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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6468-S6469]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

              WORKING FAMILIES ANXIETY OVER EDUCATION CUTS

 Mr. DODD. Mr. President, we should never lose sight of the 
meaning of the decisions we make here for ordinary Americans and their 
families. This point was brought home to me by an article in Monday's 
New York Times, ``Families Await News on Cuts in Education Aid.'' I ask 
that this article be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my 
remarks.
  This is a difficult time of year for parents of college-age children. 
Along with their sons and daughters, they anxiously await college 
acceptance or rejection letters and financial aid offers. They worry 
about children away from home for the first time, about summer jobs, 
about SAT scores and grades and about the job market for college 
graduates. But for the vast majority of parents, the biggest worry is 
how they will be able to make it all possible for their children.
  This year, unfortunately, there is another gnawing worry for millions 
of families who rely on Federal student financial aid to make college 
possible. Serious cuts in these programs are being proposed. The 
Contract With America calls for the elimination of one of the key 
pillars of Federal support for college students--the in-school interest 
subsidy on guaranteed Federal loans. The Domenici budget plan calls for 
the elimination of this subsidy for graduate students, but it goes on 
to proposes overall education cuts so severe that the subsidy for all 
students is called into question.
  In addition, campus-based aid programs and other higher education 
programs are endangered by the severe cuts proposed in discretionary 
spending for educational activities. This casts a shadow over the 
future of the College Work Study Program, the Supplemental Education 
Opportunities Grant Program, the State Student Incentive Grant Program, 
and the Perkins Loan Program.
  Mr. President, education has always been one of the most solidly 
placed rungs on the ladder of economic opportunity. For generations, 
American families have sacrificed to assure their access to the best 
education possible. That has paid off for us as individuals and for us 
as a nation. And yet many in Congress are prepared to turn their backs 
on this record of success.
  As we debate the budget resolution in committee this week and on the 
floor as early as next week, there is clearly a great deal hanging in 
the balance, not the least of which are the hopes and dreams of 
American families for their children's future. I urge all my colleagues 
to read this excellent article and consider our country's future.
  The article follows:

                   [The New York Times, May 8, 1995]

              Families Await News on Cuts in Education Aid

                         (By Lynda Richardson)

       These are uncertain times for the family of David and 
     Maureen Grau of St. Paul, Minn. As they await final word on 
     financial aid for the colleges that three of their eight 
     children attend, they worry what sacrifices will need to be 
     made, and even which child might not go.
       The Graus know that some cuts in Government aid are likely. 
     In the next several weeks, Congress will begin considering 
     the strongest assault in recent years on the array of college 
     loans, grants and work-study programs that many lower- and 
     middle-class families have relied on since passage of the 
     nation's first major Federal student aid program, the Higher 
     Education Act of 1965.
       And across the nation, governors and legislatures are 
     cutting the state university budgets and considering deep 
     reductions in aid for impoverished students.
       But in the absence of decisions on what will be cut, the 
     most the Graus can do--like thousands of other Americans--is 
     make contingency plans and hope for the best. Two daughters 
     will cram three extra courses into their full college loads 
     next year so they get through school faster, saving tuition. 
     And all three will work full time--or more--this summer.
       Baby-boomers, the Graus were themselves beneficiaries of 
     Federal student loans and grants back in the 70's. Mr. Grau, 
     44, is now a registered nurse; his wife, 42, is a homemaker. 
     With an annual income of $36,500, they save and scrimp. They 
     have not bought new furniture, other than a couch, in 23 
     years.
       The Graus hold many of the bedrock American beliefs that 
     swept the new Republican leadership into office. They go to 
     Mass every Sunday. They are anti-abortion. Each child has a 
     chore at home. Now, they say they are feeling betrayed.
       ``We never questioned whether or not college education was 
     available to us,'' Mrs. Grau said. ``Loans, grants and 
     college work-study were there for the taking. All that was 
     truly needed was a desire, and now you have a lot of 
     hurdles.''
       House Republicans have called for $1.7 billion in cuts in 
     money already appropriated in the $34 billion Department of 
     Education budget for the 1995 fiscal year. They have proposed 
     $20 billion in higher education cuts over the next five 
     years.
       The largest cut would come from ending the Government 
     subsidy of interest on loans while students are in college, 
     which could save $12 billion in five years. Currently, a 
     student who borrows $5,000 for freshman year owes $5,000 at 
     graduation. Under the proposal, interest would be added to 
     the principal each month, so the $5,000 would become $6,000 
     or so in debt at graduation. Students would see an average of 
     20 percent to 25 percent more debt when they graduate, 
     financial aid officers say.
       Republican leaders, in their first 100 days, also suggested 
     dismantling Federal aid programs that are managed by 
     colleges, including the Perkins loans for needy students, 
     Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and work-study 
     programs in which the Federal government pays 75 percent of a 
     student's salary and the institution pays the rest.
       ``It is safe to say that every low- and middle-income 
     family with a student in college and hoping to send a child 
     to college has a stake in the outcome of the debate that 
     Congress is holding now and will be holding for the next few 
     months,'' said Terry Hartle, spokesman for the American 
     Council on Education, a Washington-based association of 1,700 
     colleges and universities. ``Many families would find their 
     plans for college disrupted, fundamentally changed or 
     eliminated by major changes in Federal student aid.''
       But the Republicans who have proposed them say the cuts are 
     necessary for the financial health of the nation. Bruce 
     Cuthbertson, a spokesman for Representative John R. Kasich, 
     the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, 
     said of loan subsidies, ``We think it's a matter of fairness. 
     We just put this on equal footing with all other types of 
     loans one would receive.''
       The potential cuts have stirred public protests and private 
     anguish. In the Bronx, Elba Velez, a single mother of three, 
     worries that the cuts will halt her family's fragile upward 
     mobility.
       ``The programs that are being cut are for the people who 
     need them the most,'' said Ms. Velez, who left welfare behind 
     after getting her degree in the 70's. Her son is a freshman 
     at Wesleyan University.
       Carmen Vega Rivera and her husband, John, worry that their 
     high school senior will never go to college. Financial aid 
     was crucial to Mrs. Rivera's education. She now heads an East 
     Harlem tutorial program.

