the fifth federal family education  loan program are subject to full and regular audit's and this section in the bill is intended to subject the direct loan program to similar full and regular on its that's the common ground that we talk about and hopefully will be able to find his way as we move  forward as an example the amendment also eliminates a requirement to the direct loan audit that includes an examination of the unreconciled balances of loans by year of origination this is a key piece of information for the f e l program loans must be reconciled every year while the direct loan program is not held to the same standard so by weakening the independent audit of the direct loan program the amendment i believe would eliminate the portion requiring disclosure of the program's impact on the national debt and just as a matter of information we all here in congress should know about that so in closing members i believe need to remember that all of this is being done to in essence would add a duplicate audit of the ability for the f programs and not the same for the direct loan programs i look forward to working with my colleague from wisconsin and the chairman and the ranking member as we move forward both the direct loan and the f at the l program should be held up to the light of day so the to spares know what they're getting from audits these are two these are two programs that for the sake of the cat tax payer compete with one another and i think that that's that's important i was encouraged to see in the president's two thousand and nine budget that for the first time the taxpayer costs for student borrowing through the fell program are closer to the more efficient direct loan programs taking into account what we did in the reconciliation bill i was also interested to see that all that still we see that it costs it cost only one fourth this much to to make a direct loan as it does to make a new felt loan program so i think that we should be encouraged and we should be prepared to to have these these audits because i think the taxpayer is winning this discussion thanks in large part to the efforts of mr p try over many years to have this kind of comparison this kind of discussion that many of the recommendations that we made in the reconciliation bill were in fact the recommendations of the bush administration from the from the office of o m b about the cost of that program we were able to take that money out reese recycle it in favor of students and families borrowing the money to drive down the cost of because if you on the one hand treats a direct loan as adding to the debt with no offset because it's a loan which will be repaid it's an asset the loan is an asset it there should be some offset you can get a very misleading picture because unless you compare apples and an apples you can have a badly disor heard that some individuals believe that the direct loans are cheaper than the f e l programs the loans and in fact official government reports all agree that the budget scoring rules do not i repeat do not capture the real economic costs of both of these student loan programs they agree that all of the call should be accounted for when comparing the two programs and so i think madam chair we are in fact saying a lot of the same thing i look forward to working again with my friend from wisconsin with the ranking member and with the chairman as we move forward accountability amendment to the college opportunity and affordability act which i also support legislation to reform and strengthen many of the nation's higher education programs as you know for over a decade congress has worked on the behalf of students and families in an effort to solve the college cost crisis today we will have the opportunity to vote on these bipartisan college cost reforms we all could agree on the need to hold down the cost of college and i believe we are making progress by providing additional support to minority serving institutions teacher quality grants grants supporting veteran student success and other positive changes i would like to also note the provisions included to help us better track annual changes intuition fees and room and board costs for undergraduate students all of the information collected will be made publicly available on the department's college navigator website so that students and their parents have better access to the cost increases at various institutions while each of these provisions take steps in the right direction to combat college c i believe we can go farther to uncover what is driving college costs and hopefully stem the tide of this growth that threatens access to higher education for many american students by memon expands the responsibilities of the quality task forces the stablish in the underlying legislation by requiring them to develop annual benchmarks for the top five percent of institutions which have the the largest increase in their tuitions and fees over the most recent three year period if these institutions fail to meet these benchmarks rather than punishing the schools the legislative penalties institutions are simply required to provide the secretary of education with a detailed explanation of the reasons why they failed to do so i am supportive of the underlying legislation which makes you forms our institutions of higher learning parents and students of my members will build upon the provisions set forth in the introduced legislation to make tuitions increases even more transparent and help ensure colleges are doing everything possible to reduce college costs so that any student wishing to obtain a higher gentleman from california except we write in support of the amendment i think i think that the effort that is being made here by mr castle will will in fact add to some understanding by the by the public and some transparency for those of us who have to make policy as to exactly what's going on with the with the increased in in college costs i think these kinds of explanations will be important for all of the amendments adopted that is now in order to consider a member at number seven printed in the house report one ten five twenty three for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois write the chairman i have him in the circle designate the men recognizes gentleman from illinois thank you ma'am chairman i am myself two minutes gentleman is recognized madam chairman unlike most kinds of debt student loans of all types of currently none dischargeable in bankruptcy except on the judicial find in of undue hardship under this amendment government student loans federal and state and loans made directly by nonprofit entities would remain none discharge other student loans made by for profit banks and other lenders would continue to be known discharge of or for the first five years after they come due but after that they would be treated like other unsecured consumer loans  bankruptcy there's a minute also closes the loophole that lenders were beginning to pursue just before the two thousand and five changes went into effect currently loans that are funded in whole or in part by nonprofit institution are known dischargeable lenders often private student loans were setting up with all the nations with nonprofit institutions in order to take advantage of this loophole even though the nonprofit was not the source of funding the current law is unfair to students students who take out student loans to trying to better themselves then contribute to the advancement of our economy unlike federal student loans private loans like basic consumer protections such as limits on interest rates loan limits and flexible payments yet the bankruptcy law treats student loan borrowers who face financial tragedy in the same severe man as people trying to escape child support payments alimony overdue taxes and criminal fines people should not be punished for trying to get an education and i would reserve the balance of my time additional risk to student lending and i can't help but think that this will further restrict students access to loans at a time when they are already finding it harder to obtain loans due to the current instability in the credit market i reserve the balance of my time can understand and i yelled at this i go ahead i feel that this time to the member of the judiciary committee the ranking member of the commercial and administrative law that has jurisdiction for the bankruptcy called the gentleman from utah a ranking member of that subcommittee mr cannon two and a half minutes sentiments recognized thinking about i'm sure this amendment will undo an important provision of the bankruptcy code that was enacted just two years ago in the bipartisan bankruptcy abuse prevention and consumer protection act of two thousand and five it will increase risk for student lending the lending market will respond to by restricting the availability of credit because you are currently allowed student loans to be discharged if the graduate is facing an undue hardship this policy provides balance by protecting truly unfortunate graduates while still preserving the integrity of student loans this  if this rate this policy by removing the undue hardship requirement for private sector student loans allowing these loans to be discharged five years after graduation federally funded and guarantee are federally guaranteed loans can still be discharged only upon a showing of under hardship accordingly the private market which is the most sensitive to rist bears the burden of this of this change students looking for loans in the future but at the harder time finding them inevitably students would encounter higher interest rates shorter payment periods and other more restrictive lending terms as lenders look to avoid potential losses and bankruptcy to men but in short would damage not advance the cause of education there is no free lunch and there is no free bankruptcy we can do better for our students and we can do better for our system of higher education this amendment would undo an important provision of vacancy code and acted just two years ago if there's one thing that is important commercial law including bankruptcy law its stability lenders and investors must have confidence that congress will not constantly change the rules of the game we would send the wrong message if a mere two years after the a p c p a passage we began to tinker with the provisions of a new bankruptcy law regrettably the pattern is already beginning to emerge in this congress it can and should be stuck to pieces treatment of creditors and bankruptcy can have only one effect the chilling of lending and investment changes in the bankruptcy code ought to receive the scrutiny of the judiciary committee since that there's a man that has not been considered by the judiciary committee the congressional experts on bankruptcy and had no opportunity to vet it through in regular order this man will do more harm than good and will affect the availability of student loans in the future i urge my colleagues to vote against this man and he'll back gentleman yes back gentleman from illinois and chairman i'm with you one minute to the that these that these private student loans have been offered to a great number of people who who is questionable about whether or not they can pay it back and we now see these private lenders retreating from this market because they know they've now made loans that they're not going to be able to sell off to others they've made questionable loans these loans look more and more like consumer loans because there's no requirement that the people who take out these loans in the direct marketing to students student signs up gets a loan they don't have to pay their tuition they don't have to pay their books they don't have to pay their dormitory fees their consumer loans they can buy beer and pizza they can buy flat screen t v s and they are to be treated like those like like those consumer loans that's why this m m is supported by the american association of community colleges and associations state colleges and universities the association of jesuit colleges and universities a consumer federation of america the consumers union united states students association the u s public interest groups because they all recognize they all recognize that this is far different than the public loans that the families of students take out where there's arrangement to work out and help those students if they get into in trouble generally not tiny because i live alone let the marketplace work there now charging the students eighteen and twenty  remaining opponents had two minutes three