Tom Harkin: “I thank the Senator for his great work on this. I just want to add one other thing about the school and about the debt…”

“I thank the Senator for his great work on this. I just want to add one other thing about the school and about the debt of these students. Some have likened what the for-profit school industry is doing to the subprime bubble we had. But there is a big difference. Even as bad as the subprime mortgages were, a person who had a house they couldn't pay for could walk away from that house. They could always walk away from it, and that is the end of the debt. You can't walk away from this. No way. That is the difference. This is not a dischargeable debt, and these students, as the Senator points out, might end up alone. They might not be able to go to a legitimate school because they can't get any money for that. They could be barred from Federal employment. This will follow them for the rest of their lives until they pay it off. Yet these companies are making almost obscene profits and paying their CEOs tremendous salaries and benefits. As I pointed out earlier, many of these for-profit schools are owned by the same investment firms on Wall Street that brought us the subprime problem. Well, I say to my friend, we just cannot let this go. There is too much at stake not only for the taxpayers of this country but for these students, these young kids, these poor kids who are being preyed upon. So whenever we hear these schools say: Well, the reason we have this problem is because we are servicing all of these poor kids--don't forget. That is who they prey on.…”