Veterinary Public Health Workforce Expansion Act of 2007

Mr. President, I wonder if I might ask, through the Chair, the Senator from Maryland if I might speak after the Senator from New Mexico.

I thank the Chair.

Thank you. I can wait until there is available time.

Mr. President, do I understand I have up to 30 minutes?

I thank the Chair. I ask unanimous consent that I may bring demonstrative evidence on the floor and use it during my remarks.

Mr. President, in case anyone is wondering, these boxes, which are nearly as tall as I am, are the rules and regulations that our 6,000 colleges and universities must comply with in order to receive students who have a Federal grant or loan. As I will make clear in my remarks, my primary objection to the legislation I am about to address is that the legislation doubles the size of this stack of boxes. My fear is we are undermining the quality of American higher education. The greatest threat, I believe, to American higher education is not underfunding, it is overregulation.

Before I say that, let me first say a word, as has been said before, about Senator Kennedy, Senator Enzi, and Senator Mikulski. While they have, among themselves, different philosophical views, I regard each of them as institutions whom I greatly admire. In other words, they like to work within this body across party lines to get a result. I thank both Senator Enzi and Senator Mikulski for the courtesy accorded me in the development of this result. And as every other Member of this body does, I greatly admire Senator Kennedy for his tenacity and his commitment to education. Obviously, we wish he were here tonight to join us.

Because I admire Senator Kennedy and Senator Mikulski and Senator Enzi does not mean I have to admire the particular result of this work. After 4 years, the Senate has spewed forth a well-intentioned contraption of unnecessary rules and regulations that waste time and money that ought to be spent on students and improving quality. It confirms my belief that the greatest threat to the quality of American higher education is not underfunding, it is overregulation.

Current Federal rules for the 6,000 higher education institutions that accept students with Federal grants or loans fill a stack of boxes that is nearly as tall as I am. The former President of Stanford, Gerhard Casper, estimated

that it cost these institutions from Harvard to the Nashville Auto Diesel College 7 cents of each federal dollar to do all the busy work to fill out these regulations.

The legislation which we are considering tonight doubles those rules and regulations with 24 new categories and 100 new reporting requirements. These new requirements include a total of 54 so-called college watch lists which I believe will be too confusing for families to understand, and complicated rules involving textbooks which only will prove that Members of Congress have no idea about how faculty members prepare their courses.

Most of these complications of rules, graduation rates in 48 different categories, disaggregation of student reporting dates by 14 racial, ethnic, and income subgroups, employment of graduates of institutions will leave college administrators scratching their heads and create thousands of new jobs for people who know how to fill out forms.

All of this will be put on the Web, I suppose, and most of it will be sent to Washington, DC, for someone to read. Having once been the Secretary of Education myself, I do not know who will read all these new regulations and all these new reports, and I don't know what they would do about them if they did read them.

The American higher education system is far from perfect, but it is one thing in our country that works and it works well. It is our secret weapon in maintaining our brain power advantage so we can keep our higher standard of living and keep our jobs from going overseas.

The United States not only has the best colleges and universities in the world, it has almost all of the best colleges and universities in the world. Some are big, some are small, some are public, some are private, some are profit, some are nonprofit. They are community colleges, historically Black colleges and church-affiliated institutions.

Tuitions range from $50,000 a year at some private institutions to an average of $6,200 a year for 4-year public institutions, to $2,400 for community colleges. In Tennessee, some cities are even making community college free.

Their foremost advantage, the advantage of all these 6,000 institutions, is that in a rapidly changing world, these 6,000 autonomous institutions are flexible and able to meet the needs of their student customers.

Federal support for higher education goes almost all to these students. It does not go to the institutions. A little of it does, but almost all of it goes to the students who then choose the schools, forcing the institutions to compete, stay flexible and meet real needs. That is the precisely opposite way we fund kindergarten through the 12th grade. We give the money to elementary and secondary institutions, tending to freeze them into whatever they have been doing for the last 50 years.

We can compare the success of our higher education system with the lack of success of our K through 12 system and wonder whether the reason might not be that in higher education, we focus on autonomy, choice, and competition.

Generous research dollars in higher education are for the most part competitively awarded, which also helps to keep the institutions on their toes.

The rest of the world is busy trying to emulate the American system of higher education, which means other countries are creating more autonomy, more choices, and more competition. Yet here we are in the Senate today cluttering up our secret weapon with the same bureaucratic nonsense that has stifled excellence in universities in other parts of the world and will do it here if these trends are not reversed.

There is a great deal of beating of breasts about how much good this bill does to address the problem of college costs. It is ironic that the same legislation would add to tuition costs by imposing unnecessary regulations. And it is especially ironic that the very Members of Congress who are complaining the most about rising tuition costs fail to see that at least for public institutions, which about 70 percent of our students attend, Members of Congress are the cause of the rising costs. This is why it is true that State support for higher education has been low during this decade.

Between 2000 and 2006, State spending for higher education increased by only 17 percent, while tuition at public institutions during that time was up 63 percent. It is also true that the reason tuition costs are up is that State spending is down.