and they have how much two and a half minutes remaining and we have the right to close that's correct their financial footing on which to rebuild a productive life which is good for them as well as for society my colleague the gentleman from illinois seeks to restore some balance with respect to the discharge ability of certain student loans this is an excellent measure for the following reasons one it ensures that predatory for profit lynda's cannot take advantage of a current provision in bankruptcy law intended to protect nonprofit institutions that make and educational loans and second the amendment instill some moderation with respect to the discharge ability of certain educational loans made by private sector lynda's which under current banks in bankruptcy law can be non dischargeable no no matter how long ago the loan was made so for those reasons i average my colleagues to support this amendment thank you gentleman from illinois thank you madam chairman our human stamp balance of our time gentleman is recognized for many of the students who secure loans without the protection of bankruptcy it's like receiving a life sentence with no appeal that is the say they get a loan that is supposed to help them get a college degree and education so they can pay the loan off unfortunately many of them are stuck on seventy eighty ninety one hundred thousand alos but they're never able to pay and so they struggle along for the rest of their lives trying to pay off the loan that was supposed to have secured for them a level of financial ability i would urge that we pass this amendment to give those hundreds and thousands of students throughout the country the simple protection of bank rep's the that is provided for individuals with any of the consumer loans i think you and you'll back the balance of my time else fact gentleman from california i feel the remainder of our time to the subcommittee ranking member of higher education the gentleman from florida mr keller gentlemen to recognize i thank the gentleman for yielding madam speaker i know what mr davis is trying to do here and i'm sympathetic he realizes like we all do that people are hurting and they're paying higher costs for mortgages and health insurance and gas prices and college tuition and so for those folks who who can't make their student loans payment let's give them some relief in bankruptcy court the challenge is this is going to help a small number of people but hurt a larger number of people if you allow this to go forward then what you have is a much higher risk loan that will result in the lenders having no choice but to charge higher interest rates for new students getting loans higher origination fees they will require a higher credit score now since most eighteen year old kids don't have good credit scores you have to look to their parents what does that mean the kids from wealthy families who is mom and dad has a high credit score and has lots of assets to back up as collateral nice homes mercedes are going to get student loans the poor kids in the future who you're trying to help whose parents don't have a high credit score are going to have to pay a lot higher interest rates for loans and origination fees and their mom or dad may not have the collateral to get them alone if that's required in these private loans so it's going to have the unintended consequences of restricting credit in the future it's also very unfair to lenders who made loans ten years ago to have this applied retroactively now what is a better way the better way is the current system you get out of school you got ten years to make your payment you can't make it you work with the lenders for more flexible options let it let you pay over twenty five years the bankruptcy code already provides a provision for unto hardship for those people who truly need it let's go with a better approach and that's why it would have been better to have the judiciary committee have  gentleman from illinois will be postpone it is now an order to consider amendment number nine in house report one ten dash five twenty three for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania writes madam chair i the desk clerk will report designate the amendment and then the number  e printed in house report number one thousand and five twenty three offered by mr set of pennsylvania pursuant to house resolution nine fifty six the gentleman from pennsylvania mister and a member of each control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania thank you madam chair i use myself as much time is on the consumer gentlemen nice today our country faces significant labor shortages in occupations that are vital to our educational health and therefore our national security i think chairman miller and ranking member mr mckeon for their efforts to expand the professional areas of recognition where there is a national need which is critically important as we temp to ensure an adequate workforce for services that are all americans in this vein i believe the list of health occupations for which national need exists must also include physical therapists recent reports of showing that our country does not have an adequate number of physical therapists to meet our growing needs according to the american hospital association therapist represent the occupation for which the greatest percentage of vacancies exist in our hospitals across our nation at eleven point four percent vacancy rate this is at a time when the demand for physical therapist employment is projected to grow twenty seven percent within eight years even if fifty eight percent of all hospitals are reporting in two thousand and six that therapist recoupment was more difficult than the year before i therefore believe it is imperative we add physical therapist in the areas of national need to ensure the secretary of education has direction to provide loan repayment to physical therapists compounding this challenge of our national need for physical therapist exceeding our supply or already thirty one thousand servicemen and women who have returned home from the war in afghanistan and iraq to recover from moon sustained in the service of their country physical therapist will therefore continue to play an integral role in rehabilitating our nation's veterans as they cope with injuries from the battlefield to ensure the proper care and recovery of those w sacrificed their well being protect us we must address our shortage of physical therapists this amendment to include physical therapists as individuals in an occupation of national need supported by the american physical therapy association is a necessary and practical measure to attract students to this profession the loan repayment incentive of up to ten thousand dollars for students to attain a graduate the gree in physical therapy which results from designating physical therapy as an area of national need to encourage more students to enter the profession and help alleviate these growing vacancies idea for jim my colleagues support this commonsense amendment that highlights this issue of upmost importance for everyone but also including the veterans returning from our wars overseas thank you and reserve the balance of my time and reserved for what purpose does the gentleman from florida right to claim the time in opposition sentiments recognize i thank you madam speaker i claim the time in opposition although i not opposed to the amendment protection i don't have any objection to it but at this time i would like to reserve the balance of our time gentleman from georgia gentlemen to recognize i thank the chair and i want to commend the author of what i think is an appropriate amendment of loan forgiveness as an orthopedic surgeon i work closely with physical therapists  and they are integral to the to the healing process in so many so many areas but another group that also has the occupational therapists and we've been contacted by them and i would be pleased to enter into a  ask ask my friend if he would consider throughout the process if we can work toward including the occupational therapists in this area as well and i'm happy to give sir i would do that with that eleven point four percent amendment on favors that all oppose now the amendment and they did the chair the amendment is adopted for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania right all right sorry it is now in order to consider ame twenty three offered by mr cent of pennsylvania pursuant to half resolution one thirty six the gentleman from pennsylvania mr sesac and a member apostle each control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania madam chair i yield myself as much time as i may consume gentlemens recognize madam chair congress has worked hard on legislation approved the access affordability and transparency of the higher education system reforms that improve transparency in college costs in the student loan industry our priority of this legislation and i thank the chairman and the ranking member and their staff for their hard work on these important efforts however i also believe we need to call attention to the barriers and the lack of transparency among colleges specifically regarding the transfer of academic critic between post secondary institutions today students take increasingly complex pathways to achieving the post secondary degree over forty percent of students attending a college or university transfer at least once before they complete their undergraduate degree however despite increases in student mobility institutions have not adjusted with substantive changes in the manner in which they oversee and articulate the transfer of college student academic credit there are significant consequences for failing to provide students with a better understanding of how and which of their courses qualify for credit in other post secondary institutions a student's inability to transfer credit may result in longer rollman more tuitions payment and additional federal financial aid in fact it is estimated that transfer students incur costs of well over five billion dollars per year national that indicates that on average transfer graduates take about ten work credit and three more months to complete the back lariat agree the non transfers graduates and some transfer students have even been forced to spend up to an additional year in an institution to attain a degree because their earned academic credits do not transfer the students expend money taking courses that one institution that will not result in academic credit at another one of the most problematic consequence of our current system is the loss of students who are or may drop out of college due to the cost and complications of transferring their academic course credit between schools it is clear that the credit transfer process to the extent that it delays student's progress can affect the affordability of post secondary education the time it takes  graduate and the number of those who do actually graduate i believe it is time for this fusion develop new strategies to improve gaps in credit transfer agreement and facilitate transparency of credit equivalencies between institutions my m encourages states and public institutions of higher education to develop management systems for course equivalency transfer of credit and articulation the cost of transferring between institutions of man the utilization of new techniques to reduce the financial impact and obstacles facing students believe that this amendment provides an important pro choice and a necessary alternative for institutions to consider when developing credit transfer agreements and i therefore urge my colleagues to support this amendment thank you and whose are the balance of my time flor flow of credit and while that's important to many people listening to us our colleagues may not be familiar with the term articulation agreements if they do not serve on the education committee for example let me give them an idea what that is if you go to a community college in my district with say one called the lunch a community college and you get your associates associates degree there is an articulation agreement that exists with the local for your university called the universe of central florida that agreement says if you graduate from lunch a community college we guarantee you admission and acceptance into our four year university that is a wonderful thing for low income kids who want to get a four year education because it only cost two grand a year to go to this community college and you know that based on this articulation agreement in the transfer credits