Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send up a second-degree amendment to Coburn amendment No. 2369 to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I call for the regular order with respect to the Coburn amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I don't intend to press this amendment this evening. I have talked to the Senator from Oklahoma. I would hope we would have a chance over the evening to work with him to address the substantive matter of his amendment. I don't intend that we will have a vote on that amendment this evening, but for the benefit of the membership, I wanted to be able to at least file this amendment. I have talked to the Senator from Oklahoma earlier, about 45 minutes ago. We had a good conversation. He was working on some language. But we do believe that we are probably getting fairly close to a vote on the Brown amendment. We wanted to be able to at least indicate to the membership that there may very well be a vote tomorrow. Hopefully, we will have a chance to work through the evening and get a chance to work that amendment out. The reason I offer this amendment is, I agree with the Senator from Oklahoma that Federal funds should not be used for lobbying. That is the current law. I would support the clarifying language in the law that prevents it. But there are very important reasons for institutions to communicate with Members of Congress, and I am afraid this amendment would have the unintended consequence of restricting universities and colleges from advocating for research grants and protections for their students. It would make it possible for universities to comment on Federal regulations of the Department of Education. It may very well have impact regarding communications with Members of Congress whether we ought to increase NIH funding. It would require that universities use private or foundation dollars to share findings with Congress, and this would especially harm small institutions, rural institutions, historically Black colleges, and other institutions with limited resources. I am worried that the Senator's amendment goes too far. It is important we make very clear that Federal funding should not be used for lobbying, and if we need to do more to ensure that it is enforced, I am happy to work with the Senator from Oklahoma to do so. That is what my second degree amendment does. It is a restatement that no Federal funds received by any institution may be used to pay any person for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee or any agency, a Member of Congress. It says: No federal student aid funding may be used to hire a registered lobbyist or pay any person or entity for securing an earmark. Then it continues: Any person who makes a prohibited expenditure shall be subject to a civil penalty of not less and not more than a million dollars, and the Secretary of Education shall take such actions as necessary to ensure these provisions. I would hope as part of an enforcement effort, that we would get a statement or attestation of colleges that they are not using these funds and report back to the Congress if universities are not doing it. We will try to work with the Senator from Oklahoma, but I wanted to at least include that second degree as we work with him through the evening. That is where we are.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have the managers' amendment at the desk. I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the managers' amendment be dispensed with and the amendment be adopted.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:40 today, the Senate--would the Senator want 1 minute? Would that be agreeable, 1 minute on each side on the Brown amendment? I ask unanimous consent that at 5:41 today the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Brown amendment No. 2376; that no amendments be in order to the Brown amendment prior to the vote; and that time in the next 2 minutes be equally divided.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a consent agreement?

Mr. KENNEDY. I believe I have time remaining. I ask unanimous consent that the remaining time be given to the Senator from New Jersey--I believe I have 5 minutes left--and I ask that he be given an additional 10 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Virginia, Senator Warner, for his excellent presentation, and also for reminding us about the importance of math and science and technology and engineering. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I think his involvement and focus on this is also enormously important because he understands that education is not only a value to the individual, not only a value to our economy, but it is an essential aspect in terms of our national security. I have talked with him frequently about the National Defense Education Act that made such a difference in terms of availability. That was after Sputnik in the late 1950s, when the country came together and passed the National Defense Education Act. Still, some of those individuals are in key positions today in both private and public sectors. They are individuals who took advantage of that. In the Defense authorization, Senator Collins and I had spoken to the Senator when he was chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We have the small program that is directly focused on math, science, engineering, and technology that he included in legislation in the past. We have a number of enormously interested young people who are taking advantage of those scholarships. We remember the amendments the Senator offered on the reconciliation that he referenced here previously. So this is an area that he has shown enormous interest in and concern about. We are enormously grateful for his intervention. As the Senator knows, we passed the COMPETE Act earlier this year. In that COMPETE Act there are provisions to assist these minority institutions. Quite frankly, there are a lot of other priorities in that COMPETE Act. I think the fact that the Senator has given us this legislation and this focus is incredibly helpful to us. I thank the Senator for all of his efforts. It is no surprise to me that my colleague and friend from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, is your strong cosponsor because I have talked with him about this subject matter on many occasions. I just draw the attention of the Senator to this chart, which I think makes the point the Senator pointed out. The bill provides resources for institutions to build capacity, develop facilities, and improve instruction; expands opportunities for institutions to serve more low- and middle-income students; supports greater financial literacy and strengthens the focus on studies in the STEM fields. That is a pretty good summation of what the Senator is trying to do. I think it is enormously important that this legislation be included. Senator Kerry is very interested in this, as well as Senator Webb. I thank all of you for giving this focus and attention. This is a very important undertaking, very important legislation. I am grateful the Senator has taken the time to bring this to our attention.