District of Columbia College Access Act of 2007

Floor Speech

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE ACCESS ACT OF 1999

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Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, today the Senate considers, as my good friend, Senator Akaka, has mentioned, H.R. 1124 that will reauthorize the District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant Program. Senator Akaka and I have been working on this legislation for quite some time and both believe it is one of the most significant efforts the Congress has made to help students of the District of Columbia.

I thank both the majority leader and the minority leader for allowing us to move this bill forward today. This bill passed the House in May by a vote of 268 to 100. Earlier this year, we introduced the Senate companion bill sponsored by Senator Akaka, Senator Brownback, Senator Landrieu, Senator Lieberman, and Senator Warner offering this needed reauthorization. I thank the Senator from Hawaii for his cosponsorship of this legislation.

I understand the special relationship between the Federal Government and the District. Congress shares the responsibility of making certain that the Nation's Capital remains a socially, economically, and culturally vibrant city. As a former mayor and Governor, I also believe that education is one of the most important factors in ensuring this Nation's future. Thus, one can imagine my dismay when I came to Washington, the shining city on the Hill, and learned that only 43 percent of students entering the ninth grade graduated from high school and even fewer go on to college. One would have thought that our Nation's Capital, the most powerful city in the world, would be the home for a first-class education system.

I am very concerned about the dropout rate in our Nation. America cannot afford to have urban schoolchildren drop out of school and become wards of society. Unless this situation changes, we are planting the seeds for social unrest. As the United Negro College Fund says, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Concerned with the future of the District's children, Representative Tom Davis and I crafted the District of Columbia College Access Act which created the DCTAG Program, tuition assistance program. I consider the creation of the DCTAG Program to be one of the most worthwhile efforts I have done since my time in the Senate.

The aim of the DCTAG Program is to level the playing field for high school graduates in the District of Columbia who do not have access to a comprehensive, State-supported education system by assisting them in attending college. Before the DCTAG Program, DC students were the only students in the United States--the only ones in the United States--with a limited State higher education system. As a result, few District graduates went on to attend college.

Beginning in 2000, DCTAG scholarships have been used by District students to cover the difference between instate and out-of-State tuition at State universities. Senator Akaka has already explained the limitations on the program, but it provides up to $10,000 per year for out-of-State tuition, with a cap of $50,000, and $2,500 for private schools, with a cap of $12,500.

Again, the way this has worked out is the District has seen an unprecedented increase, a 60-percent increase in college attendance. No other State in the Union can make this claim. Think about that: a 60-percent increase in college attendance. More than 1,500 DCTAG recipients have graduated from college. In my State of Ohio, there are currently 74 District students attending 11 universities, including Ohio State, Kent State, and Bowling Green State University. I truly believe the majority of the students would not be attending colleges and universities in Ohio without the DCTAG Program.

I am particularly proud of the fact that many DCTAG recipients are the first in their family to attend college. In a survey of students attending the District's H.D. Woodson High School, 75 percent of the respondents felt DCTAG made a difference in their decision and ability to continue their education beyond high school.

I know how important this is because in my own situation, my father was raised by foster parents. It didn't look as if he would have a chance to go on to college. His principal and social studies teacher came out to see the man who was the foster parent, who wanted my dad to quit school at 16 and be a laborer. The principal and social studies teacher said: No, keep your George in school. They found him a job at night. Then they also helped him obtain a scholarship from Kroger. He went on to Carnegie Tech to become an architect. I don't know what would have happened if it had not been for those teachers intervening and for that Kroger scholarship. His life would have been quite different.

Sixty-five percent of the kids indicated that the existence of the program enabled them to choose a college that would best suit their needs.

Erica, who attends Virginia State University and is supported by her grandparents living on a fixed income, said:

Without the help of DCTAG, I would not be able to attend college.

And Randa, a full-time single working mother, said:

The support I received is unmatched. DC-TAG made my future come true. Before hearing of the grants that existed, I had no intention of pursuing higher education, let alone attending a private school that ranks in the top 10 across the Nation. This contribution to my life has inspired me to help others as I have been so richly blessed.

These stories and many other successes of the TAG Program have resulted--and this is really important, Mr. President--in the private sector taking a vested interest in improving opportunities for the kids in the District.

A public-private partnership modeled after the Cleveland Scholarship Program, called the District of Columbia Access Program, or DC-CAP, was established in 1999 by Don Graham of the Washington Post and other Washington area corporations and foundations to assist the District high school students with their enrollment in and graduation from college.

DC-CAP is privately funded, a nonprofit organization. It provides full-time counseling and financial assistance, available throughout their college career, to students who otherwise might never have the opportunity to go on to college.