you will then go to a prestigious four year school for an additional two years and be guaranteed admission it's really the only silver bullet i see out there right now at a time when we see the public  four year universities increasing their tuition by thirty one percent over the past five years the one bright spot that exists is so many partnerships that exist between community colleges and four year schools in the forms of articulation agreements whatever we can do in congress to make it easier to have more of these articulation agreements and a freer flow of transfer credit can only help those children from low and moderate income families achieve their dream of a college education that's why i'm going to support this then in my district where drexel university partnered an articulation agreement with penn state used to technology because these two technologies focuses on many of those who are disenfranchised they bring them in and after two years now post now the amendment we painted the chair the amendment is agreed to it is now an order to consider men number eleven printed in house report one ten five twenty three for what purpose does the gentleman from kentucky write mentor i have been a member at the desk clerk will designate the amendment amendment number eleven printed in house report number one ten dash five twenty three offered by mr yarmuth of kentucky bring the nation closer to providing a world class education to two point nine million children with disabilities the last two years we've seen significant advances in diagnosis and understanding of students with autism a d d dyslexia down's syndrome and a dozen other common untreatable disabilities where people once thought these students were unmanageable and on teachable we now know that more often than not the majority of them are bright creative students who are capable of success when given the opportunity to learn hundred seventy five we took a major step forward with the enact move that individuals with disabilities education act would be a place many students with their peers where the bar was raised on their achievements and we began to discover how truly capable these students were over the last thirty three years educators have revolutionized techniques to help students with disabilities find success but these tools have not yet made their way into the vast majority of classrooms and as a result the system is failing millions of students the fact that so many students with disabilities well over half now study alongside their peers is a tribute to the success of the i d e a but because most educators have not been given the information resources or training to effectively work with students with disabilities the teachers are getting understandably frustrated the diverse learners are not being helped and the rest of the class waits while teachers struggle to deal with situations for which they are simply not equipped the bottom line is it does no good to put students with disabilities in a classroom with a teacher who has not been given the tools to reach them make no mistake the teachers are not the problem but with proper resources they can be a big part of the solution many teachers have not been trained to individualize instruction for these special needs students this isn't a straightforward matter of simply developing special curricula spending time with peers is crucial for the development of these students especially if we want them to attain the social communicated and educational skills we know they are capable of one area i have focused on is educated children children with autism without the proper training misconceptions such as the rain man savant run rampant autism is a spectrum disorder meaning that the hollywood depiction is an extreme w functional students with asperger's on the other end and every level of functionality in between the signals are abundant but recognize them as recognizing it is not just a matter of common sense the untrained educator may not know why a student with autism refuses to make eye contact suddenly stop socializing acts out or completely cuts off all communication what's more troublesome is that the wrong response in many cases the normal logical response can send a child into a downward spiral and what is a scape many the tremendous scope and urgency what we're dealing with already one in one hundred fifty children is diagnosed with autism and the number is escalating at an alarming rate an analysis of the u s department of education special education data revealed that the number of students with a diagnosis of autism has increased more than five hundred percent since one thousand nine hundred three and by twenty fourteen the number is expected to increase eight hundred percent we cannot afford to wait to address the needs of these children others with special needs that is why i am proposing a new grant program for institutions of higher education working to better prepare general education teachers for success in helping students with disabilities institutions would partner with  local education agencies to place qualified teacher candidates into the areas that need the most help to teach to reach grants will give our teachers the tools to properly engage students with disabilities truly engaging the students not only improves the quality of learning for special needs students but for everyone in the classroom these grants will provide just the sort of preparation that is needed teacher candidates will learn how to use response to intervention a scientifically based intervention strategy that allows a teacher to pinpoint a specific school skills students need in order to progress they will train in positive behavioral support strategies that will enable them to manage and improve challenging behaviors in the classroom and also learn how to work with their special education and related colleagues to develop and implement individual as an educational programs so that students with disabilities will have their diverse needs met and classroom after classroom across the nation these grants can make the difference between students trapped by misunderstanding and teachers reaching their students and helping them unlock their potential to succeed in school and excel in life this program is indorsed by the n e a the american association of colleges for teacher education the higher education consortium for special education and many organizations that advocate for the education of students with disabilities strongly encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment so that we may empower our nation's teachers to reach all of our children  reserve the balance of my time in research for what purpose does the gentleman from florida right thank you mr speaker to claim the time in opposition sentiments recognized thank you madam speaker i claim the time in opposition although i'm not opposed to this amendment let me just clarify for our colleagues what this amendment is about least from my perspective if you are a high school special education teacher you are probably familiar with autism and dyslexia and by virtue of your training and daily experience you know how to relate to the children with special needs pretty well but what if you are a tenth grade history teacher trained in obviously teaching history it may be a little more challenging  for you to teach children who have autism or dyslexia unless you have some special training to help you teach them history and so what this and them it does is to provide funding for these general education teachers to partner up with their four year universities to get some extra training and teaching children with special needs and that seems like a commonsense approach to us and so i will be voting for this and then many and i urge my colleagues to do the same and will yield back the balance of our time gentleman yield back gentleman from kentucky is time expired the question now occurs on the amendment all in favor say aye opposed now the opinion of the chair the eyes have it and the amendment is adopted point number one can dash by twenty three of them by mr hastings of florida pursuant to hastert aleutian nine fifty six the gentleman from florida mr hastings and a member of each will control five minutes chair recognizes the gentleman from florida  member for all of their efforts on this measure madam chair gang violence is a cycle that poisons many of our districts and deprives many of our youth from pursuing productive educational opportunities many were being gasing gang activity on fortunately return to the same streets after they serve time in aisle juvenile justice system and the cycle begins again only holistic partnerships that engage entire communities are going to break this cycle of gang activity to meet this need i introduced the path to success in july sixth of last year our mimic today reflects the content of the path to success and will also run the nationwide program through the department of education to promote public improv a community center partnerships aimed at reducing gang violence madam chair our amendment will establish a program that is set up to the task of disrupting the juvenile justice pipeline it will give former gang members a chance to attend college and be engaged positively in their communities through educational and vocational training opportunities at community colleges as well as partnerships with law enforcement for proactive gang prevention efforts r m m will give former gang members hope for the future we have seen a skyrocketing problem at least in my home state a central florida border with the rise and violent juvenile crime in my area central florida we have seen juvenile robberies over the past two years of kids fifteen and under increased by three hundred and eleven percent when i talk with the experts about this problem i had told that we do need a holistic approach as my colleague congressman hastings says and that for the worst of the worst offenders the repeat violent offenders people who slit other kids throats you have got to lock them away but on the front end when you can still have hope to catch some of these kids and turn them around we to make every effort to do it and the reason i say that is because when we look at the statistics in florida we find that eighty percent of the inmates in our jails and prisons are high school dropouts if we deal with them holistically we say hey if you're going to stay in school we to give you a pell grant to pay for a college education so you can have a nice car and a home if you will not stay in school but you can read we're going to get you a reading coach to help your eat even if you're in high school we're going to get you a mentor to get through with it we have to give these young people hope to educational and job opportunities and approach it holistically and yes that means you need prevention but you also need tough enforcement and i think this amendment recognizes you need all of it and so we are pleased to support this amendment or it's my colleagues to do the same and i will y back the balance of our time gentleman yield fact i'm in from florida and i'm sure how much time do i have german has three minutes remaining at this time pleased to yield a minute and a half to my colleague all from california the regional  general obese recognize thank you and i'd like to thank my colleague mr hastings and madam speaker i rise in support of the hastings sanchez amendment to h r forty one thirty seven the college opportunity and affordability act i think mr hastings for his leadership on this issue and was pleased to work with him in an effort to provide constructive opportunities for youthful offenders that hating sanchez amendment would authorize grants to community colleges to create partnerships with juvenile detention centers and residential facilities that would reduce recidivism rates by providing education k tional training counseling and related activities gang crime and youth violence are often symptoms of larger problems problems that require comprehensive solutions too often we've spent far more time money and effort on enforcement than we have on prevention missing opportunities to rehabilitate the use that we incarcerate unfortunately taxpayers have not experienced a great return on these massive anti gang investments for example the state of california will spend over nine billion dollars on incarceration this year yet gang activity in california continues to rise young people who are involved in gangs do not have to be condemned to a lifetime of gang involvement this amendment would leverage the power