A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that the exception from the treatment of publicly traded partnerships as corporations for partnerships with passive-type income shall not apply to partnerships directly or indirectly deriving income from providing investment adviser and related asset management services.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for what I think is an excellent suggestion. It is an excellent idea. Some years ago, when we had the consolidation of our work-training program, we had 16 work- training programs in 6 different agencies. Under the Kassebaum-Kennedy program, we tried to consolidate those. In those programs, we tried to do an assessment of training programs so someone coming will have the information that will be valuable to them--if they took X program for 8 weeks, what their possibilities of getting placed were and what the possibilities would be for their income and how that might grow over a period of time. That would give the various students, at that time, the information to know, with what options, what the future was going to be.

It also is helpful to us on our committee to know in what areas individuals are being trained. We have the responsibility in our committee to review where the vacancies are in our job markets and how we are going to deal

with those. The amendment of the Senator is going to take this to another level in terms of the postgraduate education.

I think we will have a chance, when this is achieved, to evaluate what our national needs are as a country and as an economy and whether we want to incentivize them. We can have that as a matter of public discussion and debate, as a Congress, in committees, so the American people understand what is going on in terms of graduate students. It will be enormously valuable and helpful.

We always have a debate and discussion about our doctors: Do we have too many specialists in some areas and don't have enough general practitioners in others? What have been the defining aspects that get them to go into those areas? That is a constant issue our committee is dealing with at any particular time in the reauthorization.

I think the amendment of the Senator will have the GAO come back and report. We look forward to working with the Senator when that comes back to try to get us greater information. It is a very solid amendment and a very useful one. I certainly recommend we accept it, for the reasons I have outlined briefly and for the reasons the Senator has explained.

If the Senator is ready for a vote on that?

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, we thank the Senator. We have made good progress this morning on two very useful and important amendments. As we pointed out during the discussion and debate at the end of last week, we are in an extremely fortunate position. We thank the leadership, and I thank Senator Enzi for his persistence, insisting that we deal with the authorization at a time when we are going to deal with the student assistance program. They should be considered together.

We are grateful to the leadership for giving us the opportunity today to have a good chance to consider some ideas--as we have earlier this morning--some good ideas on the higher education legislation. This legislation is long overdue, and it is appropriate that we address it. We thank all of our colleagues for their cooperation.

Hopefully, we will have a conclusion of this legislation after we have the consideration of some amendments. I have gone through a number of amendments. They are very solid and helpful and useful to the purpose and thrust of this legislation. We will have a chance to continue the good progress we have made earlier.

I did wish to say a word generally about the legislation and highlight some of the provisions. I start off by again thanking my friend and colleague from Wyoming for his very strong work in this area. As I mentioned last week, our committee basically spent a great deal of time on this reauthorization. The legislation we have here today--with the exception, probably, of the provisions we have added on the student loans and perhaps one or two other important issues--is very much the legislation that would have come through our committee under his leadership.

We have worked in a very important tradition and we want to try to maintain that tradition of strong bipartisanship. We have tried to keep this free from some of the other kinds of issues people feel strongly about here on the floor of the Senate because I think both of us understand that the education of the young people of this country is such an overwhelming issue for so many families that we want to try to meet our responsibilities to them and do it in a timely and thoughtful way.

That has been the tradition, certainly marks the tradition of this particular reauthorization legislation. This is a place, I say, to join with members of our committee. Again, we have--I think the Senator from Wyoming would agree--a committee that spends a great deal of time on education issues. Whenever we have a markup, we have a very well- informed discussion and debate.

There has been an enormous accumulation of knowledge--and always of concern--by the members of our committee for these higher education bills; people who have spent a good deal of time on the education issue, Republicans and Democrats alike. We have wide diversity of our committee, urban areas, rural areas, and we have tried to respond to those kinds of needs. But this reauthorization is extremely important.

Leading to the creation of the Higher Education Act back in 1965, President Kennedy said:

Our progress as a Nation can be no swifter than our

progress in education, our requirements for world leadership,

our hopes for economic growth, and the demands of citizenship

itself in an era such as this all require the maximum

development of every young American's capacity. The human

mind is our fundamental resource.

Those words rang true then, and they ring true today, as our country is once again in a time of war and conflict and faces great economic challenges. Equal access to higher education touches every aspect of American life. In order to compete effectively in the global economy and ensure a well-qualified Armed Forces, we need to equip all our citizens with the sound education from prekindergarten to college.

Each year, 400,000 students do not go on to a 4-year college simply because they cannot afford to do so.

Equally devastating--this is the 400,000--it shows that some 400,000 talented students, these are qualified students, students that effectively have the qualifications to gain entrance into institutions of higher learning, by and large; it is because of the lack of financial help and assistance that they do not attend a college.

As we have seen during the debate and discussion at the end of last week, we need to make a very strong downpayment to provide help and assistance to students and graduates, such as through loan forgiveness, so that if they go into public service, which so many of them want to, we provide a forgiveness program for them that will make a large difference.

As I mentioned last week, a key element that is going to help those 400,000 is the work that has been done by the chairman and Senator Reed to make the FAFSA application a good deal simpler. As we have time through the afternoon, if others may wish to address the Senate, I will spend a little time going through the contrast between the two, and you will see the dramatic difference in the change we have had.

Secondly, our second chart shows the devastating, equally devastating, fact that 47 percent of low-income eight graders will be academically--only 47 percent--will be academically prepared for college at the time of high school graduation, compared to 86 percent of their higher income peers. This is, again, an issue we talked about briefly last week, the growing apart of America.

Education is the key. We do not want to have an education system that is going to help America grow apart. We have made every effort in this legislation to address that broader kind of issue. We are a better nation than that. We are a nation that believes in promise and opportunity for all our citizens.

This bill expired in 2003. It was last updated in 1998. We cannot afford to wait any longer to reaffirm our commitment to higher education in this country and create a framework so our students are prepared to meet the challenges of this new economy.

I am immensely pleased, and I know our committee members are, that we were able to swiftly move to this bill after the passage of the Higher Education Access Act last Thursday. Together, they make up the comprehensive higher education package.

Again, I thank my friend and colleague, Senator Enzi, for the strong support in both of these parts of our education program and for considering them in tandem.

The bill we passed last week includes several critical features, provisions to help make college affordable. We mentioned those during the debate. But it is important again to recognize the need-based grant aid; a significant increase in the maximum Pell grant; the

repayment provisions that cap loan payments at 15 percent of monthly discretionary income; the loan forgiveness if individuals go into public service jobs; the protection for working students so those who are working, trying to put themselves through school, are not going to earn so much it will make them ineligible for student assistance programs; and the other protections we have provided for, such as those on active duty, which are Senator Murray's provisions.

There is no doubt the student aid in the Access Act is the single most important thing we can do to increase access for college-ready, low-income students. But it is also our responsibility to ensure the multibillion dollar investment of taxpayers we make to student aid is delivered in the most effective and efficient way possible.

This authorization bill will take steps to ensure the greatest return on this investment by addressing rising college costs, reforming the student loan system so it works for students not banks, simplifying the Federal aid application process, strengthening the college preparation programs such as GEAR UP and TRIO and promoting high-quality and effective teacher preparation programs.

As we provide more aid to students, this bill recognizes that colleges need to do their part to keep college costs down. Costs for college have more than tripled in the last twenty years, as this chart shows. Every middle-income family, who has a child in school or college knows this better than the charts can portray.

The costs have effectively tripled over the last 20 years. So the higher education amendments for 2007 will hold colleges accountable for skyrocketing college costs by creating nationwide watch lists of colleges whose costs are increasing at a rate greater than their peers and by encouraging the Department of Education and colleges to publish more consumer-friendly information about college costs and programs.

To ensure this aid is directed to students, its intended beneficiaries, we must keep them informed about choices and hold colleges and lenders accountable for getting the students the best loan deal possible.

The investigation by New York Attorney General Cuomo and other States and our committee have found many lenders are entering into sweetheart deals with colleges. Some lenders offer gifts to college employees in order to secure their student loan business. We have documented how lenders who participated in the Federal student loan program offer educational conferences, luxury hotels, free entertainment, free tickets to sporting events to college officials in order to entice those officials to recommend the lenders to their students.

Our legislation makes these practices illegal and protects students by ensuring that when a college recommends a lender, it is based on the best interests of students and nothing else. To ensure that students have access to the Federal financial aid they are eligible for, we simplify the financial aid process for all students by reforming the application for Federal student aid.

As you can see, the form is currently 10 pages long and includes more than 100 questions. This chart shows--the people who are watching cannot read the individual lines--but this is 10 pages long. Even up close it is difficult to read the questions. But it is enough to intimidate and inhibit many of the young people from moving ahead with this program.

As I mentioned, thanks to Senator Enzi and Reed, this bill dramatically simplifies the FAFSA and examines how we can streamline it further in the future. Our bill will make the financial aid process more student friendly by immediately creating a 2-page form, what we call EZ FAFSA, for low-income students and phasing out the current long paper process. It will also create a pilot program to let students know how they can access Federal aid for college earlier by allowing students to receive an aid determination or estimate in junior high school so they can gain the information about whether they have a real opportunity to go on, to continue on to college, and get the information in an easy to understand and timely way. That is the purpose of this particular effort.

Ensuring access to adequate grant aid is one component of solving the college access crisis. We must also ensure more students are graduating from high school ready to succeed in college. In 2001, colleges required a third of all freshmen to take remedial courses in reading, writing or math.

Because so many high school students are not learning the basic skills to succeed in college or work, the Nation loses more than $3.7 billion a year. This figure includes the $1.4 billion to provide the remedial education of students who recently completed high school.

In addition, this figure factors in the almost $2.3 billion the economy loses because remedial students are more likely to drop out of college without a degree, therefore reducing their earning potential.

This is extremely important. That brings us to the work our committee is attempting on the No Child Left Behind Act. The target of that is the lower grades and high school, but we are interested in trying to find a seamless web, so that we're coordinating with Head Start, with kindergarten, coordinating with No Child Left Behind, coordinating with the colleges and universities.

We understand this ought to be a seamless web, so to speak. It is not, at the present time, and we are committed to trying to do it. If we have these kinds of gaps in the learning process for our students, we are certainly not serving them well.

This bill also includes provisions championed by Senator Brown to maintain the strength of the TRIO and GEAR UP programs which provide underprivileged students with the support they need to go to college and graduate from college.

The Higher Education Act of 1965 established the National Teacher Corps, a federally funded Great Society program to develop our Nation's teaching force. This bill continues that tradition by promoting high- quality and effective preparation programs for new and prospective teachers. We are very committed to retaining high-quality teachers in high-need schools. This was of particular interest to Senator Nelson, Gaylord Nelson, who is deceased. He was very much involved in that program and it was very successful.

Finally, this bill will create a new student safety grant program to help colleges and universities improve their campus safety and emergency response systems. As the nightmare at Virginia Tech made us all too aware, tragedy can strike anywhere, include college campuses. We have important provisions in this area.

This legislation received unanimous bipartisan support in committee. I hope we will see that demonstrated today. One final point, when we are talking about the cost of colleges, we also encourage that states ensure students and families know what they're doing to support higher education. In a number of States, for example, my State of Massachusetts, in recent years, prior to the election of Deval Patrick, under a previous Governor, we saw substantial reductions of State help to colleges, and so the colleges have no alternative but to raise the fees on young people.

They didn't say these were increased taxes, but effectively they were for these young families. We had a dramatic reduction in terms of state appropriations for higher education recently. It is important for the American people to understand, are the States helping? Are they doing their fair share or is the fact that we are seeing an increase in particular States the result of State action? We want to make sure the public understands it and that we understand it as well. We are serious about trying to ensure that college education is affordable and accessible to everyone. This is not the final answer. We have a lot more work to do. But I would hope the students and their families and the education community would feel this is a very important and constructive step. It is reflected in a very important bipartisan effort on our part to make sure we are going to get help to the young people of this country so our Nation can be strong economically and can have the young people who will make sure that our great institutions are going to function to protect our values and our rights.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that time under the quorum calls during consideration of S. 1642 be charged equally to both sides.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment by the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer. I welcome the opportunity to offer it on her behalf.

I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I yield myself the time on the amendment itself.