To date, DC-CAP has disbursed more than $10 million, funded 5,300 students, and provided counseling services to 71,000 people. Similar to the population served by the DCTAG Program, the majority of students served are from low-income, minority, single-parent households, with many the first in their family to attend college.

It is important to understand that without the DCTAG Program, we would not have the DC-CAP program. They were so impressed with the fact that we were willing to step up and do something and give these kids an opportunity for higher education that they said the private sector ought to step in, and they created the public-private partnership.

Building on the success of the DCTAG and the public-private CAP program, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced this year a $122 million grant program aimed at improving urban education in the District. The program, known as the DC Achievers Program, represents one of the foundation's largest investments to date in education, with the intention of becoming a model for other communities throughout the United States. They chose the District because of the fact that we had DCTAG and the CAP program.

The scholarships are designed to jump-start the low high school and college graduation rates among students living in certain DC neighborhoods. They are going to concentrate their attention in two regions of the District where there is a 66-percent dropout rate. Think of that. I am hopeful that with these programs continuing, we are going to really make a big difference in the District.

In addition to the programs I have just mentioned, we have America's first federally funded scholarship program that was created as part of the DC Choice Incentive Act of 2003. Under this program, each District scholarship student receives up to $7,500 per year for tuition, transportation, and fees so they may attend a nonpublic school. Last year, more than 1,800 kids participated in this program at 66 nonpublic schools in the District, and a number of these students have used the DCTAG tuition grants to help their dream of a higher education become a reality. And it was available to them.

In 1996, we created the charter schools in the District. Today, over 13,000 students are attending 34 charter schools in the District. In other words, we are really starting to make some progress. Supporting the Charter Schools Program is the Federal City Council, a nonprofit organization composed of and funded by approximately 200 local businesses and educational leaders. It is chaired by former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating. Members of the President's Cabinet and a number of key Federal officials serve as trustees. That council has spearheaded the business community's support for reforming the District's public school system. In other words, we are bringing together tremendous resources today where we are going to try to make a difference in an urban district in this country--there are about 65,000 kids today in the District--make a difference in their lives so that maybe in the next several years, we can start talking about an urban education system that actually works.

That is why this reauthorization is so very important not only to the District, but it could be the model for the rest of the United States of America. We have to break this dropout rate we are having in urban school districts or this country is in deep trouble.

So I say that it is successful because we have brought together the public and private sectors to make a difference. That is what it is. In other words, we realized that the District's school system is just one thread in this community, and if it is going to be successful, it is going to take their Federal partner and it is going to take their private partner working together to make a real difference for the kids in this community.

The Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Akaka, mentioned the fact that we brought on Michelle Rhee, who, by the way--I tell you, if it wasn't for DCTAG, if it wasn't for CAP, if it wasn't for the Gates Foundation, if it wasn't for some of the other efforts, I do not think we would have been able to land her. She is terrific. She sees this potential--this young woman, dynamic as all get out--she sees the potential.

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Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, the Senator from Hawaii and I have accepted the amendment that limits the participation of people in this program to those who earn less than $1 million, but the fact is what we tried to do when we put this program together was to mimic what we were doing in States today around the country. In my State, we have a very robust higher education system, but we do not have an income level that establishes who can participate and who can't. I suspect there are people in Ohio who have kids at Ohio State University who are subsidized and who may make over $1 million or make $350,000. But our State has chosen not to have an earnings limit as a matter of public policy. I suspect if you go around the country, you will find that is the case just about everywhere you go.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. VOINOVICH. Let me finish, and then I will yield for a question.

Second, in terms of the private colleges, we looked at what we do around the country, and if you are in the State of Ohio and you are a resident of Ohio, we have a special program that says if you go to a private school, you don't get the full subsidy you would get if you go to a public school, but we provide the private schools up to $2,500 so you can attend a private school. When we put this program together, we had a limitation saying, as we have in the State--and we took certain areas of Virginia and Maryland and brought them in as part of a State--and we said if you go to the University of Maryland, if you go to the University of Virginia, then you can participate in this program. But what we realized at the time was that the number of people trying to get into Maryland and Virginia was so large it wouldn't give these kids the chance they needed to have so they could get into school, and so we opened it up to public colleges all over the United States of America. As Senator Akaka says, there are people in Hawaii, I am sure we have people in Pennsylvania and all over America, in Oklahoma, and we are trying to do what a State would do.

The other thing we did, which was unusual, is that because we have historical Black colleges around the country, we provided a special program that at those private colleges, even though they are outside of the region of the District of Columbia, the children would be able to receive up to $2,500, and that lays out why this whole program came together. What the Senator from Oklahoma is making mention of is that he wants everybody to get the same amount of money. If we provide equal funding for private and public colleges, as proposed by the amendment, we would be limiting the reach of what is, by all accounts, a very successful program.