of community colleges to help in the campaign against youth violence community colleges already have expertise in providing job training and education to nontraditional students by encouraging them to develop partnerships with other local agencies and community based organizations we can multiply the opportunities that young ex offenders have to get involved in their communities in a positive way and cut down on the odds that they will return to gang activity i urge my colleagues to support the hastings sanchez thank you madam speaker like the gentleman for yielding better figure this amendment is a significant step forward in prevention and intervention efforts to reduce juvenile and growing crime before too long the congress has a focus to its crime policy on waiting for crimes to occur before anything is done this is contributed to what the experts at the children's defense one call the cradle to prison pipeline since one nine hundred seventy the number of individuals incarcerated in the united states from over three hundred thousand to over two million initiatives such as this along with initiatives such as the youth promise act will create investments in strategies a deal with the root cause of crime resulting in greater crime reduction a cost savings to taxpayers we must begin making meaningful investments in our nation's youth and this amendment is a strong step in that direction i think the representative hastings and sanchez with their leadership and encourage my colleagues to support the it is now an order to consider amendment thirteen printed in house report one ten five twenty three dash five twenty three on providing mr welts of vermont pursuant to have resolution nine fifty six the gentleman from vermont mr brown and a member upon each control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman from vermont  thank you madam chair as we know on a bipartisan basis the cost of college is skyrocketing skyrocketing and it's putting in jeopardy access to college in achievement of the american dream for kids across this entire  country the education labor committee has taken a number of very concrete steps to try to address that and this congress passed a major increase in financial aid seventeen billion dollars over five years over the last ten years student aid has increased from thirty seven billion to eighty six billion dollars but every time we raise dollars in financial aid if it's a dollar increased intuition that's burned away the students are continuing to graduate in swim in a sea of debt so if we're going to continue on this effort and be successful in making college affordable for average kids wanting to achieve the american dream we have to work on both sides of the equation we have to address the financial aid side which we're doing our best to do and do it in a context of enormous budgetary pressures and we also have to do it on the cost side and we have to look to our university administrators to work with us to do everything that's possible to constrain the ever rising cost of college education many kids now are graduating with a debt that's equivalent to what was the mortgage on the first house that i bought in they don't have the home they do have the education this imminent is very simple it would require colleges and universities to annually report to the department of education and how much of their endowment was spent each year for the purpose of containing college costs including tuitions fees textbooks meals in room and board in it would provide congress really with much needed information that's the same information that goes to the trustees so it's not in any way a significant burden we're we're we've got to work together if we're going to be successful in containing cost and we have to acknowledge that we have to work on that cost side as as the financial aid so this amendment would give us information to work with colleges in trying to achieve that goal to maintain cost affordability for our kids claim the time in opposition although i'm not opposed to the amendment with that objection gentlemens recognised thank you manage speaker one of the most frustrating things that members of congress have had to deal with over the past five years on a bipartisan basis is the skyrocketing cost of tuition over the past five years to wishing that public four year universities has gone up thirty one percent and we are frustrated because you want to rein in the two wishing costs but at the same time you're hesitant to implement any sort of cost control or micromanaging of these universities with this amendment says essentially is we're going to ask the college to tell us what your endowment is and how much you spent on helping kids with their aid to go to your college sometimes that will mean that gives us an opportunity to really thank these colleges for doing a great job for example harvard university has a thirty four billion dollar endowment they recently  received nationwide publicity well deserved for using that endowment to say if you're accepted to harvard and you're from a low income family we're going to use our nominee to pay for you to go here if you're from a middle income family we're going to pay for you to go here if you're from an upper middle income family always one hundred eighty thousand we're still going to help you with tuition i think that's wonderful and you've seen other schools yale another follow suit we would like to see exactly what schools across america are doing on the positive  moderate income kids go to college and on the flip side what schools with substantial endowments are not taking any efforts to help these low and moderate income kids get a college education so for these reasons i will be voting for this amendment and i helps with the with the transparency and with the information that we need to know as we continue to to consider public policy i say that because a growing number of members of congress come up to me every week after they go home and talk about they've been asked the question about the increased cost of college we know it's complex we know it's difficult and we know that it's not easily given to the idea that the one palsy fits all one size fits all whatever ever cliche you want to use but it must be addressed when we're asking the taxpayers to continue to step up and to provide the assistance to these families so that we can create a strong nation and a strong economy and well educated individuals that are critical to maintaining a democracy in a complex world so i want to thank the gentleman for offering this amendment and ask my colleagues to support it gentleman yield spec donovan from florida madam chairman well so you'll b it is now in order to consider amendment number sixteen printed in house report one ten five twenty three for what purpose does the gentleman woman from texas arise manage to cameron i have an amendment texas is any bernice johnson and a member of house will each control five minutes of the chair recognizes as gentle lady from texas thank you very much madam chair iraq today in strong support of the johnson young amendment to expand higher education opportunities but the children of poland soldiers since year two thousand and one more than forty four thousand u s service members have that during their deployment in iraq or afghanistan historically war has cost america the lives of our sons and daughters ever and the soldiers serving today in iraq and afghanistan are not just single men forty percent of the service members in iraq a merit in thirty percent have children the soldiers we have lost not only our sons and daughters but i was once unwise and fathers and mothers as we reflect on the cost of this war we must realize that many of these brave young men and women have left families and young children behind these young men and women including sergeant paul sanchez a native of  texas who was killed last january by an i e d the n r a leaving behind a wife a twelve year old daughter and a ten year old son and second lieutenant john craver who was two thousand and four she was twenty one year old single mother and left they had a six year old daughter these are just a few of more than twenty one hundred children who have lost a parent in the conflicts in iraq and afghanistan the death of a parent is not only motional devastating for a chat but often creates financial hardship for that family the johnson young man at office financial assistance and access to higher education for children who lost a parent or guardian as a result of this war it allows the children who have been left hand to exit to a maximum pale grant award through these pale granite warrant we can offer a chance for a bright future for the children of those i think it's a very good amendment and it's the right thing for us to do with respect to these these families that have paid such a such a high price for their service to our to our country and i thank the gentleman that urged our colleagues support afghanistan is higher today than any other previous war including the civil war consequently when these brave men and women are killed in the line of duty they often leave behind husbands wives and children so since two thousand and one more for four hundred four thousand order service members have died during a deployment in iraq iraq afghanistan and more than want two thousand one hundred children have lost a parent as a result of the conflicts and iraq and afghanistan nine months after fort wainwright stryker brigade combat team returned from the deployment iraq bassett army community hospital in fairbanks delivered a record number of babies those babies will be a year old when their parents redeployed this fall this amendment which i've offered with the distinguished lady from texas will ensure that they deploy with the knowledge that if necessary their children's education be taken care of our amendment will provide financial assistance and access to higher education for children who lost a parent or guardian as a result of ongoing military presence iraq and afghanistan that allows a children have been left behind to have access to a maximum pell grant award by waiver in the income eligibility requirement for them it will apply the children of u s soldiers have died while performing military service in iraq or the death of a parent is not only emotionally devastating for a child but often grades a financial hardship for the family so this pell grant award we can offer a chance for a bright future for the children for those who gave their allies in the name of the service their country i urge my colleagues to support chairman i just want to thank congresswoman johnson and congressman young for offering this wonderful amendment this will mean that the twenty one hundred children of parents who died in iraq or afghanistan  ill be able to get the full telegram which is about forty eight hundred dollars this year and will be up to fifty four hundred dollars by two thousand and twelve it's certainly the least we could do and there are many more things we want to do the on this to to help these children whose parents paid the ultimate sacrifice but i think it's wonderful that these two congressmen have come forward with this this very common sense an important amendment i enthusiastically supported urge my colleagues on both sides of the out to support it as well and yield back the for each control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan thank you madam chair the loan forgiveness programs under the four direct loan program and family and federal family education loans encourage teaching professionals to take positions in low income schools like teachers qualified school administrators and principals are crucial to creating an effective learning environment unlike teachers however school administrators and principals at low income schools are not given access the same loan forgiveness programs in fact under current law if a teacher is eligible eligible for a loan forgiveness but is promoted to an administrator or principal in that same school the newly promoted teacher lose this access to the loan forgiveness programs for which they were previously eligible as a result low income school districts often have difficulty recruiting talented principals and administrators to their districts my amendment would extend eligibility of the ford direct loan program and a federal family education loans to full time school superintendents principals or other administrators after completing five consecutive school years in the school district in which at least thirty percent of the schools are defined