On the recordFebruary 4, 2014
I think the Senator is exactly right. We had the Senator from Indiana talking about debt and deficits and making sure we spend every Federal dollar intelligently. Right now, we are simply not spending this money in the most efficient and efficacious way possible. That is what this legislation is about. Senator Murphy and I talked about how it might have been a little more politically satisfying in the short run to put hard caps on college tuition and precipitous goals that would have been very easy for us to articulate. But the fact is, given that you have different institutions with different missions and you have great work being done at the community college level, at the certificate level, and at the 4-year and at the graduate level, we wanted to account for the different missions, and we wanted to make sure we did not create the kind of incentive program that, for instance, would prevent an institution from wanting to take a kid in who is from a lower income area and maybe, statistically speaking, is more likely to default on his or her loan. We really want, as a matter of policy, to focus on access. So it is access; it is affordability; it is the consistency with the mission. But here we are spending $150 billion--more than we ever have--on this national priority, and our results are worse than ever. So the status quo cannot stand, and I am really looking forward to working with my colleague on this important issue.
