world we should be doing is driving up the cost of student loans by
$4,000 for the average student loan borrower in America.
  It has been estimated that if these cuts go into effect, one out of
every four student loan borrowers will be in default by the end of this
summer.
  So what does it mean to be in default? It means that workers could
have their wages garnished to pay back their student loans. They can't
pay their student loans because they are not earning enough money, and
then they get their wages garnished and it will be an even worse
situation.
  It means that seniors who took out student loans for themselves--and
I know many people don't appreciate it. They are thinking about student
loans, and they are thinking about young people. Well, guess what.
There are grandparents who are still paying off their student loans.
And it means that these people or their family members could have their
Social Security checks garnished.
  Imagine going to college, paying off a student debt for 30 or 40
years, and you can't continue to do it; and they are going to take your
Social Security payment. In my view, that is unconscionable. We cannot
allow that to happen.
  And that is why I am very proud to cosponsor S.J. Res. 196, which we
will be voting on this evening. And I want to thank Senator Merkley for
his outstanding work on this issue. This resolution would ensure that
millions of Americans are not forced to pay thousands of dollars more
each year on their student loans.

  Two weeks ago, I held a roundtable with four student loan borrowers
from across the country who shared their stories about the struggles
they are having with their student loan debt.
  I spoke with a gentleman named Jordan, from my own State of Vermont,
who is a veteran and a father of two young boys. He was told that his
student loan payment will increase to $1,300 per month after July 1.
And other Members who talked with me had very similar stories.
  Geraldine, who is 71 years of age, has student loan debt from when
she went to college in the 1980s, and decades later, she is still
struggling with student loan debt. Geraldine is retired and on a fixed
income, and she was told her payments will be over $500 a month after
July 1.
  And on and on it goes.
  If Congress does not pass this resolution today, working-class people
all across this country will be priced out of necessary graduate
training in programs like nursing, medicine, dentistry, and social work
because of new restrictive arbitrary loan limits. What this means is
that working-class students will either be unable to get the education
they need or they will be forced to take out loans from predatory
lenders that charge interest rates as high as 26 percent.
  Now, at a time when we desperately need nurses and other healthcare
professionals, how insane is it to force students to pay interest rates
as high as 26 percent in order to do the important work we desperately
need?
  At a time when we have a shortage of nurses, doctors, and dentists in
this country, it has been estimated that 21 percent of nursing
students, more than half of medical students, and three-quarters of
dental students will be priced out of a degree altogether.
  In my own State of Vermont, 40 percent of students pursuing graduate
education will exceed the new loan limits and will be forced to resort
to private loans to make up the difference. In the richest country in
the history of the world, no one should be saddled with a lifetime of
debt for the crime of getting an education.
  No American should enter retirement with the burden of student loan
debt or be pushed into default because they can't afford their
payments.
  So let us prevent student loan payments from going up by an average
of $4,000 for 7 million Americans. Let us prevent working-class
students from being priced out of pursuing degrees in nursing,
medicine, and dentistry.
  I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I want to make a few remarks now about
the Congressional Review Act vote we will be taking later tonight.
  And here is the thing. This is so straightforward, in terms of, here
in the United States of America, pursuit of an education to serve the
people of this country should never be a privilege reserved only for
the wealthiest Americans.
  Indeed, don't we want every child to have the opportunity to thrive,
to get a graduate degree, to get a professional degree, to be able to
serve in the many capacities where we are desperately short of
individuals? Of course we do.
  And this is something very near and dear to my heart because I am a
blue-collar kid, and my father said, when I was in grade school: Go to
the doors of the schoolhouse. You go through those doors, and you study
hard, and you can do just about anything in America, because we are so
fortunate to live in America.
  That is a beautiful idea--that every child has the opportunity to
pursue their dreams, and if that requires a college education, to be
able to pay for a college education without a millstone of debt around
their neck or just the actual impossibilities of having access to
enough funds to pay tuition.
  So I pursued that vision. And my interest did take me to college. And
I did borrow money, and I did get scholarship, and I did wash dishes,
year after year, in order to help get through.
  But that journey is becoming so much harder now, when college is so
much more expensive. When I got out of high school, if you worked a
minimum-wage job, the summer of 1974, at $3 an hour, you could save
enough money, living at home, to pay the tuition for a public
university in my home State of Oregon.
  Or you might still have to work in order to, well, have a room to
live in and have food to eat. But you could pay the tuition.
  And now it is completely out of sync. You cannot save enough on
minimum wage, which is still only, you know, in many States, only
$7.50, or half that if you have a job that has tips, in many States.
There is no way you can pay your tuition.
  And so shouldn't we all be working to make it easier for children to
actually get the expertise that we need in our services, in our
economy? But, indeed, we are going in the other direction.
  I have often spoken about how I feel the Big Beautiful Bill, as Trump
called it, hurt Americans along the way, kicking millions of Americans
off of health insurance and gutting nutrition and slashing funding for
higher education. Why?
  But now we have something else, which is a rule from the Trump
administration that will make it very hard for ordinary children coming
from modest means--families of modest means or very restricted income--
to be able to go on to college and to go to graduate school.
  In fact, that bill--that Big Beautiful Bill, as Trump called it--
eliminated the Grad PLUS loans, which allowed students to borrow the
full amount of their program, and replaced those loans with two
categories. A graduate degree student is limited to borrowing $20,500 a
year and up to $100,000 in total.
  So that restriction--a graduate degree student--whom does that apply
to? Well, it applies to nurses, to social workers, to physician
associates, to teachers, to engineers, to physical therapists, and to
many other categories.
  And so those professions are told: You can only borrow $20,500 a
year.
  So what does that mean? It means that since tuition is often much
higher than $20,500--and then throw in the dormitory and throw in the
food--well, you are talking $40,000 a year.
  There is a survey from the American Association of Colleges of
Nursing, which reports the average cost of a nursing program is $38,500
a year--the average cost--so often over $40,000.
  So what is the effect of putting this limit of $20,500? Well, this is
a gift to the predatory lenders. Now, one friend of my son's, well, she
had 6 percent loans that were the government loans, and then she had to
get private loans. What was the interest rate on that? It was 11
percent.
  We are basically saying: Hey, if you are wealthy and your parents can
pay your tuition and your dormitory and your food, hey, you are golden.
The avenue of opportunity is for you.