as low income  national education association the national association of secondary school principals and by the american association of school administrators furthermore the congressional budget office has indicate that this amendment will not by a late pay as you go rules i urge my members to support by management to help recruit retain talent that unqualified school administrators and principals also madam chair asking them to consent winter into a record a letter from the national association of secondary school principals in support of this unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition although i am not opposed to the amendment without objection the gentleman is recognized thank you madam chairman out we want the best and the brightest to go into the inner city low income areas to give these young people as much hope and opportunity as we can right now we already provide a student loan relief for math and science teachers who are willing to go into these low income areas to help turn around a school when i look at mr stupak amendment it reminds me of the movie lean on me or it has a principal who goes into a low income area and against all odds completely turns around a school we want the best and the brightest of our assistant principals principals and school superintendents to go into the these areas and and say hey look at all these young people who are taking a p calculus and a p english and we're excited we turn things around and the more we can do to get the best in the brightest into these inner city areas than the better these young people's lives will be and so i am happy for those reasons to support this amendment and i urge my colleagues on both sides of the how to do the same and will yield back the balance of our time  gentlemen for offering the same in joining mr keller and supported this a member i think this is an important amendment as the gentleman pointed out not only are these difficult positions but they're becoming more and more difficult to to fill with the with the in the opinion of the chair that i haven't the amendment is adopted this is a time of year when millions of families all over the country are working with their high school seniors the college applications are in but now it's time to try to figure out how to pay for college and higher education  the task of completing the forms for student financial assistance can be very daunting the free application for federal student aid are found as it is known is eleven pages long it includes more than one hundred questions and it also has three worksheets with it the secretary of education has called it quote longer and more complicated than a federal tax form and trying to complete the current application students would actually probably benefit from having gone to college to do the accounting necessary to be able to set foot in a college classroom as david k johnson a pulitzer prize winning author and new york times reporter comments in his new book free lunch each year an estimated one and a half million students declined to seek federal student loan angeles assistance for which they're eligible because the form is too complicated a report produced by the college institute for college access and success supports the approach that is taken in this amendment and identifies about a third of the questions that it highlights in its report as being questions that could be deleted if we could simply get two bureaucracies to communicate with one another and that's really all that this amendment is about trying to make the forms less complicated by getting the internal revenue service and the department of education to communicate with each other and eliminate the confusion to share data that is already available this amendment would authorize the secretary of education to provide for the use of tax data that the our s has viable when the student aid form is due in february and under this proposal students would not lose their ability to correct any information that the department of education gets that might not be accurate the access would be improved the accuracy would be approved and it works both ways just as we want to be sure that no student eligible for aid is denied that aid as is currently happening because of the complications in the form we also want to be sure or that no student ineligible gets that a that's one of the reasons that the bush administration proposed something similar to what i'm advancing because they were concerned that about three hundred fifty million dollars every year in assistance is provided and lost as a result inaccurate information so be a two way street get the information that is needed minimize the confusion and the bureaucracy and help more students get to have the opportunity to get a college education and i would reserve the balance  and families seeking financial aid i feel that the free application for federal student aid fafsa is overly complicated and a real burden on students and parents who need the most financial assistance i believe we must take the burden off families and put more of it on the i r s and the department of education current language in the bill encourages the secretary of education and the treasury to work together by adopting this amendment we are requiring the federal agencies to work together to use existing r s data to get positive outcomes with the implementation of data matching we can eliminate the cumbersome and confusing fa questions increase the accuracy of the data used in calculating aid eligibility and ensure that federal financial aid dollars are going to the right people for the right reasons the issue is brought  university of north carolina president erskine bowles worked closely with him on this issue and hope to see the changes that we discussed which are included in this amendment be included in the final bill thanks to both the u n c system but their commitment to making the fafsa easier for students and families again if we're going to valuate this issue let's do it right this is put more of the burden on the government to make the financial aid application process easier for students and families who are applying for assistan appreciate chairman miller ranking member mckeon for the dedication improving our education i hope that my colleagues will support the dogon ma'am thank you madam speaker you back gentleman from florida madam chairman i also rise in support of this amendment which will encourage the pre population of the fast and common asset information with tax data provided directly from the i r s that apartment of education is done by tax  a nutshell this amendment will greatly simplify the financial aid process and help to eliminate iranian's payments under the pell grant program by taking these commonsense steps i estimated that the federal government would save billions of dollars over the next five years which could go toward providing additional pell grant aid to our most disadvantaged students for all of these reasons i urge its adoption and you'll amendment this is a critical amendment if we are in fact going to simplify the process of applying for student loans if we're going to make it understandable to parents and to students who make these applications and we're going to cut down the time that this recall wired by them  to do this this linking of the data between the i r s and the department of education we've been given excuse after excuse after excuse why this couldn't be done the doggett hayes amendment allows this to happen requires that it happen and it's very important that we that we support this this amendment and that it be part of the final bill when it comes out of out of out of the conference committee i want to thank the gentleman mr doggett from texas mr hayes for it for offering this amendment very very important  if we're going to change the way we do business and do it on behalf of families and students to make their life easier and to save the federal taxpayers a lot of money thank you famine yes fact gentleman from texas i thank the gentleman for his comments and for the supporting courage with that he and his staff of provided us on this amendment i also want to thank the greater austin chamber of commerce for bringing this to my attention austin is an area that has a very dynamic economy and so much of it results from the fact that our business leaders are enlightened and recognize that one of the best investments we can make is in our people and we've been concerned with the workforce shortage with needing more highly skilled highly educated a young people and this is an a measure that the chamber identified as a part of it's twenty thousand and ten by two thousand and ten trying to get college graduates from our area that can staff are many high tech and other companies and i salute sandy hinges and during cheverly and other members of the chamber staff and leadership for their work on this amendment and i reserve the balance of my time gentlem roddie of different versions of over recent months working with the committee that both of the bureaucracies involved here will really heed this it will move expeditiously because it will assure more young people have an opportunity to get a college education and have the support they need and it will also reduce any cost from those who are receiving assistance improperly and i yield back move adoption the minute question now curse on the memmott all in favor say  opposed no in the opinion of the chair the eyes have it the amendment is adopted it is now an order to consider amendment number nineteen printed in house report one ten dash five twenty three for what purpose does the gentleman from washington state that amendment at that the kirkland designate the men and then number nineteen printed in house report number one can dash five twenty three offered by mr bayard washington pursuant to house resolution nine fifty six the gentleman from washington mr barrett and a member of postal h control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington i think generally i want to address the fundamental problem in our current education the support system it is this people who are not able because they lack the money to go to school on their own expense are not eligible for student loans if they can't go more than half time ironically this means that some of the people who are most in need of student loans and very often most deserving of student loans are ineligible for such loans but one law we haven't been able to repeal in congress is the law of unintended consequences and this is an unintended consequence we should not say to hard working men and women who would like to go back to school to improve their education improve their standard of living no you can't get any federal help unless you have the time to go more than half time it just doesn't work i've spoken to young hardworking state then to say look i'm doing everything right i'm trying to raise my family i'm working for a living i'm paying my bills i would like to take courses but i can't afford to do so without a loan and yet i'm ineligible for the low what are men does is simply ask the department to conduct the study of the pros and cons of providing less than half time students making them  loans and a possibly establishing a pilot program to see how this can best be done this amendment has broad support the american association of university women the national education association association the hispanic association of colleges and universities the american association of community colleges and others i'd like to thank particularly the chair and ranking member of this committee and the subcommittee chair remaining a host and his staff for their diligent work on this it is a commonsense amendment that will help literally opposition although i'm not opposed to amendment without objection gentleman's recognized man and chairman we have no objections to this amendment will be voting yes urge my colleagues to do the same yield back the balance of our time gentleman mentor at risk children with a with ten with a ten ten dollars of their student loan forgiveness for every hour for each hour of mentoring they complete not only will this loan forgiveness help our college college students afford their their student loans but a lot so help recruit mentors for at risk children i am proud that this congress is so committed to creating loan forgiveness programs to students who work in areas of national need after graduation teachers nurses police officers and child welfare workers are just some of the factions that will have more opportunities for loan