The Boxer amendment is to provide additional funding-- $57 million for Upward Bound Programs. Upward Bound Programs are special programs, formed by colleges, to help students who come from lower income families and who are first-generation college students, and who have capacity and capability to continue on to college. It has been enormously successful. What has happened is there are applications submitted by Upward Bound Programs in order to get a grant. Depending on a variety of different factors, those grants are either approved or not. They are scored and then either approved or not. The cutoff time at the present time is 92 percent.

The Boxer amendment, with an increased authorization which amounts to approximately $57 million, will amend the Upward Bound scoring to say that any quality program above 70 on the most recent grant cycle would be eligible to receive funding.

This is a valuable and worthwhile effort. I have a chart which shows what the results of the Upward Bound Program have been. Nearly 90 percent of Upward Bound students graduate from high school compared to only 68 percent of all low-income 18- to 24-year-olds. We have gone through other charts that showed, even if they graduated, those who will be qualified for college. Nearly 70 percent of Upward Bound students attend college compared to the lower rate of 54 percent for all low-income students. Fifty percent of Upward Bound students attend a 4-year college compared to other low-income students. Upward Bound students are four times more likely to earn an undergraduate degree than students from similar backgrounds. This shows what all of us believe, and that is, all students can learn. They may learn at a somewhat different pace or a different time, but they can learn.

What we have seen is for a number of different reasons, we find particularly that those who are from the lower income families are either discouraged or, because of the costs, because of the application, the system is skewed against them. We are seeing that education, rather than being a factor which is uniting our country, is adding to the disparity.

One of the most effective programs, of course, is the TRIO Program. Within the TRIO Program is the Upward Bound Program. So Members are very familiar with this program. We all have programs in our own States. I have many in my State--over 50 TRIO programs in Massachusetts. I have the list here, and there are programs in just about every single State. These programs are out there and are working and providing important opportunities for students.

So this is just an authorization, but it is an important one. It is targeting the group of students who need that extra help and assistance. It is remarkable that the schools and colleges are so involved in trying to help secondary school students. We have the GEAR UP program, which our good friend, Chaka Fattah from Philadelphia, was the architect of, working through universities. I know in the city of Boston many of the high schools are tied into the colleges that work with these students. It is a wonderful relationship. It is the way it should be.

These kinds of outreach programs try to help and assist many of those students who are the neediest and are facing a wide variety of different challenges, recognizing they, too, have dreams, hopes, and interests in terms of furthering their education. This is an extremely modest program, but one that is enormously valuable and has demonstrated, time and again, its success.

So, Mr. President, that is the Boxer amendment, and I do not believe there is objection to it.

Mr. President, I yield myself the remainder of the time on this amendment for use in the debate on the bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, if the Senator from Virginia will withhold, I wanted to thank the good Senator from Alaska. She has been a very active member of our committee. Besides her earlier amendment that was on income-based assistance to the students, she had a very worthwhile amendment that is going to make a big difference in her State and in all of our States in terms of making greater availability of information and outreach to students who are qualified to go to the schools and colleges but otherwise would not be able to because of lack of information and support. That was a key element. Also, she has been very much involved in the grant program which is included in this for science and technology.

She has been a very active member. We value very much her input and involvement in the legislation. We thank her for her comments.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Virginia, Senator Warner, for his excellent presentation, and also for reminding us about the importance of math and science and technology and engineering. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I think his involvement and focus on this is also enormously important because he understands that education is not only a value to the individual, not only a value to our economy, but it is an essential aspect in terms of our national security. I have talked with him frequently about the National Defense Education Act that made such a difference in terms of availability. That was after Sputnik in the late 1950s, when the country came together and passed the National Defense Education Act. Still, some of those individuals are in key positions today in both private and public sectors. They are individuals who took advantage of that.

In the Defense authorization, Senator Collins and I had spoken to the Senator when he was chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We have the small program that is directly focused on math, science, engineering, and technology that he included in legislation in the past. We have a number of enormously interested young people who are taking advantage of those scholarships. We remember the amendments the Senator offered on the reconciliation that he referenced here previously. So this is an area that he has shown enormous interest in and concern about. We are enormously grateful for his intervention.

As the Senator knows, we passed the COMPETE Act earlier this year. In that COMPETE Act there are provisions to assist these minority institutions. Quite frankly, there are a lot of other priorities in that COMPETE Act. I think the fact that the Senator has given us this legislation and this focus is incredibly helpful to us. I thank the Senator for all of his efforts. It is no surprise to me that my colleague and friend from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, is your strong cosponsor because I have talked with him about this subject matter on many occasions.

I just draw the attention of the Senator to this chart, which I think makes the point the Senator pointed out. The bill provides resources for institutions to build capacity, develop facilities, and improve instruction; expands opportunities for institutions to serve more low- and middle-income students; supports greater financial literacy and strengthens the focus on studies in the STEM fields.

That is a pretty good summation of what the Senator is trying to do. I think it is enormously important that this legislation be included. Senator Kerry is very interested in this, as well as Senator Webb. I thank all of you for giving this focus and attention. This is a very important undertaking, very important legislation. I am grateful the Senator has taken the time to bring this to our attention.

I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask that the time be charged to the Warner amendment.

Mr. President, I say to the majority leader, we thank him so much for scheduling this legislation, both the underlying legislation we passed last week, which will make a difference to students, and the authorization. I know my friend and colleague from Wyoming, as well as others, knows we saw this authorization expire some 3 years ago. So this is long overdue.

The idea that we passed both these pieces of legislation together is going to make a major difference, not only to the students, about whom we are primarily concerned, and to their families but also to the colleges and universities and to all the other entities in the educational community.

We are moving along with these amendments. We are very thankful for all the cooperation we have received this afternoon. Hopefully, we are able to conclude this bill either late tonight or tomorrow. This will be a very significant and important time in terms of educational policy for our country.

I thank the leader very much.

Mr. President, the Senator from Hawaii was on the floor a moment ago. We are expecting his amendment.

Mr. President, I wish to thank my friend from Hawaii for bringing this to our attention, this situation which works to the disadvantage of Pacific Islanders and specifically Native Hawaiians. He quite appropriately points out that other groups are included as underserved populations but the Native Hawaiians are not and the Pacific Islanders are not. In many respects, the fact that they are not able to participate in these programs works to the disadvantage of the population generally from being included in terms of the life of not only their communities but the communities of our country. All his amendment does is to make sure they are going to be included in this program.

What is this program? This program is really a helping hand to those students who are going on to college--in this case, it would be the Hawaiians and the Pacific Islanders--a helping hand in counseling, giving guidance to these students so that they might participate in these other programs which offer real hope in terms of technology in the future. Effectively, his amendment says that Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians will be included so as to qualify for these programs in ways that mean students, who otherwise would be excluded from getting counseling--the helping hand--could continue for graduate degrees. It seems to me they should be included, and the amendment makes a good deal of sense.

For those reasons and the excellent reasons the Senator mentioned earlier, I thank him for bringing this to our attention. I must say, I was not aware those groups had been excluded, quite frankly, from the program. I don't know how this originally happened, but we always learn a good deal from our colleagues here in the Senate, and we have learned a good deal about this issue today. As always, the Senator from Hawaii is out front when it comes to issues on education and opportunity for Native Hawaiians and for Pacific Islanders, and we are very grateful to him for bringing this to our attention.

Hopefully, we will accept this and make sure it is a part of the legislation.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Am I correct in understanding that Senator Akaka was a principal in an elementary school.

In an elementary school.

How many years were you a principal in an elementary school?

Good. Well, I thank the Senator.

Senator Akaka brings many different qualities to his service, but the fact that he was a principal in an elementary school reflects that he understands the importance of education, and he knows this community.

It gives us additional information to understand his strong commitment in this area of opportunity for Pacific Islanders and for Native Hawaiians.

I think, Mr. President, we will hold up, but I expect we will pass this amendment in a short while. So I think at this time we are just going to hold, if we could.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am going to urge that the Senate accept the Senator's amendment. It has been a number of years since our HELP Committee got into looking at the foreign medical schools, as the Senator pointed out. I think there are a number that are exceptional and incredibly good. Others are moderately good, and there are others that don't pass muster. It is, I think, useful to get that kind of information. We have a health care crisis. Personnel is a key aspect of the health care crisis. We have a concern about what the specialties are in different areas in this country. The amendment the Senator is offering is going to help us understand what is happening with these foreign medical schools. The amount of financial aid they receive--we ought to be updated on that. We ought to know the percentage of students that are going to pass that exam. We ought to know what specialties they are moving into and where they are practicing, the types of medicine they are practicing; that is exceedingly important and useful.

The Senator has other references in here, too, in terms of the number of times to take the exam and medical licenses that are revoked. I think it would provide important information, certainly, for our committee. We ought to have an update of information on what is happening. Also, I think it is important for the American taxpayer to understand what is happening as well, in terms of this kind of investment, so I thank the Senator. This is an important area. We have, as the Senator knows, programs to provide medical personnel--this is related but not directly on subject--in underserved areas in the United States, which has worked quite well. That is not the target of this particular program. But it is important that we have this kind of information. It will be useful for our HELP Committee to have it. So I hope the Senate will accept it. I thank the Senator for raising this issue. I think it is useful and important. We hope we can persuade our House Members to accept it at the appropriate time as well.

Mr. President, I think we are prepared to accept the Akaka amendment, if there is no further debate.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, we have remaining time on the amendments we have dealt with previously. I believe we have 15 minutes. I am glad to yield it to the Senator from Oregon. He wants to talk on another subject.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we have made very good progress during the morning and early afternoon on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. We have a pretty good idea now of the remaining amendments. We are getting in touch with our colleagues who intend to offer those amendments. I expect we will have votes, as the leader indicated, in the early evening, and this probably will necessitate that we will have a few votes in the morning tomorrow. But we will wind up this higher education reauthorization bill, which is really the good news.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, I ask the Chair to advise when I have 1 minute left.

Finally, Mr. President, I want to review again exactly where we are on the two pieces of legislation, one of which we passed on Thursday night, which is the historic increase in the need-based grant aid, the largest increase in grant aid since the GI bill after World War II. We have also assisted in the management of these loans, the indebtedness, by offering loan forgiveness and by putting a limit on loan payments at 15 percent of the discretionary income. Discretionary income also takes into consideration if there are children and, obviously, that reduces the discretionary income.

We have the loan forgiveness for borrowers who work in the public service jobs. If you become a teacher and work with special needs children, or work with the disabled or the elderly, and you do that over a 10-year period, you will not pay more than 15 percent and qualify for the loan forgiveness.

The bill also protects working students, so that if they work hard and gain some money to be able to buy some books, that they are not going to break through these caps, need-based caps, and they are going to be able to buy the books and use those earnings. This is a realistic and important aspect of the legislation.

So this is assistance to the neediest students, assistance for those students from working families with middle income, and assistance for idealistic students who want to work in public service. All of that is going to be possible under this legislation.

Under the reauthorization, the other part which we are now on the floor of the Senate debating, we are also making sure that the student loan system is going to meet the ethical requirements and is going to ensure that the best interest of the students and the loan system is going to be protected.

We have had too many stories of inappropriate kinds of actions in the development of the loan system, which makes it more difficult for the students and, obviously, compromises the colleges and universities. So we have addressed that issue in this part of the program.

We are publicizing the cost information so that parents will understand and get real information as to what the cost is for the schools. We are going to also publicize what the States are providing. If they cut back, as they have in my own State, which has meant the fees have gone up, parents will know who is responsible. We hope this will make a difference in terms of the total cost of education.

The application itself, what they call the FAFSA, we have simplified that so it will no longer be a discouraging document. It will be one that will be easier to read and be easier to utilize, particularly for those students who don't have the kind of support systems that help them fill out those forms.

Finally, we have helped in the areas of the GEAR UP and TRIO programs to help improve preparation for higher education. For one reason or another, some students need a helping hand to continue their education and succeed in school. That has been true for the TRIO and GEAR UP programs and other programs that work with children who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds but are talented and hard working students. This helps provide an outreach for those students.

Lastly, we have the programs to support higher quality teacher preparation. We understand at the end of the day the teacher in the classroom is the one who makes all the difference. Each and every one of us in this Chamber can all remember our favorite teachers, the one who inspired us, helped us, coached us, and really encouraged us to move ahead and grasp the opportunities of furthering our education.

