Douglas Alexander: “in case the President may be wondering, and I asked consent about this, these are 7,000 regulations. We have 6,000…”

“in case the President may be wondering, and I asked consent about this, these are 7,000 regulations. We have 6,000 autonomous institutions of higher education in the United States, colleges and universities. The Presiding Officer comes from the State that has some of the finest colleges and universities anywhere in America. I will not begin to name them because there are so many of them I might leave one out. Every single college or university, public or private, in North Carolina, Tennessee, or Colorado which has students with Federal grants or loans gets all of these boxes this year. These are the Federal regulations under title IV of the Higher Education Act that somebody at the smallest college or the biggest university must wade through in order to help students have Federal grants and Federal loans. The Federal grant and Federal loans are one of the great success stories of the United States of America. I will talk more about that. Mr. President, 60 percent of our college students and university students at those 6,000 public and private and profit and nonprofit institutes of higher education, 60 percent of them have a Federal grant or loan to help pay for college. That has increased over the last 4 or 5 years about 10 times faster--9 times faster--than State funding for higher education.…”