forgiveness under the legislation we are considering today and i applaud the education and labor committee particularly chairman miller and ranking member mckeon for their work on this legislation however unlike many of the existing programs my amendment offers loan forgiveness the students for volunteer work they complete while they're still in school not for entering a specific profession upon graduation from the mentoring children is a volunteer effort and not a full time job and their reward is not monetary but the realisation of this kind of work makes a real difference not only in the lives of the young person in mentoring or in their own lives but in fact it helps our entire community caring adults can make a difference in children's lives and research shows the many positive effects of mentoring children that have mentors have better relationships with adults if you would disciplinary referrals and more confidence to achieve their goals mentoring programs or course to say the cost effective approach to reducing teen pregnancy substance abuse incarceration and violence for at risk children who are already susceptible to these dangers the need for a mentor is even greater unfortunately mentors are not always easy to recruit and finding mentors that are able to develop long term relationships with children can be even more difficult i believe the bible by providing a small incentive we can we will compel others to engage in this kind of volunteer ism that is why i am offering this amendment to provide an incentive for college students to begin mentoring now which will hopefully lead them to continue serving as a mentor long after they have graduated community college students are ideal targets for mentoring recruitment because they tend to have existing relationships within the surrounding community and are likely to remain in the area after completing their studies this encourages a consistent sustainment and relationship which avoids the most ability for at risk children of course potential mentors can be found in many places and i hope that in the future we will be able to expand this program to all recognize madam chairman this is a very creative outside the box way to provide an incentive to recruit mentors for at risk kids and i commend the author of this amendment congressman crowley for coming up with this idea and i will be voting for what i had a mentor myself when i was a young child in the big brothers big sister program when i got a little older and became an adult i became a mentor to two high school students through the largest mentoring program in orlando florida called compact which provides mentors to children at risk of dropping out of school i then became chairman of the board of that organization  caucus once i got to congress and the co author of the mentoring for success act with congressman tom osborne which is now part of no child left behind i tell you this by way of background because i notice that the hardest thing in mentoring organizations is recruiting mentors i gave in one year fifty speeches to rotary clubs and quantised clubs to recruit seven hundred mentors and it was very difficult because sometimes you only get folks to mentor for one year but i saw that once you invested the time to recruit mentors it made a difference that program compact has a ninety five percent success rate in keeping kids in school as congressman crowley alluded to that helps all of us in terms of lower incarceration rates right now seventy five percent of the end mates in our jails and prisons nationwide are high school dropouts the state prisons cost taxpayers twenty thousand dollars a year federal prisons twenty five thousand dollars a year if we can say to a community college students hey we want you to do the right thing by providing an hour a week as a mentor or more and by the way if you do we're going to help you financially for ten dollars an hour every hour you mentor for a year that that creates a pretty good pool of folks that we can look to to do the right thing and have a financial incentive so i congratulate you for this innovative approach i've never thought of it but i'm i'm impressed with it and will be voting for it urge my colleagues on both sides of the out to vote for it as well and yield back force in so many people's lives certainly in students lives of they struggle to have to have mentoring by older students or members of the community who have the grass with the subject matter can really turn around their their abilities to read to do math will serve as a mentor and be able to repay his or her college loan of ten dollars an hour for each hour they commit to this program and this is a win for all of our communities as well mentoring at risk youth to enable them to have a better quality of life through this mentoring program so i think both of you and all my colleagues for supporting this is embedded with that was the chair i yield back the balance of my time general neill's back the questions on postal each control five minutes chair recognizes gentleman from thames thank you mr chairman this is a very simple but important man it would help historically black colleges and universities as well as historically black graduate institutions but it would do is raise the authorization level for h b c u's historically black colleges and universities from the current three hundred million dollars up to five hundred million dollars which is a two hundred million dollar increase vitally necessary two hundred million dollar increase it's been some ten years since the hire act has been reauthorized it's very important we take into account inflation and other needs and offer to h b c use the help that they so desperately need the amendment would also increase for h p g i's historically black graduate institutions the authorization from the current one hundred million dollars it would take it up to one hundred twenty five million dollars as the chairman knows being a blue dog democrat i'm firmly committed to finding spending cuts to pay for these eventual appropriations but the key is to lift the cap to allow these vitally important national institutions to grow and prosper and do the wonderful job that they're currently doing because although these institutions today are only three percent of the total college graduate population in this country they graduate twenty five percent of our minority lawyers and doctors and teachers and other workers so these are vitally important stations i want to thank the chairman of the full committee mr miller for allowing us a moment and also in particular our majority whip jim clyburn for the key role that he has played and making sure that historically black colleges and universities get the attention they deserve i would like to recline the balance of my time desegregation to the startled black colleges a played a prominent role in the education many african american students in our country and provide an environment of intellectual and cultural go while comprising two point four percent of all to and for your title for eligible institutions the starkly black colleges universities are responsible for twenty three percent of bachelor's degrees awarded to african americans thirteen point six percent of all master's degrees award to african americans and twenty four point one percent of first official degrees awarded to african americans the statistics are vitally important and i think make a great deal sense in terms of our continuing support in the congress of the united states of america so i think the amendment is a good amendment and i believe that it is one that we should all support here is part of this act which is going to help in higher education in our country and i yield back to  gentleman from the very one delegation of time as much time as he would consume gentlemen dennis is right thank you mr speaker and thank you congressman cooper earlier this year on the in the budget congressman cooper not co sponsored an amendment to include this in the budget unfortunate didn't make it through the senate and i'm proud to be here with support this amenable to congressman cooper in my district lemoore no one college has struggled financially and as an institution of long and historic import to our community it survive this year it has difficulties with its financial base but it's done much for our city and educating young people and continues to do so the this provision would give lemoine would give this which  has had some financial difficulties and other schools like bennett and wiley additional help so they can continue to serve a mission that is unique in this country anybody who saw the movie the great debaters can should be able to understand what historically black colleges and universities mean to many people in this country there are a lot of fisk university lemoine one wiley and other historically black colleges and universities that see their institutions being threatened with a lemonade can that's a serious thing we consider our colleges part of our ourselves and almost part of our family you are some that's part of your home your mother in essence and to have it disappear is wrong or no one is a good institution as is famous as is wily in this amendment would help them stay capable of surviving and servicing people who want to have an generally is back the gentleman from tennessee is recognized as chairman i thought i had one that is for the speaker i do not see him at this point so i don't want to delay the proceedings even for this amendment and first want to thank mr miller for what he's been able to do with this piece of legislation also thank the gentleman from new york congratulations on the new york giants victory in the super bowl but this is an issue that has been near and dear to many people's hearts in this congress the cost of college education and when you think about what a lot of these kids have to go through application fees lab fees parking passes meal tickets rec center fees you get a bill from the birth sars office and you don't even know what it it's for but it's for one hundred fifty bucks and one of the components key factors in the increase of cost of college education is textbooks where you buy a textbook for one hundred dollars you use it for the semester you go to bring it back and they say we'll give you a dollar for it and so you end up keeping it and what this amendment does here is this creates a pilot program across the united states authorizing fifty million alors over two years to allow pilot programs for book rentals now there have been programs across the country several here there that have showed showed savings for students up to a third of the cost of the textbooks and this pilot program here will allow gives the secretary of education great discretion to start up the ten pilot programs where they can begin to share these books to rent these books put them back in the circulation and save the students some money this is an opportunity for us to figure out what pilot programs work what's best for a big school what's best for a smaller school but give us the opportunity to figure out how we can save these kids money these students money we talk about being competitive in the global economy we talk about investing in education but if we continue to have these kind of barriers for our students we're not going to get the entries that we need and we're not going to get the production of the plumbers that we need this country to continue the kind of economic growth that we need so i think this is a good amendment gives a lot of discretion to the secretary of education to make sure we try to figure this out and do it the right way so i appreciate and would appreciate the support of this amendment i know the chairman supports it and i think it's a good thing to add on this bill i think it's good for the country and it gets us in an innovative mindset as we try to address the cost of college education with that i reserve the balance of my time back reserves and balance was done just one for orders recognize mr chairman i ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition although amendment in the broader sense of what we're dealing with here today and that is the cost of higher education i think we have an legation is elected officials in this country does he do everything our power to allow young individuals perhaps in some cases middle age individuals to proceed with a college education is necessary for the future of our country the future of our economy and we have to look at all different measures of this and we're doing a lot of broader measures here today but