Mr. President, this is a very meaningful piece of legislation. It represents the best judgment of Republicans and Democrats alike. We are enormously indebted to our Republican and Democratic colleagues and all of the staffs who have worked very long and hard on this legislation.

We are going to have more to say on these particular amendments, but I think it is useful to just give a summary of what this legislation is all about. We have added to this legislation over the course of the day in some very useful and meaningful ways. So we are going to look forward to getting a good vote on the final passage.

Mr. President, I believe my time is up.

Mr. President, I thank the good Senator from North Carolina for offering this amendment. I had the opportunity to travel to North Carolina and to visit with their education department about their innovative and creative ways of trying to bring in highly qualified teachers in a lot of underserved areas. They have done a very good job.

This amendment doesn't surprise me. It is extremely worthwhile and reminds us of what the current situation is. If you have math students in high-poverty schools, they are more likely to be taught by out-of- field teachers. That means that over 33 percent of the math classes in high-poverty schools are being taught by a teacher without a degree in their field compared to less than 18 percent in low-poverty schools.

So as we have discussed during this entire debate, both last week and this week, this is a good example of our efforts to reduce the inequities in education, particularly when we are talking about the needs of developing skills in math, in science, engineering, and technology. This is a pretty good indication, the fact that if children are going to high-poverty schools, this is the chance they have to learn from a well-qualified teacher. It isn't always the case, but these statistics demonstrate the point the amendment is trying to make.

This is in science. If you take science students in high-poverty schools, they are more likely to be taught by out-of-field teachers. It is 56 percent in the high-poverty area, and only 22 percent in the low- poverty areas. This is repeated in other subjects as well.

Among other things, what the amendment is trying to do is hold institutions of higher education accountable for the quality and progress of teacher preparation and alternative certification programs. We have serious need for math and science teachers, especially in low- income and high-need schools. We ought to be encouraging our teaching institutions to help produce those teachers. That is really a very substantial part of what this amendment does. It helps high-need schools recruit and retain high-quality teachers so we give encouragement to schools to produce these teachers, and then help the high-needs schools to recruit and retain the highly qualified teachers and also help promote innovative models such as induction and teaching residency programs.

We have seen that some of these programs have been enormously successful in retaining teachers in high-poverty areas. These programs also encourage more accountability in teacher preparation. That is very consistent with what we are trying to do in this legislation.

Senator Burr has spoken of this issue. The Senator from Wyoming, you will remember, spoke about this during our discussions in the committee. We indicated a desire to work with him. This legislation is right on target with what we are attempting to do, recognizing what I said previously, and that is the key to education is the well-trained teacher. This is going to be helpful to make sure we are going to have a well-trained teacher in those areas of shortage. Clearly, math, science and engineering are very important, critical areas. As are teaching students with disabilities and English language learners. The amendment will help make this stronger legislation as a result of its acceptance.

I am more than glad to urge our colleagues to accept it. I will follow the lead of the Senator from Wyoming.

We are prepared to accept the amendment.

Mr. President, the Senator from Ohio, I understand, is on his way. We expect him shortly. He has an important amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Would the Senator yield?

Mr. President, how much time do we have?

There is 15 minutes divided between Senator Enzi and myself?

I would be glad to, if the Senator would yield on my time.

Is it not true that there is sort of three major components of paying for the cost for higher education? We have one aspect of it, which is the student loan program, which is the Federal student loan program. Included in that program is the authorization program, that we are going to deal with this issue.

Then we have the private loan programs which the Senator from Ohio is addressing. So as we are on the floor of the Senate, and middle-income families are watching us, we say we want to do something about the cost of tuition, certainly we make a downpayment on that in the reconciliation bill, where we have taken some $17 billion out of the lenders in order to provide more Federal grant aid to needy students. We have helped the neediest students.

But the Senator from Ohio has put his finger on what is happening at the other end; that is, the dramatic increase in the students borrowing at these exorbitant rates of 18 percent.

Does the Senator share my belief that we will never get a handle on the cost of tuition for colleges and universities until we get a handle on that program as well?

Let me ask the Senator from Ohio, if you look at the left part of that chart, that is 1996; is that correct?

So what you are pointing out is what has happened in the last 6 years; am I not correct?

Well, the point I am making is this is a relatively new phenomenon that has taken place, correct?

As we try to get a handle on trying to provide need- based assistance, we've seen a cutback in the proportion of grants compared to loans in Federal aid. We've seen the huge increase in Federal student loan debt--more and more students must borrow to afford a college education. At the same time we are seeing the explosion of private student loans, which often carry interest rates as high as 18 percent, which the Senator has talked about.

Does the Senator not agree with me, if we are really serious about dealing with the cost of tuition for students, we ought to deal with all of those components? As I understand, the Senator from Ohio is doing that with his amendment, to make sure we are going to, as a result of his amendment, help the neediest students in terms of Pell grants, and we are going to get help managing student loan debt by offering loan forgiveness to those in public service and by capping monthly loan repayments. We are using some $17 billion that we take from the lenders, and we are going to make sure that students will get the best possible loan--even if it's a private loan.

This is providing competition; am I correct?

So this isn't just mandating. This is creating competition, if they want competition in this area; am I correct?

Mr. President, just for the benefit of Members, I think we will have a rollcall vote on the Senator's amendment. We will work out with the leadership the time for that vote. I think that is going to be the way we are going to proceed.

I see the Senator from Illinois on the Senate floor now who has an amendment and, hopefully, we will be able to address that at the present time.

Mr. President, I am wondering if the Senator would help clarify his amendment for me. How much time do I have?

Let me know after I have used 7 minutes.

Would the Senator be good enough to answer some questions?

I was reading through the amendment. As the Senator knows, we have at the present time on the bill the Byrd amendment, title 31 of the U.S. Code, which forbids what I imagine is much of this amendment. Under the law, recipients of Federal contracts--whether through grants, loans, or cooperative agreements--are barred from using those funds to lobby, to extend, or modify a Federal award.

I am trying to understand what you include that his amendment doesn't include. Let me ask the question: if the President of a university or a government affairs person of the university called a Member of Congress about the student loan program, is that considered to be part of a lobbying effort? This is on my time.

I was interested, if there is a government affairs person at one of our fine universities--for example, Tufts University in Massachusetts, which was in touch with us about loan forgiveness. In government affairs, they have an interesting program where they had a good deal of loan forgiveness for students, and they were calling asking about how their program fits in with this bill. It was a government affairs figure who called us about this, signaling that they thought their program was better than the one we had. Is that considered lobbying by the government affairs person?

If there were inquiries on No Child Left Behind, on the special needs of disabled children, or they

wanted to find out about bilingual programs and about grants from the NIH--there is this concern, as the Senator knows, about cuts in the NIH budget, and I have had calls from some of the great research centers in my home State, from universities and in some instances from presidents and in some instances from government affairs people, about their concern about where we are going as a country in terms of NIH and in terms of the future. Does it affect any of those?

Even though the universities may be affected by some of these cuts. Is it just that the lobbyists--the hiring of the lobbyists and the lobbyists then speaking to the Member--I am trying to get what the Senator is driving at.

Yes.

I think that might be wrong. I thought that was the point of the Byrd amendment. In your language you have on page 2, ``any person or entity for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency of the Federal Government, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with any Federal action.'' I am trying to understand this. Can a government affairs person at a university--I am a Member of Congress--talk to me about support for the NIH and NIH funding?

I hear what the Senator wants to do. I would be interested in where you get the $127 million. I will accept what the Senator says on this.

I had thought, when we passed the Byrd amendment, Senator Byrd spoke very eloquently about what I think the Senator is dealing with, and that is lobbyists getting part of the action when they have the earmark. I thought that is the effect.

It goes further than that, but I am concerned about--and I have said this in my questions--whether you have a person representing a university or a government affairs person calling a Member of Congress about a lot of the matters that we are considering in this legislation, whether it is a student loan program or the NIH or whether it is the regulations that are guiding some of the education programs, the programs dealing with disabled student--let me ask you, how would this affect a university? If there was a conference by one of the agencies-- the Department of Education--and they were having a conference on the subject of higher education, can the university send any individuals there to express their views on education policies? Say they want to go down there and see more laboratories built because they want additional research, and they speak to the Department of Education about those kinds of items.

The Senator's responses are helpful. I don't know whether the Senator is familiar with the Byrd amendment. If it is not interfering with colleges or universities or institutions dealing with a wide range of educational issues or some of the fine schools that offer criminology wanting to call the Justice Department to try to get grants to deal with the problems of violence in the communities. But the Senator has given assurance that is not the area he is trying to get at. It is basically the lobbyists. I don't know whether the Senator is familiar with title I of the Byrd amendment, which prohibits, as I understand it, a great deal of what the Senator spoke about with great eloquence in the earlier program.

Yes, I am glad to.

Just to continue, Mr. President, there are penalties with the Byrd amendment, civil penalties on the Byrd amendment. Maybe it is enforcement. The Byrd amendment says:

None of the funds appropriated by any Act may be expended

by the recipient of a Federal contract, grant, loan, or

cooperative agreement to pay any person for influencing or

attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency,

a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of any agency, a

Member of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in

connection with any Federal action described in paragraph (2)

of this subsection.

Then it goes on:

(2) The prohibition in paragraph (1) of this subsection

applies with respect to the following Federal Actions:

(A) The awarding of Federal contract.

(B) The making of any Federal grant.

(C) The making of any Federal loan.

(D) The entering into of a cooperative agreement.

(E) The extension, continuation, renewal, amendment, or

modification of a Federal contract, grant, loan, or

cooperative agreement.

If the Senator says this is pretty good language but not enforceable and he has ideas about how we can try to enforce it, I am certainly open to it and would welcome it. I don't have a problem.

My concern was looking at the Senator's amendment and seeing that language talking about ``to pay any person or entity for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of an agency of the Federal Government, a Member of Congress. . . .'' My office has frequent phone calls from universities and colleges, certainly as the chairman of the HELP Committee, particularly as we are dealing with this education issue--from scores of universities and colleges. They express strong views about different aspects of this. We have heard a great deal from the lending institutions--Sallie Mae and the others-- that have a direct financial interest in this. I think it is valuable to have clarity in this area so we know what is permitted and what is not permitted. These were some of the areas of concern that I had, and the Senator has been helpful.

Mr. President, the Senator is quite correct. The Byrd rule applies to reconciliation. The Byrd amendment applies to this. Let me just say that I listened and there is much to what the Senator says. There are also some concerns. In 1980, we had, for example, a very good program to help colleges, large colleges and small, to develop research centers at the colleges and universities. What we had seen in our committee at that time was

the deterioration of laboratories and research centers. We passed a very good bill. We had close to in excess of a billion dollars that was going out for peer review. That program was effectively eliminated. The budget cutters eliminated it. They eliminated the program but not the need. I haven't been very successful. I have done my best to try to help outstanding colleges and universities that are in need in terms of research, that are doing some of the breakthrough research, that are making progress in health and other areas, that are trying to get assistance. I am proud of that fact.

I share the view that in a perfect world, we have peer-reviewed science. There is a lot to what he says. In other areas, we do the best we can with the circumstances we have.

I will take a look at what we have in terms of whether an amendment or clarification would be the best way to proceed.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am going to speak a little bit about this very important bill, S. 1642, the Higher Education Amendments Act of 2007. This legislation is a bipartisan product of 3 years of negotiations by the members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, or the HELP Committee. It builds on the legislation the HELP Committee passed in the 109th Congress.

It is important to note that the legislation before us today is not a Democratic or a Republican bill; it is a bipartisan bill. We worked on it carefully. We made sure that parts which were objectionable to either side were eliminated or a third way found, and as a result of that very congenial process, it has gotten us to this point where we are on the floor with the bill.

Following the bill we had last week, which also dealt with higher education--more with the funding issues--this bill covers a number of the other issues. But Republican Senators were able to secure changes to the Higher Education Act that were important to them, as were Democratic Senators.

Our committee works a little differently than a lot of the committees. We use the committee markup to see what the objections are to a bill, the intensity of those objections, and identify possible solutions. Then, once the bill has been marked up, we will get together a managers' package that will overcome any remaining objections. I am pleased with the effort that has gone into this bill since markup. We worked together to bring to the floor a piece of legislation that can be supported by the most liberal and the most conservative Members of the Senate.

