Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are debating student loans. We are here having this debate because of Russia. How did that happen? It was October of 1957. The Russians launched a satellite called Sputnik. We did not have any satellites. We knew they had the bomb, and then they had the satellite. It scared us. It frightened Congress enough that they created the first student loan program. Oh, there were loans given to GIs coming back from the war, but this was a program available to those who were not veterans. They called it the National Defense Education Act. It was all about Americas defense. What they said was: We will loan money to students across America to go to college. I think their rationale was sound. If more Americans went to college and got educated, we would have the engineers and scientists we need to make this a strong nation from a defense point of view and from our economy point of view. So I thank the Russians for launching Sputnik, and I thank the Congress for creating the National Defense Education Act because a kid from East St. Louis, IL, whose parents had eighth grade educations, got a chance to go to college, and he is standing here today in the Senate. It was a pretty good deal too. The National Defense Education Act said: You can borrow money to go to school, and you do not have to pay it back until a year after you graduate--10 equal payments at 3-percent interest.…”