Higher Education Opportunity Act--Conference Report

Floor Speech

HIGHER EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY ACT--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - July 31, 2008)

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Mr. BROWN. I wish to thank Chairman Kennedy, Ranking Member Enzi, and especially Senator Mikulski for her terrific work, and their staffs. J.D. LaRock was especially helpful; Erin Renner, Carmel Martin, and Missy Rohrbach. I wish to give special thanks to Will Jawando in my office for his terrific success on this legislation. He celebrated the success of the full conference committee, which was earlier this week, by taking the Maryland bar for those 2 days during the actual passage of the conference committee.

The conference report before us takes important steps toward breaking down the barriers to higher education by addressing affordability and access. With college costs at alltime highs, family income and student aid simply have not kept up.

In my home State of Ohio, between 2001 and 2006, the cost of attendance has increased 53 percent at 4-year public colleges. Yet the median income in Ohio, household income, increased only 3 percent. We know the purchasing power of the Pell grant has fallen dramatically. Students and parents are finding it harder and harder to figure out a way to finance their education. But our bill, as we know, increases Pell grants to $8,000 by 2014, enabling thousands of low-income and first-time students to attend institutions of higher education. For the first time, low-income students can receive Pell grants year-round, allowing them to accelerate the completion of their degrees.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid required for the receipt of Federal student aid is currently seven pages long and acts too often as a barrier for students seeking college aid. We have begun the process of taking care of the complexities and the bureaucracy of that.

In the last 2 years, I have held about 110 roundtables around my State, in 75 of the 88 counties, listening to people telling me what we should do with higher education and other issues.

Last Memorial Day, I met with veterans who were also students at Cleveland State University. I met with them at a veterans hospital and heard directly about their experiences transitioning from the battlefield to the classroom.

This bill takes steps to ensure student veterans get the assistance they need. It authorizes funds for campuses to create Centers of Excellence for Veteran Student Success. It is modeled after a program at Cleveland State University. It will allow schools to provide student veterans with a one-stop shop for assistance with financial aid, with class selection, with VA benefits, and with other transitional issues.

In addition to the unique challenges many student veterans face, others have their academic career interrupted by deployments. When students head
off to war, they know they will be given the time and support they need now, because of this legislation, without falling unnecessarily behind academically or financially when they return to their life as a college student.

By allowing service members to defer payments, interest free, on Federal student loans while serving on Active Duty, we have removed a financial penalty for student veterans.

I would also like to thank the committee and the chairman for working with me to include several other provisions in the conference report. Among them is a program that creates an early childhood educator workforce development system to ensure that all children are taught by great teachers in their developmental years. I spoke with the head of Ohio Head Start today in Dayton, who is very excited about what this will mean for Head Start students in all of Ohio.

Also included was a program that helps increase the enrollment rates of rural students at institutions of higher education.

Finally, provisions are included that will reauthorize the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program and establish a Perkins loan forgiveness program for our nation's firefighters. We did it for the nurses, teachers, and police officers. We inadvertently left out firefighters in the bill last year. This takes care of that.

While there are many other issues we must address in higher education, including the rise in private student loans, this bill makes important progress on assisting needy students, increasing affordability for all, and enhancing protections for our service members because of this legislation, because of Chairman MIKULSKI's work. It means a whole lot of working-class kids, a whole lot of poor kids, a whole lot of middle-class kids will be able to go to college. It will be easier for them to finish their college degrees, not drop out with huge student loans. It will enable most of these students to graduate without the onerous burden of huge student loans.

I thank Chairman Kennedy and I thank Ranking Member Enzi for their work. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation.

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