I am pleased we are taking up this bill today. The companion legislation, the Higher Education Access Reconciliation Act of 2007, passed the Senate last week, as I mentioned. My colleagues heard me say over and over again last week that the reconciliation bill was only a small piece of the Higher Education Act. Without considering both bills, we would only be doing part of the job.

I wish to thank my leadership for hearing me and my Republican colleagues on the HELP Committee when we requested that both these bills be considered sequentially.

At this point, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record and sent to the desk the letter several of us sent requesting that both these higher education bills be considered together.

Mr. President, today we are going to consider the rest of the higher education pie--the foundation of the programs we discussed last week. I believe that without considering both pieces of legislation, we will not make the changes necessary to help students enter into and succeed in higher education.

These are all of the pieces of the higher education pie. We see the little red triangle there; that is the reconciliation piece which we did last week, and it deals with the Pell grant funding, primarily. This bill deals with the other pie pieces we see on this chart.

ACG, the Academic Competitiveness grants, and the SMART grants, are grants to students who will specialize in science, technology, engineering, math, and some selected languages. These grants provide extra support above the Pell grants, and that is so we turn out the kind of people we need in technical fields to keep the innovation in the United States going. We passed the America COMPETES package that ties in with this.

Teacher quality. The key to a classroom is the teacher. We had to have a piece in there that would encourage teachers and get them extra instruction so they can be better teachers.

FAFSA simplification. There are a lot of people who have not applied for grants because the process is so difficult. You probably saw us last week mention that this was the application--actually, these are the instructions; the applications are equally as long. We have been able, through this bill, to reduce that to a very simple form for students to be able to fill out to see if they can qualify for the Federal help that is available. There is significant Federal help available, and we don't want anybody not attending higher education, whether it be college or technical school, because they don't have the resources for it. We are trying to provide the resources, and now we are trying to make sure the process isn't so difficult that people skip the process and skip higher education. We need the technical skills that are provided by a higher education, a higher level of thought. So we now have a much easier form.

You will also find some little improvements, such as if you do work while you are in junior high and high school and you earn and save some money, you won't be penalized when you apply for college. We want people to be saving their money, not spending their money so that it doesn't count against them when they go to make the application.

Graduate and international education, and loan disclosures are also included in this bill. There has been quite a bit of emphasis on this lately. I was pleased to be able, as an accountant, to provide a lot of suggestions for the ways these problems could be handled so that people would know exactly what is available and so that companies and colleges dealing with loans would do the right thing.

Pell grants and campus-based aid are a huge part. It complements the Pell grant work we did last week, which was essential to what we did in the reconciliation bill. And, of course, financial literacy. We incorporate that into our work whenever we possibly can. People need to know as much about their financial situation as possible. It is particularly critical for college students. We don't want them winding up in an impossible situation when they graduate. We want them to be able to take advantage of the resources available before they enter college.

So we have a lot of pieces that will be completed when we finish the day today, and I am convinced we will be able to complete this today. We have a limited number of amendments, and many are very reasonable and should not be too difficult. We will have discussions on some others. We will have a very bipartisan discussion on what can be put in the bill to complete it, and we will get it done today.

Why is that important? This year marks 50 years since Sputnik was launched. That launch sparked huge turmoil in this country and worry about the knowledge and skills necessary to keep our economy growing and competitive. I was in junior high at the time. It was a shock to our Nation. Every one of us could recognize it--teachers, parents and, probably as important, students, recognized it. Russia was beating us. They had put a satellite into orbit. It shocked us. But it also brought out that American competitive spirit. We said they were not going to beat us. It launched a change in education such as we had not seen in the United States in decades, maybe centuries. We were ultimately the winners of the space race, but it wasn't just the space race; it was an education race. It was the broad range of education the United States delved into and the innovation that was brought about at the time that put us ahead of Russia. Of course, the Government probably helped considerably too. Sputnik had a dramatic effect on our education system and made us recognize a high school diploma was no longer just a nice thing to have. We could no longer rest on our past successes as a Nation. We met the challenge of Sputnik through the National Defense Education Act. We looked to education as a path to continued success, and we supported an increase in the number of people who would continue their education beyond high school, particularly in math, science, engineering, and technology.

We are again being challenged. For millions of Americans, access to an affordable college education is the key to their success in the 21st century global economy. In the 1950s, skilled jobs comprised 20 percent of the U.S. job market. In 2000, 85 percent of all U.S. jobs are categorized as skilled. Without some college education, these Americans will not have the qualifications for over 90 percent of the new jobs being created over the next 10 years. It is estimated that 60 percent of tomorrow's jobs will require skills that only 20 percent of today's workers possess. We have a huge challenge, not just in K-12 and higher education but in continuing education. It is estimated the average person leaving college will change careers 14 times. I didn't say ``change jobs'' 14 times, I said ``change careers'' 14 times. That is the pace at which things are accelerating.

Here is an even more important statistic. Of those 14 career changes, 10 of them don't even exist now. So we are

educating people for a level of jobs that do not exist at the present time. That is quite a challenge. In this decade, 40 percent of job growth will be in jobs requiring postsecondary education. Those jobs requiring associate degrees are growing the fastest. Learning is never over; school is never out. Technology is demanding that everybody continue to learn and gain skills to remain competitive in the workplace.

America's ability to compete in a global economy depends increasingly on the number of students entering and completing college. Of the 75 percent of high school seniors who continue their studies, only 50 percent receive a degree in 5 years after enrolling in college. Only 25 percent of them receive a bachelor's degree or higher. These numbers, incidentally, are even worse for children of low-income families. Among eighth graders in 1988, only 16 percent from low-income families attained a bachelor's degree by 2000. The fact is that over four times as many eighth graders from high-income families attain bachelor's degrees than from low-income families. This is using the eighth graders from 1988 who should have graduated by 2000.

On the chart, you can see the level from low to high income who completed a bachelor's degree based on family income. Some of that is a failure on our part to emphasize to those in the low-income category they can do it and they should do it and how they can do it. That is part of what this bill does.

It is important to ensure that more students enroll in college prepared to learn and that more students have the support they need to complete college with the knowledge and skills to be successful. Slightly less than one-third--31 percent--of all public high school students are prepared for postsecondary education, as demonstrated by the academic courses they pursue. Well-prepared and well-supported students are more likely to persist to a degree completion and obtain the knowledge and skills they need.

For years, institutions of higher education and employers have expressed their dissatisfaction about the fact that our high school graduates need remedial study or training in order to do college-level work or to participate in the workforce. Nearly one-third of entering college freshmen take at least one remedial course. Each year, taxpayers pay an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion to provide remedial education to students at our public universities and community colleges.

Our goal should be to keep the cost of college down, expand the availability of information, help students and parents make more informed decisions, and improve financial literacy across the board so students and families have a better understanding of how they can manage their loans and monthly payments. Schools and colleges must do more to increase accountability and seek efficiencies that bring down the cost of postsecondary education.

S. 1642, the Higher Education Amendments of 2007, refines and focuses Federal policy on access, affordability, and accountability. It attempts to tackle the complexity of the Federal student data system. Right now, filling out the free application for federal student aid prevents many students from even considering college. That was never our intent. This bill, as I pointed out, reduces the number of questions on the FAFSA to those that are necessary to determining the need students have for financial assistance. We are making the FAFSA less complicated than filling out tax forms, which has not been the case in the past. The bill puts us on the path of greater coordination between Federal agencies so students and their families will have the opportunity to allow information that is already provided to the Government through tax forms, be used to complete the FAFSA.

Also, it is our responsibility to ensure that students and their families have the information they need to make informed decisions about the investment of time and money they are making to secure a college education. The cost of college has risen dramatically and at the same time the need for a college education has never been greater. Students will receive upfront information about financial decisions they are making. Similar information would be provided to them periodically throughout their college experience.

The quality of classroom teacher preparation is critical to the education of our K-12 students. The goal of the teacher preparation programs supported under this bill is to help teachers be prepared to meet the ever-increasing diverse needs of students and to improve student achievement.

The bill also addresses recent concerns that institutions of higher education and lenders have not been operating in the best interest of students and their families. Although what we have seen are isolated incidents, we wish to make sure the confidence in our institutions and financial aid advisors is not questioned. We have included requirements that institutions establish codes of conduct for how they work with lenders and prohibit incentives and other arrangements that would appear inappropriate. Students and their parents must have knowledge to make informed choices and financial decisions that will impact their lives for years to come.

It is no longer an option whether to pursue college or skills certification that is nationally recognized. Everybody needs tools to understand and shape their future. Higher education is the onramp to success in the global economy, and it is our responsibility to make sure everyone can access that opportunity and reach their goals. Without a lifetime of education, training, and retraining opportunities for everyone, we will not meet our 21st century needs and challenges.

There is tremendous opportunity in the United States. We recently went to India to see why they were winning in some markets and getting American jobs, and their method is kind of abhorrent to Americans, and it should be. They begin excluding students at very early ages. They make the prize very desirable in the end, and that results in lots of people pursuing and competing and getting those few opportunities for higher education out of that huge population.

We believe in higher education for anyone who wants it, and the need is there. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss this bill and to consider the amendments that will be offered. I thank Senator Kennedy for working with me and my Republican colleagues in order to bring a bipartisan bill to the floor. As he mentioned last week, this is essentially the bill he and I worked on the past 2 years and wanted to bring to the floor, but were not able to. We now have that opportunity, and I am pleased everyone is willing to cooperate and get it done quickly.

As we move forward, I am hopeful we will move forward with both the Higher Education Access Act of 2007, the reconciliation bill we passed last week, and this bill. The comprehensive reauthorization of both of these bills will make a huge difference. There is no reason they cannot accompany each other moving forward, as they have on the Senate floor. Each complements the other, and without both, the changes made in reconciliation will be less meaningful. I encourage the Democratic leadership to ensure we don't do just a piece of the pie as we move forward; otherwise, as was said last week, ``any way you slice it, higher education is left undone.'' We need both pieces to get it done right.

Again, I thank Senator Kennedy and those on the other side of the aisle on the committee for their tremendous cooperation, participation, focus, and willingness to figure out what we are trying to solve and find a way to solve it. We have done a very adequate job with what is in this bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for offering this amendment. I think we will be able to take it on voice--I know we will be able to take it on a voice vote, and I appreciate what he has done to enhance what we have in the bill that deals with more transparency and better information for students and parents on their loans.

We created a number of new programs and disclosure requirements that will better equip students to make informed choices about how to finance their postsecondary education, which is always desired and what we are always working toward, and we have to find some mechanism through which that can be done. So I appreciate the way in which the Senator from North Dakota has approached this.

I appreciate, too, his information. I always learn a lot from listening to him, and the Claude Pepper pictures about the 1903 Wright flight and the 1969 Moon landing are particularly interesting. It does show how education is accelerating--learning how to do flight in 1903, landing on the Moon in 1969--but it was the Sputnik event I mentioned in 1957 that touched off a lot of that. So it was essentially 12 years of development that got us to the Moon.

I also want to mention the Grameen Bank. The founder of the Grameen Bank got a Nobel Peace prize for the work he has been doing loaning money to poor people. And this is a whole different level of poor than we know about in the United States. His first loan was for 27 cents to a lady who was then able to go into a weaving business. But the point I want to make is that the reason a lot of people aren't able to get loans is because they do not have any collateral. Students fall into that category, unless their parents have money. The student doesn't have money, and the student doesn't have collateral.

So what we have provided for in the United States, through the Higher Education Act, both the reconciliation and this act, is a mechanism for people who don't have collateral but just have that collateral of desire; that collateral of a work ethic to be able to get loans and grants to be able to go on to college.

The poorer they are, the more grants they qualify for in different ways. But they can get loans based on their desire to go to college. This mechanism, this clearinghouse, will help people make better determinations on their loans.

We also have a new mechanism which deals with the Parent PLUS loans, which are about 10 percent of the loans. That is going to be an auction process. We looked at some ways to be able to auction the rights to provide the loans in order to bring down the costs, particularly the Federal Government. What we decided on was taking this one category and trying it. To do the whole thing could disrupt the entire student loan process, so we are trying it through an auction process on the Parent PLUS loans. That will answer some of these questions, too, on certification and perhaps bring down some of the costs. But it will increase the ability of students to get loans.

I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his effort. At the appropriate time, we will do a voice vote on that if that is agreeable?