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I say to the majority leader, we thank him so much for scheduling this legislation, both the underlying legislation we passed last week, which will make a difference to students, and the authorization. I know my friend and colleague from Wyoming, as well as others, knows we saw this authorization expire some 3 years ago. So this is long overdue. The idea that we passed both these pieces of legislation together is going to make a major difference, not only to the students, about whom we are primarily concerned, and to their families but also to the colleges and universities and to all the other entities in the educational community. We are moving along with these amendments. We are very thankful for all the cooperation we have received this afternoon. Hopefully, we are able to conclude this bill either late tonight or tomorrow. This will be a very significant and important time in terms of educational policy for our country. I thank the leader very much.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I wish to thank my friend from Hawaii for bringing this to our attention, this situation which works to the disadvantage of Pacific Islanders and specifically Native Hawaiians. He quite appropriately points out that other groups are included as underserved populations but the Native Hawaiians are not and the Pacific Islanders are not. In many respects, the fact that they are not able to participate in these programs works to the disadvantage of the population generally from being included in terms of the life of not only their communities but the communities of our country. All his amendment does is to make sure they are going to be included in this program. What is this program? This program is really a helping hand to those students who are going on to college--in this case, it would be the Hawaiians and the Pacific Islanders--a helping hand in counseling, giving guidance to these students so that they might participate in these other programs which offer real hope in terms of technology in the future. Effectively, his amendment says that Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians will be included so as to qualify for these programs in ways that mean students, who otherwise would be excluded from getting counseling--the helping hand--could continue for graduate degrees. It seems to me they should be included, and the amendment makes a good deal of sense. For those reasons and the excellent reasons the Senator mentioned earlier, I thank him for bringing this to our attention. I must say, I was not aware those groups had been excluded, quite frankly, from the program. I don't know how this originally happened, but we always learn a good deal from our colleagues here in the Senate, and we have learned a good deal about this issue today. As always, the Senator from Hawaii is out front when it comes to issues on education and opportunity for Native Hawaiians and for Pacific Islanders, and we are very grateful to him for bringing this to our attention. Hopefully, we will accept this and make sure it is a part of the legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment by the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer. I welcome the opportunity to offer it on her behalf.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for what I think is an excellent suggestion. It is an excellent idea. Some years ago, when we had the consolidation of our work-training program, we had 16 work- training programs in 6 different agencies. Under the Kassebaum-Kennedy program, we tried to consolidate those. In those programs, we tried to do an assessment of training programs so someone coming will have the information that will be valuable to them--if they took X program for 8 weeks, what their possibilities of getting placed were and what the possibilities would be for their income and how that might grow over a period of time. That would give the various students, at that time, the information to know, with what options, what the future was going to be. It also is helpful to us on our committee to know in what areas individuals are being trained. We have the responsibility in our committee to review where the vacancies are in our job markets and how we are going to deal with those. The amendment of the Senator is going to take this to another level in terms of the postgraduate education. I think we will have a chance, when this is achieved, to evaluate what our national needs are as a country and as an economy and whether we want to incentivize them. We can have that as a matter of public discussion and debate, as a Congress, in committees, so the American people understand what is going on in terms of graduate students. It will be enormously valuable and helpful. We always have a debate and discussion about our doctors: Do we have too many specialists in some areas and don't have enough general practitioners in others? What have been the defining aspects that get them to go into those areas? That is a constant issue our committee is dealing with at any particular time in the reauthorization. I think the amendment of the Senator will have the GAO come back and report. We look forward to working with the Senator when that comes back to try to get us greater information. It is a very solid amendment and a very useful one. I certainly recommend we accept it, for the reasons I have outlined briefly and for the reasons the Senator has explained. If the Senator is ready for a vote on that?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we thank the Senator. We have made good progress this morning on two very useful and important amendments. As we pointed out during the discussion and debate at the end of last week, we are in an extremely fortunate position. We thank the leadership, and I thank Senator Enzi for his persistence, insisting that we deal with the authorization at a time when we are going to deal with the student assistance program. They should be considered together. We are grateful to the leadership for giving us the opportunity today to have a good chance to consider some ideas--as we have earlier this morning--some good ideas on the higher education legislation. This legislation is long overdue, and it is appropriate that we address it. We thank all of our colleagues for their cooperation. Hopefully, we will have a conclusion of this legislation after we have the consideration of some amendments. I have gone through a number of amendments. They are very solid and helpful and useful to the purpose and thrust of this legislation. We will have a chance to continue the good progress we have made earlier. I did wish to say a word generally about the