The current level of funding of the DCTAG is about $33.2 million. If we expanded that to allow District schools to receive grants of up to $10,000, funding would have to be increased significantly to serve the existing population served by the DCTAG. As mentioned earlier in the debate, the average grant amount per student is $6,500. They do not get the $10,000, they get the average of $6,500, and the difference of $3,500 would have to be made up somewhere. Of the 6,400 students enrolled in the DCTAG today, 886 are attending private colleges. These students are receiving about $2 million. If this amendment were to pass, funding would have to increase by over $5 million to cover these students, or the District would have to reduce the number of students attending public universities by 875 students. So it is a matter of money and dividing it. My guess is that would result in fewer students attending college because the pool of available money would shrink.

I would hope none of my colleagues is willing to ask 875 students not to attend college. This program has been an unprecedented success since the first grants were handed out in 2000. There is an old saying, and I have believed in it my entire years in Government--over 40 years--``If it ain't broken, don't fix it.'' This program is not broken. This program is one of the most successful programs in the United States of America to reduce dropout rates and increase the attendance of youngsters to get a college education. I hope my colleagues who are listening and paying attention right now will vote against this amendment because I don't think it is going to add one iota to this program except to take away from it.

Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. VOINOVICH. I am glad to yield.

Mr. COBURN. Do the people of upper income in Ohio pay higher taxes in the State of Ohio?

Mr. VOINOVICH. Yes, and I am sure the people in the District of Columbia are paying higher income taxes to the United States of America.

Mr. COBURN. So the people of Ohio, who send their children to Ohio State, even though they pay in-State tuition, actually pay more for that college because they pay a much higher percentage of the State budget and the State of Ohio, similar to the State of Oklahoma, has decided that with that increased income, we will grant everybody. But it doesn't cost the same. So the argument is, in terms of the difference in incomes: Those people who make exceptional incomes in Ohio and Oklahoma actually pay more for their kids to go to college in their States because they pay a much higher percentage of the total income taxes in the State.

The second point is I think the Senator is right. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This is one of the rare programs that ought to be expanded, but we have terrible priorities in this Senate and in this Government. So we will not take another $10 million to make sure more kids go and get rid of some duplicitous earmark somewhere that is a favor for some politician somewhere so we can, in fact, enhance it.

This is a very straightforward amendment. It says why would you discriminate against somebody who wants to go to a private college over a public college? That is what we are doing. The answer is because we don't have enough money. That is the answer. The answer is we do not have enough money, so therefore, if we give the same amount of scholarship to private schools as we give to public, we would not have enough money for 886 people who are getting a full boat now.

The answer to that is here is a program that is working, here is where we ought to have priorities, here is where we ought to be putting more money rather than less. But the answer, our closed-minded answer in Washington is: That is all the money we have. Even though this is working and a lot of other programs are not working, we are not going to defund those programs that are not working. We are not going to measure with a metric whether they are effective. We are going to let them go. Here is a good program that is making a difference in people's lives, and we are not going to go fight for more money.

To me, that says it all about where we are in Washington today.

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I would like to say--and I am pleased the junior Senator from Oklahoma is talking about a Federal program where he wants to see more money spent. I think that is terrific. The fact is, he does agree this is a very special program. I would like to point out so do the appropriators, because year after year, they have provided more money for this program.

Initially, it started out at about $17 million. They are up to about $33.3. In their consideration of the importance of this program, they have, in fact, provided more money for it because it is a very worthwhile, successful program. The fact of the matter is we all believe that if we evened it out across-the-board, fewer of our youngsters, the socially deprived kids in the District, would be able to take advantage of the program.

Again, I wish to emphasize we tried to copy what we do in States such as Ohio, where we say to the private schools: You are here. God bless you. And we give them, not the total subsidy, $6,500--they get up to $2,500 for those students.

If you are thinking about kids who need help, I know in my State if you have a youngster who has some potential--by the way, these youngsters who have the potential are taking advantage of the college assistance program the private sector set up here, set up by Don Graham over at the Washington Post. So they come in with this little extra money for them. We also have the Pell Grant Programs available to these individuals.

I can tell you this. If we had a bright kid in the District who was qualified to go to Georgetown--we mentioned a young lady who is at one of the top universities. They have special programs that reach out and say here is a youngster--such as my dad--who is bright, hard-working, and we are going to give them some extra, such as dad got at Carnegie Tech so he could go on to get his architectural degree.

I think we are talking about reality here. We are talking about a program that is making a difference. I respectfully say I think the proposal doesn't help the program but rather takes away from it.

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