The amendment is cleared on both sides. Would it be appropriate to finish it now?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his good work on this amendment.

The GAO study of the feasibility of collecting employment information on college graduates can help us find out how effective the program is before we have another reauthorization. Reliable information on student success, particularly employment success--that is our best measure--is very important to the future of higher education. The postsecondary education system needs facts at the State and institutional levels to identify successes and challenges, and consumers need the information to make informed decisions about education and training programs. Some States have pretty strong relationships between higher education and State agencies to get those employment statistics, but it is not done nationally. I think this would be a great step to providing that information and helping us to see how well we are doing, as well as the students.

I yield the floor.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I want to voice my appreciation for the presentation that was just made to give people a fuller understanding of what this amendment does. I will make a couple of additional comments on it.

One of the problems that brings this particular amendment forward is the appropriators did not appropriate the money that would have provided for all of the people who got a score of 70 or above to receive a grant in fiscal year 2007. Perhaps that has to do with a lack of authorization or too low of an authorization. So this one is an authorization.

It is an interesting process we have around here. We have the budget process, which is where the President sends us a bunch of recommendations as to how he thinks we ought to spend money, and then we revise it sort of the way we want to spend money, except the real revision is only in the caps. That is what a budget is, it is how much total money we get to spend. Then we have an authorization process, where the committees are involved in the actual legislation for that area.

In this case, higher education comes under Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, the HELP Committee. So we get to authorize, which says what we think ought to happen, kind of in a maximum sort of way. So this amendment does authorize additional funds that would meet the criteria.

I do have some small concern. It says this would allow for those to reapply who did not apply for assistance. This is a competitive grant situation. For whatever reason, they might not have applied. If they did not apply, for a competitive grant, you simply do not get it. But I suspect that is something I will either better understand or we can make a correction on at a later time. So I do not have any problem with taking this amendment.

I do want to emphasize that anybody who wants higher education ought to look at the programs that are available out there. One of the things we are trying to do is get more information to more people about what is available. We originally called it the TRIO Program because there were three programs that would help students--some in minorities, some in lower income situations. But we had three programs.

Now we are at eight programs, and we keep devising ways so more kids can get more education.

What we need, of course, is for the kids to take advantage of the programs that are out there. I certainly would not want to stifle a program by not authorizing this at this point in time. So I encourage us to accept this amendment by a voice vote.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I, too, would like to thank her for her comments and her tremendous participation on the committee, particularly with her rural approach to problem-solving, and that rural approach affects Wyoming equally--well, maybe not equally to Alaska because they have a lot more land with a few more people--but she has done a tremendous job in the committee.

I yield up to 15 minutes to the Senator from Virginia for a presentation of his amendment.

Yes. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator, Mr. Warner, for his tremendous effort, and not just on this bill but on the previous bills where his emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math, has resulted in other grants that are available to students. We need to increase awareness among students of these opportunities, particularly in the lower grades, so they have the prerequisites they need to qualify for going to college. The Senator's emphasis on that has had tremendous effect on higher education and on the work we have done before.

I also thank the Senator for the comments he made about his staff working through the weekend and ours working through the weekend. This is not a 9-to-5 job around here. People don't realize the amount of dedication our staffs have. As I say, they work through the weekend for these students. It happened to be a beautiful weekend in Washington, and they were indoors making telephone calls and making sure that everything works precisely right so we can pass this amendment today. I think we would be willing to take it on a voice vote.

This will provide up-to-date technology, which is vitally important. Everything is operating off of technology today. And I especially appreciate the concern for and emphasis on minority-serving institutions having this opportunity. There is a disadvantage there, and we want to equalize that. The Senator has caught the essence of that and has the solution for it. I congratulate him. It will strengthen the national and digital and wireless infrastructure. That helps all of us because it increases national investment in that area and makes us all more communicative and to also have a greater ability for education.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I, too, wish to thank Senator Akaka for bringing this to our attention. That is one of the reasons we have 100 people in the Senate and 435 people on the House side, so that we bring all these various backgrounds together, so that something which may have been overlooked can be corrected, and the amendment process is one of the places where we correct that.

As Senator Akaka has said, this amendment would provide Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders with eligibility for the Ronald McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, and that is a program which provides assistance to disadvantaged students who are pursuing doctoral degrees. The students in the McNair Program get research opportunities, they get seminars, they get summer internships, they get tutoring and academic counseling, and they get assistance in securing graduate admission and financial aid mentoring. Those are all things, of course, which increase the probability and the possibility that a person will get their doctoral degree.

I am sure it wasn't anyone's intention to leave these groups out, so this amendment, of course, would include the Native Hawaiians to the list of students eligible for this program. So, in his usual way of taking a careful look at things, I appreciate his doing this and enjoy all the times we have worked together on financial literacy.

I think there is still someone taking a look at the exact wording on this, so hopefully we can get that done and get to a voice vote a little later.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we set aside the pending amendment so that we can proceed to another amendment.

Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment by Senator Burr.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, Federal student aid is a tangled web of tax, grant, loan, and savings programs with rules and regulations that are so complicated, many prospective students don't know that they really can afford to go to college. Families have to fight their way through a maze of paperwork. We have talked about this several times, the difficulty of the present financial aid form. Nearly 10 million prospective aid recipients must file that form each year, and submitting the form is the only way for families to determine their eligibility for Federal grants and loans.

The free application for federal financial aid is longer and more complicated than a Federal tax form. It has 5 pages and 127 questions, so it is longer than the form 1040EZ, which is 1 page and 37 questions for filing your taxes, or the form 1040A, which is 2 pages and 83 questions. It is comparable to the form 1040, with 2 pages and 118 questions. The contrast between the tax forms and the financial aid forms is especially informative. With a third of the financial aid form questions and a fifth of its pages, the IRS captures the information needed to determine tax liability for the very population targeted by the Pell grant.

Financial aid officers and education specialists typically explain that the complexity of the form is a necessary evil, without which we could not target aid to students with the greatest need. The FAFSA, financial aid form, is long, it is argued, so that it can precisely measure who most needs aid. However, a few economists have recently completed research that measured empirically how much complexity in the current aid system contributes to its targeting. They found this complexity adds very little to the targeting of aid to those who most need it. Only a handful of questions on the FAFSA determine eligibility for Federal aid, and most of these questions are currently found even in the 1040EZ, the tax form.

In response, a small but growing number of researchers, economists, and leaders in higher education have offered proposals to reduce the FAFSA to one page and to prepopulate a student's FAFSA with the data their families have already submitted to the IRS. Such an approach would reduce the time-consuming and confusing FAFSA paperwork which requires parents and students to report to one Federal agency--the Department of Education--data they have already submitted to another Federal agency--the IRS.

Two North Carolinians--Senator Burr, on whose behalf I have submitted this amendment, and Erskine Bowles, who is the President of the University of North Carolina System, teamed up in the belief they could make applying for financial aid simpler and easier. President Bowles knows simplification of Federal applications is possible. As Administrator of the Small Business Administration in the 1990s, Erskine Bowles reduced the inch-thick SBA loan application to one page.

After a conversation between the two this spring, President Bowles put together a task force across the State of North Carolina and gave them 90 days to come up with a one-page form which made better use of data parents had already reported to the IRS. This June, President Bowles delivered the mockup of this one page to Senator Burr. So North Carolina showed we can and should work more rapidly to simplify the process of financial aid, both by reducing the length of the application and making better and more efficient use of data parents have already submitted to the Federal Government through their IRS forms.

I would mention we have had a task force, largely my staff, who has been working on reducing it. We have it down to a one-page form. But Senator Burr's amendment speeds up the time we study included in the higher education bill, so the relevant offices: Education, Comptroller General, Treasury, Office of Management and the Congressional Budget Office and representatives of higher education and State higher education executive officers who have a demonstrated commitment to simplifying the application for financial aid, report back to Congress in 1 year, how we could simplify the application and make even better use of data parents have already submitted to the Federal Government.

America's students and parents should not have to wait any longer than necessary for simplification. One stage of simplification should not preclude another stage of simplification. We do want to see that those who need the money the most have the highest priority. We want that to be done as simply as possible, so it doesn't discourage people from applying.

I appreciate this amendment to try to speed up the time to do a further simplification of FAFSA. I am pretty sure there are no objections on the other side of the aisle. We will leave the time open for further debate on that as well.

I suggest the absence of a quorum and allocate the time to the amendment.

Mr. President, I think we are prepared to move on with the Burr amendment as well. That is next.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator Burr.

Mr. President, this is a teacher amendment. Teachers are the most important factor to a child's academic achievement. Student achievement will not improve unless we can ensure that all children have access to qualified teachers. Many of our schools, however, are lacking in a steady and ample supply of qualified teachers.

The current state of affairs for high schools and middle schools is especially troubling. Nationally, 24 percent of all high school classes are taught by teachers lacking in either a college major or minor in their field of teaching. However, for students in high-poverty schools, this number jumps to 34 percent in comparison to 19 percent in low- poverty schools.

Nearly 50 percent of math classes in high-poverty high schools are taught by teachers with neither a major nor minor in math or a math- related field, such as engineering, physics, or math education.

Schools and districts for too long have been forced to depend on teacher pipelines that are not producing sufficient numbers of qualified individuals to teach in high-need areas such as math, science, foreign language, special education, and English language proficiency, and in hard-to-staff schools both in urban and rural areas.

The Bipartisan Commission on No Child Left Behind, led by Tommy Thompson and Roy Barnes, though concentrating primarily on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, recognized the critical connection between higher education--colleges of education--and K-12 education, for improving the supply of qualified teachers.

As one of its recommendations, the No Child Left Behind Commission recommended amending title II of the Higher Education Act to require institutions of higher education that prepare prospective teachers to set annual goals for increasing the number of prospective teachers in shortage areas, such as math, science, special education, and instruction of limited English-proficient students, and for more closely linking the instruction colleges of education provide prospective teachers with the needs new teachers will face in the classroom.

Additionally, the Commission recommended having institutions of higher education provide an assurance to the Secretary that, No. 1, teacher training responds to the needs of the school districts and States in which new teachers graduate; No. 2, regular education teachers are provided with training in teaching diverse populations, including special education students, limited English-proficient students, and low-income students; No. 3, prospective teachers receive training to teach in urban and rural schools; and, No. 4, special education teachers receive training on instruction in content areas.

Senator Burr's amendment puts into statute these important Higher Education Act recommendations made by the bipartisan, nonpartisan No Child Left Behind Commission. Senator Burr, on whose behalf I offer this amendment, and I share the belief we must forge stronger connections between higher education and our K-12 schools and that higher education has a responsibility to ensure that the pipeline of prospective teachers grows and responds to the needs of American students and schools.

All our children, regardless of background or neighborhood, must have access to high-quality teachers. So I am going to urge everyone to support this important amendment, which is offered by Senator Burr. This amendment requires teacher training programs to report to the Secretary of Education on how they are responsive to the needs of their graduates once they reach the classroom.

I am particularly pleased this amendment recognizes the special skills new teachers need when teaching in rural areas. Today's teachers need training to meet the needs for diverse student populations-- ranging from students with disabilities to English language learners to gifted and talented students.

Finally, this amendment does not impose additional mandates on institutions with teacher training programs. It simply requires them to report on how they are meeting the needs of prospective teachers in local school districts, and I am sure they are working on that on a daily basis to figure out how they can meet the needs in the best way possible. Sharing that with us will help us in our work. So I ask that we adopt the Burr amendment.

I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his comments. It is something he and I have talked about extensively. We do know teachers are the key to education.

I am not aware of any disagreement on either side. I am ready to wrap up the debate on it.

We ask the time left on the amendment be yielded to the bill itself.

I thank the Chair.

Parliamentary inquiry: It is my understanding of the time that it was equally divided by the pro and the con on the amendment rather than----

Rather than half to the presenter.

Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment. There are some statements that I would like to clear up a little bit. I would not want anybody to think that this is increasing competition. This is increasing Government price fixing. It is requiring the Secretary of Education to do the price fixing. She is the one who sets the interest rate, or he, as the case might be at the time it was put into effect. That is not the person with the expertise to know what kind of interest rate ought to be charged on anything.