i've often heard this issue of textbooks is a significant cost driver and i think it is i see by some statistics have been provided to us the textbook prices have increased at four times the rate of inflation since one thousand nine hundred four in students spend an average of nine hundred address in this country and the colleges as sort of wrestle with a little bit but i think they need some guidance and i believe that the proposal which is in this amendment provides some good guidance to actually try to put together a program a so th bill did some good things this area and colleges universities would be required to notify their students about which books are needed for which classes so students are better able to plan and prepare for textbook textbook cost but this amendment which goes further in that provides us with the opportunity to take more concrete steps to address the high cost of college textbooks by creating a limited a pilot competitive grant program to establish a college textbook rental programs if this if this as a pilot program can work it could lead to measures much further down the line which could provide very substantial cost savings to individuals who are in college and for that reason hopefully we can all be supportive of it and go back to bounce time zones in florida as chairmen continue from pennsylvania mr o'mara who has been your prints are all over this woman gentleman from pennsylvania recognized for a minute have i thank the gentleman mr speaker over the past twenty years the average price of textbooks has nearly tripled college students now spend a thousand dollars a year on textbooks and for some majors it can be up to two thousand dollars this is a dramatic rise in textbook prices is a significant contributor to the increase in overall cost of college education to remedy this i'm offering this amendment today with congressman ryan our amendment creates a pilot program to award ten competitive grants to establish rental textbook programs rental programs could reduce textbook expenses by up to seventy five percent a recent report by the advisory committee on student financial assistance highlighted textbook rental programs as a way to significantly reduce textbook expenses the same report noted that the primary obstacle to these programs is the start up costs associated with implementing them the ryan meyer amendment will enable institutions to create textbook rental programs and as a result save students money i encourage all of my colleagues to support it and i thank the gentleman from niles amendment i am not so far removed from college and law school that i don't remember the days when you would go to to buy your your textbook at the bookstore often you'd be required to provide to buy a particular textbook written by that professor and getting sticker shock that this particular book is one hundred twenty dollars when you talk to the publishers sometimes they say well it's not our fault you know we sold it to the bookstore at sixty bucks and they marked it up to one hundred twenty bucks and when you talk to the bookstore people they said no it's their fault because they they told us and a normally a normally low suggested retail price and made us look bad i don't know whose fault it is all i know is we've got to get some relief to these college and law school graduate students who are who are forced to buy a particular books this seems to at least try and whatever we can do to try to help these kids who are spending nine hundred to two thousand dollars a year we owe it to them to do so i urge my colleagues to vote yes on this bill and you know back to balance our time is something that we need to do as americans if we want to stay competitive you can't fund your military without a growing economy you can have a growing economy without investments in education this is this particular amendment is taking the advice from the advisory committee on student financial assistance that was started a couple years ago offered this is a suggestion we're taking that suggestion we're working with that colleges in ohio my alma mater bowling green is now through this program offering  books for thirty five percent of what the book should cost one hundred dollars book through this program at bowling green it's thirty five bucks that's a significant savings for our students i want to thank the bipartisan support thanks speaker pelosi and thank chairman miller for their five twenty three offered by mr van hollen of maryland two thousand and nine fifty six a gentleman from maryland mr van hollen a member of polls will each control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman from maryland thank you mr chairman i rise today to join my colleague mr castle of delaware in offering this amendment in support of teach for america and i want to recognize the efforts of mr cassel for his years of advocacy for this very important cause and thank chairman miller and ranking member mckeon for their stalwart bipartisan support for teach for america for many years teach for america's tie in the innovative and very successful approach to teacher recruitment placing over seventeen thousand outstanding college graduates in schools around our nation reaching over two million students many of those graduates remain in education after teaching as core members either as teachers or as principals or remain otherwise active within our educational community this is a program that has received strong bipartisan support for this from this congress and the teach for america act which authorizes a partnership between the federal government and this important program was introduced on a bipartisan basis by number of us including mr castle ms de lauro who has been a champion of this issue and mr regular mr sarbanes and now has over one hundred five co sponsors and i want to thank god chairman miller in the committee for incorporating the major provisions of that legislation into the bill that is before us to day this amendment proposes one change which is the bill before us authorizes such sums as may be necessary for this program and what this amendment does  seek to clarify our congressional intent with respect to the specific targets that we want to hit with respect the funding that sets an authorized level of twenty million dollars for f y o nine and twenty five million dollars for f y two thousand and ten and those are the levels that are consistent with the teach for america's published budget and with this funding teach for america can expand from five thousand members in twenty six urban and rural areas around the country to eight thousand members in thirty three regions and serve six hundred eighty thousand economically disadvantaged children this is an important real impact teach for america has been forthright about its plans and it raises about eighty percent of its funds from non government sources this amendment of course does not make this mandatory but it clearly says that this is the intent of congress to reach these levels these are the levels necessary to get the job done and make sure we fund hollen i could not be more strongly in support of this i think we need to understand what the teacher america is most people may know but a century it's a reach out by a young lady whose name is wendy kopp with the board of directors which is very strong which was created with the idea of attracting bright young students to education we have many many good at caters in america we need the best teachers we can find in this country opposite this was an effort to try to attract individuals who were not necessarily involved in education to become involved in that profession so they reached out to our very best schools and all of a son if you look at the ivy league schools and the other very top schools in america you are going to find there are more young candidates to go into the teach for america program than there are any other employer at those particular schools now a lot of young people want to do this and it's been highly successful they get involved in the schools it was never teachers across the united states of america it brings new young people into teaching and with the experience good teachers that we have already in our country it can make a huge difference i think we have a responsibility to inspire young people to  teach if they are qualified to do so in every way we possibly can as a matter fact we turn down so many people in this program i think maybe we should be suggesting a second program of some kind of pick up some of those were turned down because they are very qualified people as a matter of fact you heard some  numbers which miss frayne i brought up the four of five thousand core members etc we want to increase that number that's what this is really all about hopefully all of us can be supportive of legislation which is going to provide good teachers great teachers to make a difference in the lives of our young people and hopefully any concern about how they're getting into teaching versus how others can the teaching is something which we can resolve this this is clearly needed in this country we need to yield a minute and a half now let me let me if i could yield a minute he said give me thirty seconds thirty thirty second i just want to thank my colleagues for support of this amendment i want to thank mr van hollen he's been so persistent on this the mimic teach for america brings a lot of exciting new people to teaching to join career teachers to rebuild our schools and i know there's been some criticism criticism of this program i would just say ask a principal who has teach for america students in their schools they're delighted they would like more i also want to recognize i see mr regular sitting here who's been a champion of this program year after year after year in the appropriations process this van hollen thank you for this amendment thank you thank you very much  announced gentlemen from ford is recognized mr chairman this time unlike the old two and a half minutes to the gentleman from ohio mr regular the gentleman from ohio is recognized for two and a half i thank the gentleman for yielding and i congratulate the sponsors in the labor health and human resources in education bill we started funding this program it was a huge success we had testimony in our subcommittee from students who had been involved in this and they were so impressed that they could be participating and i'm sure out of this program we've developed not only teachers but administrators a classic example is michelle rhee who is the new superintendent of the city of washington school system was a person who was part of the teach for america and it not only you get teachers who are carsey extremely important education but you get people who probably on school boards who be in positions to further the cause of education and i don't think there's anything we can do as a nation more important than beefing up and supporting our education system it's the future of this country to have educated people and to do that you need good teachers and we need to get people from all walks of life involved i think it's a great program we certainly were impressed with the testimony we heard in the labor health and human services education subcommittee of appropriations about the value of this  the society and to the individuals involved and again i congratulate the authors for this support and i think by making this a part of the education program money fix basis we're saying effect this is more than temporary this is a permanent value to the future of this nation and to the future of education i thank you for the time gentleman yield back the time  i participated in teach for america guest teacher program leading a class of first graders at clemente leadership academy in new haven i saw some of our brightest teachers active engaged teachers raising expectations building the foundation to create opportunity that is what teach for america is all about the studies show that these teachers make more progress in reading and apathy expected they attain significantly greater gains in math they work in the highest these classrooms in the country and they are in fact their alumni work in full time positions in education they support the programs mission and what they do is they close out achievement gap support this amendment and authorize a greater investment in teach for america there's no more important effort as far as i'm concerned in terms of recruiting quality teachers we have hundreds of teach for america volunteers in the field office school district now but across the country and