                the present--being married with children

       The three Grau college students are among the nearly half 
     of all 14.7 million college students who receive student aid. 
     Two daughters attend Concordia College, a small liberal arts 
     school in St. Paul, and the third is at the University of St. 
     Thomas there. Besides the subsidized loans, the young women 
     get a wide array of aid from the Federal Government, the 
     state and the college, and both work during the school year.
       At Concordia, Amy, a sophomore, who lives at home, received 
     $12,305 in aid this year. Her sister, Sarah, a freshman who 
     lives on campus, was awarded $13,308. The total cost of 
     Concordia is $15,550 for dorm students and $14,500 for 
     students living off campus. The Graus pay the rest.
       Their older sister, Rochelle, a junior who plans to attend 
     graduate school, is interested in biomedical ethics and 
     philosophy. She received $17,028 in aid this year to pay for 
     books, fees and other expenses at St. Thomas, which has an 
     average student cost of $16,263.
       Rochelle and Amy are lining up full-time summer jobs, as 
     counter help at a fast-food restaurant and as an office 
     administrator. Sarah will work as a counselor at a day camp.
       ``They are thinking maybe a part-time evening and weekend 
     job also,'' said her 
      [[Page S6469]] mother, Maureen Grau, 42. This would rule out 
     summer courses, but the women want enough money to pay their 
     expenses all year.
       Mrs. Grau received a degree in health and physical 
     education at the College of St. Catherine in town. Mr. Grau 
     received a degree in English and education at St. Thomas. He 
     taught, then worked as a mechanic. Four years ago, he 
     returned to college to become a nurse.
       Mr. Grau says he and his wife are not in a position to help 
     their college-age daughters because they have five more 
     children at home, ages 8 to 17. ``How am I going to educate 
     them?'' he asked. ``I don't know.''