I also have objection because this amendment has neither been through the Education Committee nor the Banking Committee. This is something the Banking Committee would strongly believe should be in their jurisdiction. I am glad we are having the discussion because it is very important for people to hear that you can borrow money at 18 percent, $21,000, defer all payments for 2 years, and pay off the loan in equal installments after that and wind up paying $100,000. If you are buying a car at $21,000 and you have to pay 18 percent interest and you don't have to pay anything for the first 2 years, that car is going to cost $100,000.

That comes under the subject of financial literacy. It is important for us to impress on young people today what the cost of interest means, what the cost of deferring interest means. There are people buying houses under that kind of a proposal right now. They are very surprised at how much they owe on their house. We are trying to do as much as we can in the bill on financial literacy. Part of that financial literacy would be to encourage the parents to have a home equity loan to provide for the student, and that way it is deductible on their income tax. There are a number of different ways of doing this, but I don't think having the Secretary of Education determine an interest rate would intentionally bring down the cost of interest. Hopefully, we can get banks to be responsible on the interest rates they charge. But when there is no Federal backing, no Federal guarantee on the loan, they are actually providing the loan at very high risk to a student with no collateral, which is why the interest rates come in at 18 percent. There are other ways to correct the problem other than putting this in the hands of the Secretary.

We had some experience with this before. There was a tuition credit that was initiated in 1978 to solve a huge problem at that time. It was supposed to apply to both elementary and secondary education and higher education, but it was focused on tuition tax credits for parochial schools. Almost all of the public attention was on the higher education part of it. The Carter administration very quickly came up with a two- part plan, automatic Pell eligibility for every family if their income was below $25,000, and automatic eligibility for a student loan to any student who wanted one regardless of family income. Of course, one of the things that Money magazine pointed out was that even a Rockefeller could get a loan at 9 percent. That is what the Government set the loan rate at, 9 percent.

What is the problem with that? If we had a Secretary of Education right now, and they happened to set the loan rate at 9 percent, I am sure the press would say that was absolutely terrible. On the other hand, if it was a Democrat who set it at 9 percent, they would probably say it was great. But this was the case where the Government set the rate at 9 percent. What is the problem? It was a time when interest rates were climbing through the roof and were on their way to 21 percent prime. So there was an incentive to borrow money at a fixed 9 percent rate, which is what the student loan interest rate was, and that didn't have to be repaid until after college when interest rates were going through the roof.

So students borrowed the money, put the funds in a money market, and paid it back as soon as the repayment began, having made a tidy profit on the float.

Other students borrowed money and used it to finance cars and other things unrelated to college. In fact, parents were encouraged to borrow and do home improvements and other things because they could get this 9 percent money from the Federal Government. The amount of money being borrowed jumped from $1.7 billion in 1977 and 1978 to $67.2 billion in 1980-1981, an increase of 265 percent in 4 years. Federal costs associated with student loans grew from $480 million to $2.5 billion which was also growth of 420 percent.

Under the Brown-Sanders amendment, a student attending an expensive private college could borrow the entire cost of attendance, as much as $45,000 a year, on highly favorable terms. Repayment would, indeed, start right away, but if families have college money in the bank, they can pay off the loan gradually and earn on the interest, as they do, the same as we had a problem with before.

The amendment also will encourage students to have their children borrow money for college rather than finance it through the PLUS loans or other mechanisms that would put the burden on the adults. In some cases, of course, parents will have the student take out the loans and would repay it for them.

I am suggesting this is something we haven't reviewed enough to do yet; that it would put some of the present loans in jeopardy. We have been very careful in both last week's bill and this week's to be sure that there was some competition between direct loans and the private loans. But those were reviewed over a period of time, looked at with some history, and this one doesn't have the history.

I hope we will vote against it.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

I will use some more of my time. I haven't used all of it yet today, and I probably will not on this one either.

I do have a letter I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record. It is from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and the United States Student Association.

A few of the highlights:

Dear Senator,

On behalf of students and institutions of higher education

we urge you to oppose the Brown amendment to create a new

supplemental loan program and eliminate all federal student

loan limits.

By eliminating all federal loan limits, the Brown amendment

could have serious, negative unintended consequences on state

investment in higher education.

I also have a letter from the Financial Services Roundtable. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

I will mention, again, a couple of highlights. They, of course, express their opposition and point out that it would ``create a new federal-run student loan program, in addition to current programs that would offer loans currently be made by private student lenders. This new government system with the ability to borrow money at government rates would essentially supplant lenders offering private student loans. The policy implications of such a program are broad and the unintended consequences are numerous.''

Once again, I reiterate that this hasn't been tested. It hasn't been vetted through the committees. Of course, when it goes through committee, that is an opportunity for a diverse group of people to put their opinions behind it, as well as to meet with stakeholders and get an outside opinion.

I would ask that Members oppose the amendment.

Does the Senator from New Hampshire wish to speak on this amendment.

I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Consumer Bankers Association be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator being willing to allow us to go back to the previous amendment or on to another amendment. We have one more that will be presented on our side. I think there is another one that will be presented on the Democratic side.

I do have to oppose this amendment. I understand the importance, the desire, but I would oppose it on the basis that we spent a lot of time last week doing this same thing. I appreciate the time the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, took to explain to everybody what we were doing in a very general way so we did not have to pick one profession over another profession so we could give some reduced loan repayments and then forgiveness to public prosecutors, defenders, teachers--a whole category, a whole bunch of service sector people. There was a lot of support, although we spent more time debating that part than we did several other parts of the bill, showing there is some discomfort with doing that, but also support for doing that, but in a general way.

When we start picking out one particular area of Federal service over others, what we are doing is touching off a whole raft of people coming in with their particular public service and asking for the same kind of a reduction. Of course, if we do that for everybody, we have increased the cost considerably. We ought to start with the proposal that is in there, and after that works, make modifications to it, rather than encouraging every specialty of public service to come in and do that as well.

I know the Judiciary passed it. That does not surprise me. That is a special Judiciary category. If it were a category coming through one of the other committees that dealt with their committee, it would get that same kind of support. But what we tried to do is come up with a way we could have fairness between professions. Each of the professions we talked about have some special needs, and we would be able to encourage and incentivize people to go into those professions earlier, quicker, and with less debt if we have this same kind of proposal for them. So I hope we will resist separating the prosecutors and public defenders at this point in time when we have included them in other language with loan forgiveness. Although it is not as short a period of time as the Senator might like, I think it is what we ought to do at the present time, and we shouldn't be increasing the program and then leveraging everybody else at the same time.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his explanation. I would suggest that the phones are probably ringing off the hook over in my office saying: My public service profession is as important as those public defenders, and that is probably what this phone call was on the floor over here earlier as well.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I join my colleague from New Mexico in commending Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi for bringing this bill to the floor of the Senate. It is important legislation and one that I hope we will move to pass very quickly.

This is about education. I don't know there is a subject much more important than education. H.G. Wells once said that human history becomes a race between education and catastrophe. Education is so unbelievably important. As I was sitting here, I was thinking about this amendment and about education and what it means to our country. I was thinking about something I have told my colleagues previously.

The first week I served in the Congress, I served in the U.S. House of Representatives. I went to visit, then, the oldest man serving in the Congress. I read a lot about him and was interested in him. So I went to say hello, to greet him. His name was Claude Pepper from Florida. Claude Pepper was an old man by then but a vibrant man nonetheless. He had an office that was very much like a museum, full of history over the many decades.

As I indicated before, one of the things I remember about that morning walking into Claude Pepper's office was seeing all of his memorabilia about his service. But I saw two things that struck me. They were behind his chair looking over his desk. There were two photographs. One was a photograph of December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright making the first powered human flight to leave the surface of the Earth. It was autographed to Congressman Claude Pepper. Before Orville Wright died, he autographed this wonderful photograph of that little airplane in the wind in Kitty Hawk, NC, leaving the ground. It says: ``To Congressman Claude Pepper, with admiration. Orville Wright.'' I thought, this is interesting. I am speaking to a living man who has an autographed photograph of the first person to leave the ground.

Beneath that was something just as interesting. It was Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon autographed ``To Claude Pepper, with admiration. Neil Armstrong.'' I thought, these pictures are only about 4 inches apart in frames, but what is the distance between these photographs? From 1903 to 1969, leaving the Earth for the first time in human-powered flight and then stepping on the surface of the Moon. What is that distance measured in? It is measured in education. It comes from this country's education system--knowledge, engineering, science, mathematics, the knowledge to build flying machines, to build rockets, to build Moon capsules. The basic knowledge comes from our school system, from your education system.

I know we spend a lot of time in this country describing what is wrong with education. But the fact is, we are the ones who have split the atom and spliced genes. We are the ones who invented the telephone and the television and the computer. We are the ones who built airplanes and then learned to fly them, built rockets and walked on the surface of the Moon, all as a result of the foundation of learning and education.

So the bill comes to the floor of the Senate today saying education is a priority, and it is, and we have some issues with education that we want to fix because we want to strengthen our educational system. It is not that our system is perfect, we know it is not. It needs to be strengthened and improved.

With respect to higher education, we want to encourage every person in this country who has an urge to get a college degree, to go to a technical school, to go to a vocational school, to be able to advance their interests. In doing so, we offer a series of financial incentives. For those who have no money, we offer Pell grants. For those who have very little money, we offer Stafford loans and direct loans. And for those who perhaps do not qualify for the low-income components, they have other loan opportunities from private lenders to get the money to go to college.

That is what we want in this country. We want every young child to grow up, and as they grow up, to become whatever their God-given talents can allow them to be. We don't want the brakes to exist for anybody. We want this to be an opportunity for everybody.

I recall one day when my father came home for supper--and my father was a very successful man, very bright man, did very well in his life, but he only went through sixth grade in school because his mother died during childbirth and my father spent most of his time trying to raise some money and work and try to help his brothers and sisters, who had been farmed out to uncles and aunts and so on. So my dad had only a sixth grade education.

I recall him coming home one day, never having told our family, and announcing at the supper table that he had just passed the GED. He had gotten his high school degree. He was somewhere in his fifties. He had gotten his high school degree. I will never forget the look on his face when he told us: I am a high school graduate. Got my GED.

We didn't even know he was doing it, but he did. It meant the world to him because he had never gotten the opportunity to go beyond the sixth grade. And it means the world to a lot of people, in my judgment, to find out: What are my talents? What capabilities do I have? What are my interests to better myself? What kinds of things am I interested in, and where can I go to college? How can I finish school and then go to college and advance my opportunities?

Well, that is what the legislation that is brought before us today offers us the opportunity to do, to advance those interests. We have done it in steps over many decades, and it is the difference, as the Senator from Wyoming said, it is the difference between this country and many others.

There are many other countries where they separate these kids at an early age, and they say: Well, based on your track record, based on the way things look for you, you are going in this direction. You are not going to college. And based on the way things look, you are going here. They separate them and they channel kids. Not in this country. We want every single kid to have an opportunity to become whatever their God- given talents allow them to become.

So the issue is funding for many kids because many young people don't have the money to go to college unless they get some help--Pell grants, Stafford loans, direct loans, and other loans. So we have programs that we have put together that provide that kind of assistance through the student loan process,

and this bill, the underlying bill, strengthens programs to prepare students for college, and it takes important steps to help kids get to college and then make both kids and colleges accountable.

Now, we have rising costs, as everyone knows. Every single parent knows that the costs for a college education are increasing dramatically. With respect to lending money for students going to college, we have discovered recently that there are some abusive lending practices, and this bill takes some steps to address those abusive practices.

Some student lenders have undertaken to secure spots on what are called ``preferred lender lists.'' Some colleges, many colleges, have preferred lender lists. They put out a list that says: Here are the lenders from which you can get a guaranteed loan. There is a lot of money in this process for the lenders, and that is why the lenders are so anxious to be on these lists.

My preference would be that we eliminate the lists altogether-- eliminate the preferred lender lists--but I don't think that is possible to get through this Chamber at this point, so I am going to do it in another way. I am going to address this in another way with the amendment I have just offered.

The HELP Committee has done an admirable job in digging into this, as well as have, for example, some officials, the attorney general of New York, and others. The HELP Committee has put together some information about colleges and some colleges' financial aid officers soliciting favors, gifts, and financial assistance from lenders in exchange for putting that lender on a preferred list. Here is something that came from the HELP Committee that I noticed when I was looking at this issue.