legislation and highlight some of the provisions. I start off by again thanking my friend and colleague from Wyoming for his very strong work in this area. As I mentioned last week, our committee basically spent a great deal of time on this reauthorization. The legislation we have here today--with the exception, probably, of the provisions we have added on the student loans and perhaps one or two other important issues--is very much the legislation that would have come through our committee under his leadership. We have worked in a very important tradition and we want to try to maintain that tradition of strong bipartisanship. We have tried to keep this free from some of the other kinds of issues people feel strongly about here on the floor of the Senate because I think both of us understand that the education of the young people of this country is such an overwhelming issue for so many families that we want to try to meet our responsibilities to them and do it in a timely and thoughtful way. That has been the tradition, certainly marks the tradition of this particular reauthorization legislation. This is a place, I say, to join with members of our committee. Again, we have--I think the Senator from Wyoming would agree--a committee that spends a great deal of time on education issues. Whenever we have a markup, we have a very well- informed discussion and debate. There has been an enormous accumulation of knowledge--and always of concern--by the members of our committee for these higher education bills; people who have spent a good deal of time on the education issue, Republicans and Democrats alike. We have wide diversity of our committee, urban areas, rural areas, and we have tried to respond to those kinds of needs. But this reauthorization is extremely important. Leading to the creation of the Higher Education Act back in 1965, President Kennedy said: Our progress as a Nation can be no swifter than our progress in education, our requirements for world leadership, our hopes for economic growth, and the demands of citizenship itself in an era such as this all require the maximum development of every young American's capacity. The human mind is our fundamental resource. Those words rang true then, and they ring true today, as our country is once again in a time of war and conflict and faces great economic challenges. Equal access to higher education touches every aspect of American life. In order to compete effectively in the global economy and ensure a well-qualified Armed Forces, we need to equip all our citizens with the sound education from prekindergarten to college. Each year, 400,000 students do not go on to a 4-year college simply because they cannot afford to do so. Equally devastating--this is the 400,000--it shows that some 400,000 talented students, these are qualified students, students that effectively have the qualifications to gain entrance into institutions of higher learning, by and large; it is because of the lack of financial help and assistance that they do not attend a college. As we have seen during the debate and discussion at the end of last week, we need to make a very strong downpayment to provide help and assistance to students and graduates, such as through loan forgiveness, so that if they go into public service, which so many of them want to, we provide a forgiveness program for them that will make a large difference. As I mentioned last week, a key element that is going to help those 400,000 is the work that has been done by the chairman and Senator Reed to make the FAFSA application a good deal simpler. As we have time through the afternoon, if others may wish to address the Senate, I will spend a little time going through the contrast between the two, and you will see the dramatic difference in the change we have had. Secondly, our second chart shows the devastating, equally devastating, fact that 47 percent of low-income eight graders will be academically--only 47 percent--will be academically prepared for college at the time of high school graduation, compared to 86 percent of their higher income peers. This is, again, an issue we talked about briefly last week, the growing apart of America. Education is the key. We do not want to have an education system that is going to help America grow apart. We have made every effort in this legislation to address that broader kind of issue. We are a better nation than that. We are a nation that believes in promise and opportunity for all our citizens. This bill expired in 2003. It was last updated in 1998. We cannot afford to wait any longer to reaffirm our commitment to higher education in this country and create a framework so our students are prepared to meet the challenges of this new economy. I am immensely pleased, and I know our committee members are, that we were able to swiftly move to this bill after the passage of the Higher Education Access Act last Thursday. Together, they make up the comprehensive higher education package. Again, I thank my friend and colleague, Senator Enzi, for the strong support in both of these parts of our education program and for considering them in tandem. The bill we passed last week includes several critical features, provisions to help make college affordable. We mentioned those during the debate. But it is important again to recognize the need-based grant aid; a significant increase in the maximum Pell grant; the repayment provisions that cap loan payments at 15 percent of monthly discretionary income; the loan forgiveness if individuals go into public service jobs; the protection for working students so those who are working, trying to put themselves through school, are not going to earn so much it will make them ineligible for student assistance programs; and the other protections we have provided for, such as those on active duty, which are Senator Murray's provisions. There is no doubt the student aid in the Access Act is the single most important thing we can do to increase access for college-ready, low-income students. But it is also our responsibility to ensure the multibillion dollar investment of taxpayers we make to student aid is delivered in the most effective and efficient way possible. This authorization bill will take steps to ensure the greatest return on this investment by addressing rising college costs, reforming the student loan system so it works for students not banks, simplifying the Federal aid application process, strengthening the college preparation programs such as GEAR UP and TRIO and promoting high-quality and effective teacher preparation programs. As we provide more aid to students, this bill recognizes that colleges need to do their part to keep college costs down. Costs for college have more than tripled in the last twenty years, as this chart shows. Every middle-income family, who has a child in school or college knows this better than the charts can portray. The costs have effectively tripled