               the past--erecting a ladder of opportunity

       For the Graus, the commitment to college education goes 
     back three generations on Mrs. Grau's side; four on her 
     husband's. But for hundreds of thousands of low-income 
     Americans, like Elba Velez of the Bronx, the ``War on 
     Poverty'' in the 1960's brought access to college degrees for 
     the first time. Federal student-aid programs began small but 
     expanded under the Nixon, Carter and Reagan Administrations.
       Not since the G.I. Bill, after World War II, had the 
     Federal Government played so strong a role in insuring that a 
     specific segment of the population got a chance to go to 
     college. Minority enrollment, in particular, showed a 
     dramatic increase.
       ``The generation that preceded this one has tremendously 
     benefited from Governmental assistance to attend college,'' 
     said Jamie P. Merisotis, the president of the Institute for 
     Higher Education Policy in Washington. ``Both for individuals 
     and the nation, the payoff is clear.''
       Ms. Velez was on welfare in the 1970's when she decided to 
     go to college. She had considered a job in Manhattan's 
     garment district but said that when she saw the assembly
      lines of uneducated women hunched over heavy machinery, ``I 
     looked around and said, `This is not for me. I'm going to 
     take charge of my life. I'm not going to let anyone tell 
     me what I am going to be.'''
       Ms. Velez enrolled at Bronx Community College in 1979. With 
     the support of Federal Pell grants--created in 1972--and 
     state tuition aid for needy students, she received a 
     bachelor's degree in business administration from Baruch 
     College in 1983.
       ``I have more power,'' she said. ``I am able to provide for 
     my children, but I'm also able to give back to the 
     community.''
       But she is concerned about her children's future, with the 
     cost of private colleges averaging $9,995 last year. ``I just 
     want my children to have an opportunity to go on to school,'' 
     she said.
       Her 19-year-old son, Daniel, a bookish young man interested 
     in science and creative writing, gets a $13,975 scholarship 
     from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. In a work-study 
     job that pays $1,400 a year, Daniel re-stocks and cleans the 
     salad bar in the dining hall. He also receives $7,825 
     annually in subsidized loans, as well as Pell and 
     Supplemental Educational Opportunity grants. He and his 
     mother contribute about $2,090 a year to make up the rest of 
     Wesleyan's $26,790 tuition and board costs.
       To offset college costs next year, Daniel hopes to find 
     summer work at a fast-food restaurant.
       His sister, Felicia, a senior at Central Park Secondary 
     School in East Harlem, was recently accepted at Syracuse 
     University. Her financial package covers only $19,000 of the 
     school's $25,000 cost. Felicia cannot expect much help from 
     her mother.
       And just last week, Ms. Velez learned that she may be laid 
     off at Bronx Community College as part of the cost cutting 
     proposed for the city university system.

              The future--$93,000 a Year And Still Worried

       Walking into a noncredit class at New York University more 
     than two decades ago, Carmen Vega Rivera remembers the sea of 
     mostly Hispanic and black faces. Like Mrs. Rivera, many also 
     were first-generation college students.
       She and the others were enrolled in the state's Higher 
     Education Opportunity Program, created in 1969 for students 
     with both academic and financial need who wanted to go to 
     private colleges. Gov. George Pataki proposes cutting that, 
     along with similar programs at state and city universities, 
     though many legislators are fighting to restore the programs. 
     H.E.O.P. alone would save $22.5 million this fiscal year, the 
     Governor's office said.
       Mrs. Rivera was 49th of 500 students at the High School of 
     Art and Design in midtown Manhattan but scored poorly on the 
     verbal portion of the Scholastic Assessment Test. ``My chance 
     of coming through the traditional admissions was not 
     likely,'' she said.
       With intensive counseling, emotional support and tutoring 
     in the special N.Y.U. class, Mrs. Rivera received her 
     bachelor's degree in education and the arts in 1976.
       Now, at 41, she earns $65,500 a year as executive director 
     of the East Harlem Tutorial Program. Her husband, John, who 
     manages a commercial building, only recently began a $27,000-
     a-year job. He had stayed at home for the last decade to look 
     after their son, Jaime, now 10.
       Still, even with a $93,000 combined income, Mrs. Rivera 
     said her family lives from paycheck to paycheck, renting an 
     $800-a-month apartment near Yankee Stadium. There are bills 
     for medical problems and deaths in their extended family, and 
     they support a 17-year-old daughter, Taina, and her 7-month-
     old child.
       If Mrs. Rivera had her dream, Taina would attend New York 
     University, she said. But as the family now explores state 
     and city universities, everything seems up in the air.
       ``As a parent, it's eating up my mind all the time,'' she 
     said. ``I'm thinking, `How am I going to pull it off? Is it 
     all going to work out?'''
     

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