A Bank of America employee noted in an e-mail that Larry Burt, former Director of the University of Texas Office of Student Financial Aid, had requirements to get on the UT-preferred lender list. Again, it is very important to get on these lists for these companies that want to have lending opportunities to students. So here is someone who ran the University of Texas Student Financial Aid Office. This is a quote.

Happy hour with UT loan department staff, staff luncheons,

lunch and/or dinner with Larry Burt, parties for Larry's

family--birthdays, et cetera--invitations to golf

tournaments--expenses paid by lender--and free tickets to

sports events. Larry loves tequila and wine--since becoming

director at UT Austin, he has not had to buy any tequila or

wine--lenders provide this to him on a regular basis.

This was an e-mail from a Bank of America employee from a HELP report on marketing practices in the lending program. Not all lenders went along with these inappropriate demands. The HELP Committee investigation said Citibank did not go along with them because they deemed those requests to be inappropriate. And the very next year, apparently, with respect to this campus and Mr. Burt, Citibank was dropped from the UT-preferred lender list.

Student Loan Xpress, another major lender, paid $21,000-plus for the chief financial officer at Johns Hopkins University to attend an executive doctorate program at the University of Pennsylvania after the financial aid officer sent the following lender an e-mail. This is the e-mail that went around from the financial aid officer at Johns Hopkins.

I have been accepted to a doctoral program at Penn that

begins in August. I am searching for \1/2\ tuition support--

know of any good scholarship programs?? I already know where

to get loans--or, why don't you put me on retainer to

EdLending.

This is an e-mail from Dr. Ellen Frishberg, former Johns Hopkins University financial aid director. Once again, I think this is important information discovered by the HELP Committee. They began to investigate these issues.

An investigation by New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo uncovered a revenue-sharing agreement between Citibank and Syracuse University. Citibank was paying Syracuse \1/2\ percent of the interest earned on student loans steered to the bank--a deal worth about $100,000 a year to the school. According to Attorney General Cuomo's investigation, during the last academic year, 98 percent of Syracuse students who took out loans went through Citibank.

Just an unusual occurrence? Doesn't sound like it to me. Many lenders have invited college financial aid officers to serve on advisory boards, flying them around the country and various parts of the world and on harbor cruises.

Now, why do lenders go through all this trouble? Well, the stakes are high. The student loan business is an $85 billion industry. It has grown 27 percent since 2001, and the lenders listed on the college's preferred lender list typically receive up to 90 percent of the loans taken out by students attending that institution. Again, these are guaranteed loans--guaranteed by the Federal Government. Lenders fight to get to the top of a list--of a preferred lender list--at a college.

According to one survey, the first lender on the preferred list gets as much as 75 percent of the loan value. So this is big money to private interests that want to get government-guaranteed loans, move them out to students, and make a lot of money off those loans.

Now, I know that the managers of the bill share my concerns. Senators Enzi, along with Alexander, Allard, Burr, Hatch, Isakson, Murkowski, and Roberts introduced legislation to ban preferred lender lists altogether. And Senator Kennedy has worked tirelessly to uncover and document abusive practices. I, frankly, would like to ban preferred lender lists altogether. We don't need preferred lender lists by colleges in which they describe who gets on the list and who gets to the top of the list. I don't think we ought to be doing that. But it is quite clear we can't ban those lists at the present time, so I am offering a different amendment.

The bill before us addresses some of these practices by prohibiting payments, gifts, and other inducements that lenders give to colleges and student aid officers. The bill also forces schools to explain the rationale for selecting preferred lenders, and I think these are important steps.

I don't diminish these steps at all. I am concerned that lenders will still do whatever they can do to get on those lists and get to the top of those lists. There are substantial incentives for abuse, and there is no evidence--there is no evidence at all--that the lenders on the preferred list actually offer the best deal to the students.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes.

As I was saying, there is no evidence that being on the list or put on the list by the college offers the students the best financial arrangement, and with the cost of college increasing at twice the rate of inflation, I think we need to make sure that students have access to affordable loans.

So I offer an amendment that does the following: It will create a clearinghouse of student loans, both Federal and private loans. That clearinghouse will put students in the driver's seat, allowing them to search for a loan that offers the best deal, the best financial arrangements for them, whether that be the loan that has the lowest rate or the loan with the best borrower's benefits. This gives the students the opportunity to shop in an informed way for the best situation for themselves.

This type of clearinghouse will create more competition in the student loan industry. I can't imagine that many students would go to this clearinghouse and pick the loan with the highest interest rate. This will empower students. It is not a new concept. In fact, some schools, including the University of North Dakota in my home State, are already directing students to Web sites that allow the students to search through dozens of loan options by themselves to pick the best terms.

But creating a clearinghouse is not enough. We need to make certain that students know that it exists. My amendment would require schools to include a disclosure statement on their preferred lending list that lets students know that they might find a better deal by visiting the clearinghouse themselves.

My amendment won't cost taxpayers a dime. The clearinghouse would be

fully paid for by nominal fees that lenders would be charged in order to be listed in the clearinghouse.

Finally, my amendment would direct the Government Accountability Office to issue a report to Congress about whether students have been able to use the clearinghouse and are using the clearinghouse, and it will examine whether students who chose to use one of the school's preferred lenders could have gotten a better rate--better financial arrangements--by visiting the clearinghouse had they done so. It is my hope this report will inform our future efforts in this area. If it becomes clear that students can do much better by visiting the clearinghouse than by going to preferred lenders, I think we ought to take a hard look at whether the preferred lenders ought to exist at all and whether we ought not in the future to prohibit a preferred lender list and develop, instead, a comprehensive clearinghouse that allows students to find the best arrangements for themselves.

I believe this amendment will make the student loan industry more transparent and more accountable to students and their families who already struggle often to pay for these college expenses. So I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. I think it is a reasonable and measured approach to clean up some of the abusive practices and to empower students.

Finally, again, I would have preferred to just end the preferred lending list, but that is not possible. So this is the step I think accomplishes some of the same goals by empowering students, and I hope the Senate will consider this favorably today.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, a voice vote will be fine. I don't know if we are able to clear it now. I think it is cleared on our side. If it were cleared on your side, I think perhaps we could proceed to have it considered.

Let me make a point. The Senator mentioned the microcredit issue. I have been in various parts of the world where they are using microcredit. In many ways, it is the same thing as microcredit in a different way--people with no collateral to be able to have some funding to advance themselves. The microcredit approach has been unbelievably successful, giving poor people the opportunity to buy needles for crocheting and bicycles for delivery services in various parts of the world. It was interesting the Senator referred to that.

This approach allows a student who has no collateral of any type--all they have is promise, they have the promise of their capability to do better in life if they go to college--it allows them to get a loan to advance their interests. I think it is exactly the right thing.

If we are able to consider that amendment now, I think it would be appropriate.

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer, and I wish to particularly thank the managers of this bill. In my 29 years here in the Senate, I have stood on the floor many times with Senator Kennedy, but at this time, we are absolutely joined in this magnificent piece of legislation which I submit on behalf of Senator Kerry and Senator Webb and many other Senators who have worked on it through the years.

To my good friend, Senator Enzi, I was once on his committee, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), but as we move around here, I just couldn't get on the HELP Committee this time around.

I commend Senator Enzi and Senator Kennedy and their staffs for their very hard work in preparation of this amendment, and my staff, senior member Angela Stewart. Over the weekend, I was traveling, as many of our colleagues were in our respective States, and she and I must have had at least six to eight telephone calls over the period of 2 days, just working out refinements and protocol with regard to this amendment. I think it is a representation of the Senate. No matter whether we are here on the floor or wherever we may be, we constantly are working on the legislative proposals that many of us have from time to time.

Again, I wish to draw attention to the title of this particular amendment. First, I send it to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, it is entitled, ``Minority Serving Institutions for Advanced Technology and Education,'' amendment to S. 1642, The Higher Education Act Amendments of 2007.

I remember in the 1980s, traveling to several of the historically-- and they referred to them as ``historically Black colleges'' in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I noticed the absence of so much infrastructure in these struggling institutions that other institutions often had in abundance. Having had an engineering background myself, at my old school, Washington Lee University, we had laboratories with an abundance of equipment and all types of high technology.

I suppose at that time the thoughts in my mind led toward this day, and it has been a long climb up the mountain--not by just this Senator from Virginia but by many, many Senators. I remember Senator Cleland was very interested in this, former Senator Cleland, Max Cleland of Georgia, and my colleague and former Senator George Allen of Virginia. Fortunately, today, with the two managers of this bill, the chairman and ranking member of this important committee, the HELP Committee, and with the help of many others and the primary cosponsor, the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry, and my colleague from my State, Senator Webb, we are here this afternoon to present this amendment.

I first ask unanimous consent that those Senators who desire to put in statements regarding this amendment of course may do so and that they be colocated in the Record following the introduction of this amendment.

Mr. President, it appears statistically that over 60 percent of the jobs in America, all across our land, require not only a basic knowledge but really an advanced skill in what we refer to as ``information technology.'' Jobs in this area, frankly, pay and command higher salaries. Today, as I said, many of the minority serving institutions--this covers a wide group of institutions which I will address later in my text, but the minority serving institutions simply lack the resources, the necessary capital, endowments, and all types of financing that go into these institutions to acquire the basic equipment, whether it is an actual computer itself, or the technology to hook it into systems, and they also need technology capabilities in their classrooms, dormitories and libraries. It is for that purpose we are asking the Senate today to support this bill to provide the sum of money for 5 consecutive years to form a competitive grant program so this wide range of institutions may compete for this pot of money and hopefully obtain it for their respective institutions.

We need to bridge--and I use the term the ``digital divide'' to help students who want to develop the skills necessary to succeed in a technology-based economy so that they can compete in today's modern world and take these jobs, which, incidentally, are badly needed in the workforce, and therefore get salary and perhaps a step up on the ladder of development of their career. This is definitely a bipartisan amendment and, as I said with the deepest sense of humility, many, many Senators have worked toward this day.

Specifically, the legislation will establish, as I said, a grant program for these institutions of higher learning to bring increased access to computers, technology, and the Internet to their student populations. Institutions can use funds to acquire equipment, instrumentation, networking capability, hardware and software, digital network technology, wireless technology, and infrastructure to develop and provide these educational services. In addition, the grants can be used for such activities as campus wiring, equipment upgrades, and technology training. Finally, Minority Serving Institutions could use these funds to offer their students universal access to campus networks, thereby increasing connectivity and making infrastructure improvements.

Moreover, much has been said in this education debate about the importance of math and science education. I remember well, I and other Senators 2 years ago were authors of the SMART grant program, which provides stipends to economically disadvantaged students in their third and fourth year of college or university training who elect to study critical majors in math, science, and engineering and key foreign languages. We must now begin to encourage and provide for those students who want to start earlier than their third and fourth year and begin to enter and study these critical fields, not only of math and science but of high tech.

I point out, I remember very well when I came out of the Navy at the end of World War II, I had the GI bill, and I went to my university--a small one--and they had a very small engineering department at that time. The engineering department is now gone because it couldn't take the competition of larger schools. But I remember so well we would go into the laboratories in the afternoon and spend long hours. We didn't have any air-conditioning, so we opened the windows, obviously. You could hear the other students out on the playing fields enjoying all kinds of sports and other things while we were there laboring over the laboratory requirements. Then, at night, of course, we all had the obligatory homework. It seems to me that those of us who were in the high-tech and the math--I was a math major and physics major--we would spend endless, long hours on our homework.

I bring that up not to in any way eulogize myself and my career but simply to say that those students who want to dedicate that extra time to study in the high-tech world--and it does require extra time, thereby giving up some of the pleasures in life--we ought to have the proper equipment available for all of them.

The National Science Foundation reports that the percentage of bachelor's degrees in science and engineering across America has been declining. Many a time I and other Members of this body have pointed out how America is falling behind, particularly with reference to India and to China, as such a higher percentage of their university graduates are following the high-tech careers. So let's give a leg-up to those young people who want to devote that extra time, that extra motivation in their studies for these specialties in math, science, and technology.

This amendment also addresses the shortage of qualified professionals that teach courses in these areas. You simply have to have not only the hardware within the institution but knowledgeable teachers and professors, and this amendment provides an inducement for their training.