i've watched this program grow from his very inception it is a great program this amendment will make this believe them better i congratulate the chair and the ranking member in the work product of the committee and i leadership on this bill this reauthorization of the higher education act will strengthen the american dream file owling millions of young people to better afford college i also would like to thank my colleagues congressman mike mcnulty and congresswoman carolyn mccarthy for their thoughtful work on the issue of campus safety thank you also to security on campus inc a leading advocacy organization for campus security our country's number one priority is to protect our children from harm so that they can grow up and to fill their god given potential a parent's worst fear is to send their call their child off to college and you haven't become a victim of a violent crime tragically this happens far too often the ten year span from one nine hundred ninety seven to two thousand and six registered on average twenty homicides every year occurring on college campuses furthermore know numerous college students the majority of them young women have been abducted leaving their family friends and community searching for years in hopes of solving their case mr chairman this issue has significantly later her case remains unsolved my amendment is intended to prevent more parents from experience the pain that suzanne's parent doug and mary must face every day the members that i'm offering would ensure that all institutions of higher education have a standing policy outlining the roles and responsibilities for campus local and state law enforcement agencies if a violent crime happens to occur on campus amendment will minimize confusion and delays during the initial investigation of a violent felony such as a kidnapping the first few hours and days after a crime is committed are the most critical for solving a case and the questions involving police jurisdiction should be settled before a crime occurs not after my men will help facilitate the prompt and efficient investigation of serious crime in addition the amendment provisions have already been signed into law in california south carolina tennessee and my home state of new york over sixty percent of post secondary schools have fewer than twenty five hundred students and thankfully such horrific crimes are rare at small schools however many schools do not have a full many of the small schools do not have a full police force and the school security force may not be sufficiently trained to handle such a complex investigation amendment will give peace of mind to students and to parents by giving them the knowledge of the best investigative procedures will be followed to solve such terrible crime at this time i reserve  introduced in the house passed house resolution three o three which called on the president to declare april sixth which is suzanne liles birthday national missing persons day this day will allow all americans to honor those who remain missing and to remember their families and loved ones who hope and pray every day for their safe return april sixth is approaching and i join with suzanne's parents in strongly advocating for the creation of this national day of remembrance thank you very much for offering this amendment the question of student safety is something that the committee is hearing more and more about from not only schools but obviously from parents parents are asking these questions now as they seek to apply to different institutions and i think th yield myself as much time as i may consume is recognized today mr speaker with this bill we will vote to make a real difference and put a college education within reach of more students than ever before my colleagues chairman miller that we could all be proud to support this is just the latest measure and one hundred tenth congress that has put forth more help for students to reach the american dream mr spirits time to be straight with american families about how much a college education is truly going to cost we're seeing numbers and met the families who sit at their kitchen table and struggle to find a way to center school kids to school one thing that we don't hear much about what is just as devastating to families is there dramatic fluctuation in tuition from year to year college costs have risen forty percent over the last five years but in several cases around the country a sharp jump in prices come between the end of classes and the following fall how are families supposed to plan when between finals in the first day of school tuition goes up more than six thousand dollars mr speaker this amendment is about planning and predictability with this measure students and families will know how much your education is going to cost from the start and that means fewer surprise twist and hikes and plenty of time to plan financially we not only give parents and students the time that they need but we also give colleges and universities options and incentives for helping kids plan for and to afford college amendment gives colleges and universities two options on how to better inform students and families schools can either provide a fee schedule upfront for all four years or a single year fee schedule with detailed information about future costs including financially through either of these options we can make planning for college a little easier mr speaker i don't believe it's too much for families to ask a university for  best guess as to what their child's education will cost after all families can figure out how much you're going to pay for a house how much braces will cost for their kids teeth or what it cost to buy a car or plan for their retirement they should be able to plan more perfectly for college i thank my colleague from north carolina congress woman myrick for standing with me on this amendment and being a leader on college affordability  stop to the uncertainty families face and give them the truth intuition every serve the balance of my time german reserves a balance of this time is any of them has any member claim time in opposition this to speak of the high rise to claim time in op mission though i will express and i will not express opposition i will just express a plea for clarity on this measure as we go to conference my concern is this my concern is that i and by the way i would like to i would like to applaud my colleagues for offering this amendment and i certainly would like to laud their intent but my concern is that we will be requiring colleges to provide information that by its very nature is speculative and that we will then be allowing students to make judgments on that information when it may not be reliable and having gone through this for a long long time  in a previous life if it is not a good idea to give students misinformation and so my my plea is that as we go to conference on this i hope that we can work with the authors of the of the amendment to to maintain its intent but clarify the language in such a way that students are not put into the position where they are put in a position where they make judgments based on information that as i say is speculative and therefore not as reliable as it could be a woman from north carolina is recognized for two minutes i thank my friend for yielding every time a constituent of mine talks about college i always mention how much it cost and they tell me about their struggles and the choices that they have to make in order to put their kids through college millions of says the kitchen table and try and figure this out every year how are they going to make ends meet and pay for it and there had been a lot of high and unpredictable costs over the years and it's really tough for them to assess if it's tough economic times is tough for them to figure it out because they don't know if it'll be three percent thirty percent what it might end up being so i feel and i know my colleague agrees that the parents need to have some certainty and know the cost of the degree and one cause is can set model year contracts for their vendors and for their basketball coach and even their presidents and other people it seems like they could at least give some idea of what the education is going to cost for the parents the two thousand two asian amendment help the students and families plan by making sure that the schools give every student a clear picture of what their degrees will cost it's a reasonable or mammon and it grants schools great flexibility there aren't any price caps and it doesn't freeze the price of two asian they can set their tuition rates however they see fit but it shows the students and their families what the charges are going to be over the course of their studies it's not binding on the schools it provides the students so as i say with an idea and there is a provision in there the school has some kind of economic hardship they can get waiver from the secretary of education this could include a cut and federal or state funding or any number of other economic issues that might disrupt the schools budget all the public universities in illinois central michigan the university of minnesota george washington university and many more have already implemented this policy and so i think my colleague from pennsylvania mr murphy for all his hard work on this bill i think both karen millen ranking member mckeon for their staff and their staff for all the hard work they put into the underlying bill and i just urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment because it will help students and families who need relief from the on certain days of college tuition and i know that gentlewoman yield back time has expired on ten dash five twenty three offered by mr shuler of north carolina pursuit out the solution ninety six the gentleman from north carolina mr sure i'm a member of paul's leech control five to recognize the gentleman from north carolina chairman you myself as much time as i may consume don't recognize mr chairman we often study how students progress from the beginning of the school year to the inn but what happens after that how will are high school students prepared for college how well are college students prepared for the work force how long are graduates than and how needs feels like nursing mom in that will help provide long term that are for our state's systems t need to answer these questions the schuler i'm in that will create a grant program to help universities develop studies to measure students achievement from preschool to college and beyond this that i will also allow state lawmakers  resources to programs that are producing top quality graduates in critical areas of participation is completely voluntary and complies with all aspects of the family education rights and privacy act mom m has also as been supported by the american association of state colleges and universities the alliance for quality teaching the national association for carolina this information would be helpful to us it would also give us the ability to determine whether we're putting our resources in our time our talents in the right place with respect to properly preparing people for the for the workforce and  most about this amendment is it is done at the state level there are some people that would like to have this done at the federal level i think the state level is the appropriate place and i also like the fact that it's a pilot it's limited it gives us a chance to see how it works before making it a national program so i commend the gentleman for his amendment and urge support of the amendment you know back and i think that recognition mckeon for us is that occasion hard work as well and i argee my colleagues to support this homes the unfinished business is a request for a recorded vote and then the number for the gentleman from wisconsin mr peter ryan which for the proceedings were postponed i wish the eyes prevail by voice vote the court will we designate the amendment and then a number four printed in house report number one ten dash five twenty three offered by mr p try of wisconsin occurred voter has been requested does this in support of the request for a court of all rise and be counted a sufficient number having risen recorded vote is ordered members will record their vote by a locked on a device this is a fifteen minute there's of the house into a series of amendment votes now they've been considering the college affordability act today higher education programs bill h r forty one thirty seven the underlying bill reauthorizes the higher education act through fiscal year twenty twelve