over the last 20 years. So the higher education amendments for 2007 will hold colleges accountable for skyrocketing college costs by creating nationwide watch lists of colleges whose costs are increasing at a rate greater than their peers and by encouraging the Department of Education and colleges to publish more consumer-friendly information about college costs and programs. To ensure this aid is directed to students, its intended beneficiaries, we must keep them informed about choices and hold colleges and lenders accountable for getting the students the best loan deal possible. The investigation by New York Attorney General Cuomo and other States and our committee have found many lenders are entering into sweetheart deals with colleges. Some lenders offer gifts to college employees in order to secure their student loan business. We have documented how lenders who participated in the Federal student loan program offer educational conferences, luxury hotels, free entertainment, free tickets to sporting events to college officials in order to entice those officials to recommend the lenders to their students. Our legislation makes these practices illegal and protects students by ensuring that when a college recommends a lender, it is based on the best interests of students and nothing else. To ensure that students have access to the Federal financial aid they are eligible for, we simplify the financial aid process for all students by reforming the application for Federal student aid. As you can see, the form is currently 10 pages long and includes more than 100 questions. This chart shows--the people who are watching cannot read the individual lines--but this is 10 pages long. Even up close it is difficult to read the questions. But it is enough to intimidate and inhibit many of the young people from moving ahead with this program. As I mentioned, thanks to Senator Enzi and Reed, this bill dramatically simplifies the FAFSA and examines how we can streamline it further in the future. Our bill will make the financial aid process more student friendly by immediately creating a 2-page form, what we call EZ FAFSA, for low-income students and phasing out the current long paper process. It will also create a pilot program to let students know how they can access Federal aid for college earlier by allowing students to receive an aid determination or estimate in junior high school so they can gain the information about whether they have a real opportunity to go on, to continue on to college, and get the information in an easy to understand and timely way. That is the purpose of this particular effort. Ensuring access to adequate grant aid is one component of solving the college access crisis. We must also ensure more students are graduating from high school ready to succeed in college. In 2001, colleges required a third of all freshmen to take remedial courses in reading, writing or math. Because so many high school students are not learning the basic skills to succeed in college or work, the Nation loses more than $3.7 billion a year. This figure includes the $1.4 billion to provide the remedial education of students who recently completed high school. In addition, this figure factors in the almost $2.3 billion the economy loses because remedial students are more likely to drop out of college without a degree, therefore reducing their earning potential. This is extremely important. That brings us to the work our committee is attempting on the No Child Left Behind Act. The target of that is the lower grades and high school, but we are interested in trying to find a seamless web, so that we're coordinating with Head Start, with kindergarten, coordinating with No Child Left Behind, coordinating with the colleges and universities. We understand this ought to be a seamless web, so to speak. It is not, at the present time, and we are committed to trying to do it. If we have these kinds of gaps in the learning process for our students, we are certainly not serving them well. This bill also includes provisions championed by Senator Brown to maintain the strength of the TRIO and GEAR UP programs which provide underprivileged students with the support they need to go to college and graduate from college. The Higher Education Act of 1965 established the National Teacher Corps, a federally funded Great Society program to develop our Nation's teaching force. This bill continues that tradition by promoting high- quality and effective preparation programs for new and prospective teachers. We are very committed to retaining high-quality teachers in high-need schools. This was of particular interest to Senator Nelson, Gaylord Nelson, who is deceased. He was very much involved in that program and it was very successful. Finally, this bill will create a new student safety grant program to help colleges and universities improve their campus safety and emergency response systems. As the nightmare at Virginia Tech made us all too aware, tragedy can strike anywhere, include college campuses. We have important provisions in this area. This legislation received unanimous bipartisan support in committee. I hope we will see that demonstrated today. One final point, when we are talking about the cost of colleges, we also encourage that states ensure students and families know what they're doing to support higher education. In a number of States, for example, my State of Massachusetts, in recent years, prior to the election of Deval Patrick, under a previous Governor, we saw substantial reductions of State help to colleges, and so the colleges have no alternative but to raise the fees on young people. They didn't say these were increased taxes, but effectively they were for these young families. We had a dramatic reduction in terms of state appropriations for higher education recently. It is important for the American people to understand, are the States helping? Are they doing their fair share or is the fact that we are seeing an increase in particular States the result of State action? We want to make sure the public understands it and that we understand it as well. We are serious about trying to ensure that college education is affordable and accessible to everyone. This is not the final answer. We have a lot more work to do. But I would hope the students and their families and the education community would feel this is a very important and constructive step. It is reflected in a very important bipartisan effort on our part to make sure we are going to get help to the young people of this country so our Nation can be strong economically and can have the young people who will make sure that our great institutions are going to function to protect our values and our rights. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that time under the quorum calls during consideration of S. 1642 be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself the time on the amendment itself.

