On the recordMay 23, 2013
I thank the gentlelady for yielding time, and I thank her for her leadership on this issue and here in the Congress. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule for H.R. 1911. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule to prevent this flawed legislation from moving forward. We have a student loan debt crisis to be sure, but this is not the solution. A free market approach will not solve this problem, and Mr. Miller was so accurate in his statement just a moment ago. For my constituents in eastern North Carolina, paying for higher education has never been more difficult. {time} 0940 I represent a very low-income district. One in four people in my district lives below the poverty level. While the economy is recovering, my region's 8.9 percent unemployment rate remains higher than the national average. At the same time, the cost to attend our colleges and universities has been steadily increasing. The cost to attend college is 1,100 percent more expensive than it was 30 years ago. Access to affordable Federal student aid can be the difference between constituents attending college or not. Just last year, despite strong opposition from Republicans, Congress voted to continue to keep interest rates on federally funded Stafford loans at 3.4 percent, instead of doubling to 6.8 percent. If those rates had doubled, Mr. Speaker, more than 7 million students each would be saddled with an average of $1,000 in additional debt.…