As I said, I am proud to say that my great State is home to six institutions that qualify for this grant program. Throughout the years that I have been in the Senate, they have proudly been referred to as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, known as the HBCUs: Norfolk State University, St. Paul's College, Virginia University of Lynchburg, Virginia Union University, Hampton University, and Virginia State University. Right now, at this point, I thank all of the faculty and presidents of those institutions and administrators who through these many years, year after year, have come into my office pleading for this modest program to help them put in the infrastructure and gain the teaching faculty to help the students who want to pursue these careers in science, math, and technology. Likewise, all across America, Minority Serving Institutions will

qualify for this grant program. There are over 200 Hispanic-Serving Institutions, over 100 Historically Black Colleges outside of Virginia, and over 30 Tribal Colleges throughout the United States. In addition, Alaska Native-serving institutions and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions are also eligible for these grants.

In the mid-1980s, on the campus of St. Paul's, my first thoughts regarding the growing disparity between Historically Black Colleges and other institutions of higher education with respect to the infrastructure began leading up to this day.

This Senate has addressed similar pieces of legislation in the past year. In 2003, a similar bill passed in the Senate with a roll call vote of 97 to 0. In 2005, a similar bill passed in the Senate by Unanimous Consent. So I am pleased today, together with Senator Kerry and Senator Webb, to offer this not only on behalf of ourselves, but the many Senators who through the years--some who have now retired-- have worked hard on this legislation.

Again, I salute the faculty and presidents, and so forth, at these institutions and, most particularly, I salute the students who are ready and willing to seize the opportunity that this bill will provide to advance their intellectual skills to meet the requirements of today's workforce, so that America can be competitive.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my friend who has worked with me for these 29 years. Following Senator Enzi, I wonder if I may have 2 minutes on one other point.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the kind remarks of the Senators. Mr. President, I will just tell a short story. Senator Kennedy mentioned the importance of this to the Armed Forces to have a pool of trained individuals to join the military today. I would like to contrast it to an early experience I had in life. In the winter of 1945, the war was raging in Europe--although it ended in May, it was still going on, as was the war in the Pacific. Like everybody else on my block, all students who were 17 and 18, we all joined the military. I don't claim to have a military career of any great consequence, but I will never forget the first night. We had been on a small train that stopped in stations all across the east coast picking up a dozen or two 17- and 18-year-olds on the train. It was cold as the dickens, and the train was chugging its way up to the Great Lakes.

We arrived at 2 or 3 in the morning. We were tired, cold, and huddled into a great big room. A petty officer, who was quite rotund, got up on a little platform and screamed at us, ``All you guys who can't read and write raise your hands.'' I had the benefit of a wonderful education in high school. I almost flipped out. I did not realize, really, that many people didn't have the basic skills that I had been given.

Then the petty officer said, ``All you smart so-and-sos fill out the forms for the others.'' About 20, 25 percent of the fellows came out of the coal mines and steel mills of Pennsylvania and up through the valley, where the train went picking up these guys. So we filled out the forms.

I want to say that those men had very short training once we got to the Great Lakes. The rest of us were shunted aside for technical schools. Within 90 days, they went aboard ships and right into the battle.

On those ships in those days there were dozens of jobs that persons who could not read and write could perform, and perform very well. In no way do I denigrate their abilities to fight, as they did bravely in World War II--those who could not read and write. Today's ship in the U.S. Navy--take a destroyer. The destroyers today are considerably larger than the destroyers of the past. But the crews are dramatically reduced in number, which means that every one of those naval persons today has to have high-tech skills. It is true also in the Army and Marine Corps.

When you visit Iraq and see the troops there, as most of us have, they are all working with high-tech equipment. There is no place available today in the military for one who is not skilled in high-tech work. So it is a changed society, albeit my story dates back more than a half century. They were fighters then, but in today's military we access those in the military with high school equivalent. The ones who show a technical proficiency are immediately moved into advanced technical courses.

So this legislation is laying the foundation for those in these institutions who so desire to join the U.S. military, and they will arrive on the first day not requiring a fellow soldier, sailor, airman, or marine to fill out their form. They are all smart and able to work with the high-tech equipment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2369 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi for allowing me to offer this amendment. Everything I try to do is toward transparency in our Federal Government, because what you cannot measure, you cannot manage.

This is a very simple amendment. What we know is that in the last 7 years, the cost of a 4-year college education has doubled. It has gone from $2,700 to $5,800 at State universities. It has gone from about $10,500 to $23,000 at private universities. The costs have doubled. It is the only thing in this country that is rising twice as fast as the cost of health care. We ought to ask ourselves why.

This amendment is very clear. What it says is if you are a university and you are lobbying Congress, you have to certify to Congress that you are not spending tuition money or other Federal money that you have gotten for a project for your students or for your university in terms of lobbying to get more money.

This, by the way, was excluded from the lobbying and ethics bill we considered. I have some experience on it because last year, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, I queried 500 colleges and universities in this country, asking them about their earmarks. I asked them how they spent the money. The interesting thing is only 50 percent of them replied, and of the 50 percent that replied, only half of them actually knew where the money went. The other half didn't dare reply, either because they didn't know where the money went or the money didn't go for the purpose it was earmarked. So we have a grave problem in terms of earmarks.

Let me give my colleagues some statistics about what has happened. First of all, in 2005, $127 million were spent by universities to lobby our institution to get earmarks--$127 million. Divide that and see how many kids we could educate in this country with that amount of money that was spent on lobbying.

What we do know is between 1996 and 2005, the number of earmarks at the Department of Education increased by 29,375 percent. I wonder if that has anything to do with this marked increase of 14.5 percent per year in the cost of a college education.

Those earmarks--the overall cost of the earmarks came to a half a billion dollars a year last year--a half a billion dollars in earmarks. What we also saw--that was in the Department of Education. Then, separate earmarks for separate universities and colleges in the same time period increased from 369 to 1,964, up to $2 billion a year. Now, you would think that for $2.5 billion a year, we ought to be able to see where the money is spent. We ought to have transparency to see.

There are several problems with our earmarking, and the biggest problem is we choose to pick winners and losers. When we do that on research and development at our universities, which are the ones we want to do it to, when we do it, we say that the peer review scientific community shouldn't have any input. That is what we are saying. Consequently, when we spend $2.6 billion on earmarking specific projects at universities, what we are doing is getting a whole lot less value for our money. What we do know is if we let the scientists, through peer-reviewed guidance of scientific discovery, tell us where to go next, we will get two to three to four times return on our research than when I, as a Senator from Oklahoma, decide to earmark a specific research project at a university in the State of Oklahoma.

Now, the question we should be asking--similar to the amendment of the Senator from Illinois--where is the money going to come from? The true deficit last year was $434 billion. That is not what we told the American people, but that is how much our debt increased, so that is what the actual increase in expenditures over the increase in revenues was. If I was a prosecutor, I would love Senator Durbin's amendment, if I owed the money.

But the principle we should be thinking about is this: Why are we having trouble getting the best into the offices of the public defenders and the prosecutors? Because we don't pay enough. What Senator Durbin is attempting to do is a State function. It is an indirect payment. We are going to pay off loans, we are going to have loan forgiveness for this group of people when, in fact, the way we should be enhancing that is having States choose to increase reimbursement for people who fulfill that very worthy task.

So what we are actually doing is jumping all over States' rights, because States haven't increased those fees, as they should, because they don't evidently value it the way the 38 cosponsors of the Durbin amendment do, and we are saying: Time out. It is not your responsibility; we are going to do it. It is the same type of thing we have in terms of earmarks.

This amendment is very simple. Certify to Congress, if you are getting Federal funds and you want more Federal funds in terms of earmarks or grants, that you are not going to spend that money or your students' tuition to come up here to get more money. What you ought to do is use your endowment.

There are some very interesting statistics on endowment that I would like to alert my colleagues to so everybody can be aware. I commend to my colleagues a 2006 National Association of College and University Business Officers Endowment Study.

The top 25 universities in this country have $178 billion in endowments. Now, if they earn 6 percent on that, that is $9 billion a year that they have funds available to them to do research with, or whatever else they want to do. If you take the entire group of endowments, which is some 20 pages long, what you find is a massive amount of money that is endowed.

Why do people give to universities? They give to universities to secure their future because they felt rewarded by the gift they gave them of education. Yet we have almost $1 trillion in endowments in this country in universities, and we are saying we need earmarks. We need extra moneys. Fine. If we do need extra moneys for research, let's let the peer-reviewed scientific community tell us where to go. Let's put the research at the place that it is going to get us the best return, rather than one that has the greatest

political pull. That makes absolute sense to anybody outside of Washington.

Now, it doesn't make sense if you are trying to get something for your university, and University X obviously has the expertise, but you want it at your university. So what do we do? We end up paying double. We are going to fund one that is not as efficient, not as capable, and not as successful at the expense of the university that is far more capable of doing that.

A lot of the university earmarks came about because it was stated they couldn't compete on the grant process; that the major universities--those top 25 research universities in the United States-- could outcompete them all on grants. So we did some things when we doubled NIH funding. We did allow for things. What has happened is a pox on our house. We have gone to this large number of earmarks, 2,000 earmarks a year for universities, and we are not getting our money's worth for them.

I come back to one of the reasons I would like for us to consider this amendment: How do you tell a student who is working a second job, who can't afford a tutor, he has borrowed student loans up to his gills and is trying to make it, that a percentage of his university's budget out of his tuition is coming up here to get another earmark that is not necessarily going to be efficient or not going to enhance or advance his education or her education?

So it is real simple. Transparency creates accountability.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record four case studies--one from the University of Alaska, one from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, one from the University of Georgia, and one from Iowa State University--on what they have done with earmarks and how they have spent them. It is remarkable.

With that, I will cease discussing this other than to say we ought to figure out why a college education and the costs thereof are growing twice as fast as health care, which is four times as fast as everything else in this country. Something isn't right. Transparency is the key to getting accountability for that problem. To vote against this amendment would be saying you don't want the universities to be transparent, to be accountable. I believe they should be accountable and certify to us that not one penny of tuition, one penny of Federal money is spent back here. Mr. President, $127 million was spent last year to lobby this body on university grants and earmarks. We ought to change that. That could educate a ton of our young people.

With that, I yield the floor.

Yes.

No. What I am looking at is for them to, in a positive, forward way, assert that as they take Federal funds, those funds are not used to, in fact, pay a lobbyist. When a university President calls you, he is not calling as a lobbyist. He has a right to lobby this as an individual. My amendment is fairly narrow in that those funds are not spent to lobby, i.e. lobbying payment.

No, sir.

Will the Senator yield?

I am trying to get to this paradigm where we pay $200,000 a year for lobbyists, and the lobbyists work to get an earmark for the university back in that is out of the priority of the peer review, scientifically evaluated, and at the same time, some of that $200,000 somehow ends up in campaign coffers, for some reason. I cannot figure out why, but it seems to. This doesn't stop it. What this says is they are going to just certify that the money they used for that wasn't their students' tuition and other Federal dollars that were designed for another purpose and coming back against that. It doesn't mean they cannot pay a lobbyist or hire a lobbyist or that anybody in there government affairs office cannot contact us to lobby for a particular position, which is their right. This is very narrowly defined to say: Do not spend the money you get from us, or your students, to hire the lobbyists to earmark something that is outside the peer review.

It does not limit that in any way.

What we are trying to get is this. It is true that the Byrd amendment makes that illegal. The problem is that nobody has to certify it. So whether it is illegal or not, it is obviously happening. Yet we don't have any proactive basis going on at the universities for them to certify that they are not doing it. That is the difference between this and the Byrd amendment.

If the Senator will yield, it put forth a parliamentary idea that the Byrd rule applies on bills consistent with reconciliation, if I am correct. What this is intended to do is proactively have--this does two things: It requires the university to know what they are doing, which is one of the things we found in my subcommittee--that they didn't know what they were doing. They weren't aware of where the money was going or how they were spending the money. It makes them look at that. Two, it makes them proactively say they are within the law in terms of how they are spending the student money and the Federal money.

I appreciate the colloquy on this issue. I hope we have clarified the intent of the amendment. I am more than happy to accept a second degree that would clarify it more and that would give Senator Kennedy the safeguards he is concerned about. Nevertheless, there is a gigantic problem out there today, not the least of which is that it is hard to find in the Constitution where we should be earmarking $2.6 billion a year to private and State universities for education.