Mr. KENNEDY. The Boxer amendment is to provide additional funding-- $57 million for Upward Bound Programs. Upward Bound Programs are special programs, formed by colleges, to help students who come from lower income families and who are first-generation college students, and who have capacity and capability to continue on to college. It has been enormously successful. What has happened is there are applications submitted by Upward Bound Programs in order to get a grant. Depending on a variety of different factors, those grants are either approved or not. They are scored and then either approved or not. The cutoff time at the present time is 92 percent. The Boxer amendment, with an increased authorization which amounts to approximately $57 million, will amend the Upward Bound scoring to say that any quality program above 70 on the most recent grant cycle would be eligible to receive funding. This is a valuable and worthwhile effort. I have a chart which shows what the results of the Upward Bound Program have been. Nearly 90 percent of Upward Bound students graduate from high school compared to only 68 percent of all low-income 18- to 24-year-olds. We have gone through other charts that showed, even if they graduated, those who will be qualified for college. Nearly 70 percent of Upward Bound students attend college compared to the lower rate of 54 percent for all low-income students. Fifty percent of Upward Bound students attend a 4-year college compared to other low-income students. Upward Bound students are four times more likely to earn an undergraduate degree than students from similar backgrounds. This shows what all of us believe, and that is, all students can learn. They may learn at a somewhat different pace or a different time, but they can learn. What we have seen is for a number of different reasons, we find particularly that those who are from the lower income families are either discouraged or, because of the costs, because of the application, the system is skewed against them. We are seeing that education, rather than being a factor which is uniting our country, is adding to the disparity. One of the most effective programs, of course, is the TRIO Program. Within the TRIO Program is the Upward Bound Program. So Members are very familiar with this program. We all have programs in our own States. I have many in my State--over 50 TRIO programs in Massachusetts. I have the list here, and there are programs in just about every single State. These programs are out there and are working and providing important opportunities for students. So this is just an authorization, but it is an important one. It is targeting the group of students who need that extra help and assistance. It is remarkable that the schools and colleges are so involved in trying to help secondary school students. We have the GEAR UP program, which our good friend, Chaka Fattah from Philadelphia, was the architect of, working through universities. I know in the city of Boston many of the high schools are tied into the colleges that work with these students. It is a wonderful relationship. It is the way it should be. These kinds of outreach programs try to help and assist many of those students who are the neediest and are facing a wide variety of different challenges, recognizing they, too, have dreams, hopes, and interests in terms of furthering their education. This is an extremely modest program, but one that is enormously valuable and has demonstrated, time and again, its success. So, Mr. President, that is the Boxer amendment, and I do not believe there is objection to it.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself the remainder of the time on this amendment for use in the debate on the bill. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if the Senator from Virginia will withhold, I wanted to thank the good Senator from Alaska. She has been a very active member of our committee. Besides her earlier amendment that was on income-based assistance to the students, she had a very worthwhile amendment that is going to make a big difference in her State and in all of our States in terms of making greater availability of information and outreach to students who are qualified to go to the schools and colleges but otherwise would not be able to because of lack of information and support. That was a key element. Also, she has been very much involved in the grant program which is included in this for science and technology. She has been a very active member. We value very much her input and involvement in the legislation. We thank her for her comments.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. KENNEDY. I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask that the time be charged to the Warner amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Senator from Hawaii was on the floor a moment ago. We are expecting his amendment.