But what Members of Congress seem to be missing is that the principal reason State support of higher education is down is because Congress has mandated that States pay so much for programs such as Medicaid or fail to meet their commitments to programs like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA. When the Governors and legislatures are through paying for the mandates for Medicaid or to make up the lack of the Federal Government's commitment to IDEA, there is very little left for higher education.

When Federal requirements for Medicaid dictate that State spending for Medicaid goes up 7 or 8 percent a year when the overall State budget is only going up 3 or 4 percent a year, the money has to come from somewhere. States have to balance their budgets, and in State after State, the money has been coming from higher education. That was true in Tennessee during the 1980s, when I was the Governor, and it is even more true today.

During the 1980s, my major goal was to try to help us to spend at least 50 percent of our State tax dollar on education. My major adversary was Federal Medicaid. While I ultimately did succeed in getting to 50 cents, I had to squeeze it and push it and try to control it, and still it grew faster than everything else in the State budget. I was able to do that then because Medicaid and other health services were only about 15 cents of the State tax dollar. But by this decade, 2003 and 2004, the number was 40 percent of the State tax dollars in Tennessee went to education, not 50, and 31 cents went to Medicaid and health services. I am confident most of the cutting came out of higher education, which resulted in most of the tuition increases so the universities could operate and pay their bills.

I would respectfully suggest that we in Congress need to start along two completely different tracks if we want to retain the autonomy, competition, and choice that has led to quality and access to American higher education. First, we need to deregulate, not overregulate higher education. Cut this stack of rules and regulations in half and use the time and the money for students and for academic excellence.

Second, we need to stop loading State budgets with so many unfunded Federal mandates. For example, if Congress were to fully fund IDEA, the program for students with disabilities, at 40 percent of its cost, which is what Congress said it would do in the 1970s, that would add $250 million to Tennessee's revenue stream. I am sure much of this would go straight to higher education, whose annual budget is about $1.2 billion.

More importantly, we need to give States more flexibility in dealing with Medicaid costs and give them an opportunity to take steps to make it easier to free themselves from outdated Federal Court consent decrees, which restrict the ability of Governors and legislators to direct money to higher education priorities. Then, of course, there is the REAL ID, another $4 billion in unfunded mandates for the States, and out of which pot do you think the States might take that? Higher education would be my guess. Most Governors and legislators can point to many more unfunded Federal mandates.

These two steps are the best way to drive down college costs and to maintain academic excellence.

There are major accomplishments in this bill, some of which I have worked on and of which I am proud. They include simplifying the Federal student aid form and allowing year-round Pell grants for students making progress toward a degree. There is a new compliance calendar, which the Secretary of Education will be required to develop, that will set forth all of the reports and the disclosures required under the Higher Education Act. I am proud to say I suggested that. In other words, the new Secretary of Education will have to make a calendar listing every single report that has to be complied with, so the small Catholic college in Baltimore might not have to hire three more people in to go through this growing stack of requirements.

I authored the restrictions prohibiting the Secretary of Education from regulating student learning standards or requiring accreditors to adopt specific measures of learning assessment, which would have been additional federalizing of our 6,000 autonomous institutions.

There is an accountability research grant in this bill to focus attention on institutions making progress in measuring student achievement and asking the advisory committee, which has already done such good work in simplifying the student application form, to review this stack of growing Federal regulations. I also sponsored the new discretionary grant program for Teach for America.

All these actions in this bill are for the good, as is the increase in the availability of Pell grants for students who need help attending college. But I cannot support a piece of legislation that so undermines the excellence in higher education that comes from institutional autonomy.

I would like to offer a few letters and statements, and I ask unanimous consent they be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Mr. President, the first of these is a release today from the National Governors Association, which points out that Governors are responsible for making funding decisions that serve the best interests of all citizens. The Governors, in their release, say:

Maintenance of effort undermines governors' authority and

guarantees students and their families will be writing larger

not smaller tuition checks in the future. This is not the

answer to affordable higher education. Governors oppose the

higher education bill because of the negative impacts of the

maintenance of effort and implore Congress to vote against

it.

We had a vote on stripping out the maintenance-of-effort bill, but I lost that by one vote in the conference committee. Basically, what it says is that Members of the Senate and the House will substitute their judgment for that of Governors and State legislators. My suggestion was that if we are going to pass a bill and take credit for requiring States to spend more money on higher education, whether or not they have other priorities, then we might as well also go back down to our State capitals and join in the pain and suggest to the Governors whom to lay off or what school to close or what mental hospital to limit or what tax to raise because of our requirement about higher education maintenance of effort.

The second letter I would like to include in the Record comes from the commissioner of the Department of Finance and Administration in Nashville. Our Democratic Governor, Phil Bredesen, who has done a great many good things for higher education during his 6 years, is in the midst of a budget crisis. He is reacting to the very idea that during the midst of that, when he is laying off employees and making cuts in virtually every program, that we would take it upon ourselves to say that if he doesn't increase funding for higher education, we are going to cut his Federal funding. All when we ourselves are one of the reasons he is having a hard time funding higher education, because of all our unfunded mandates.

The third letter I would like to include is from the chancellor of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, one of our most distinguished research universities and one of which I am proud to be an alumnus. It is a well-modulated letter, as you would expect from the chancellor of Vanderbilt. The letter argues very eloquently why the autonomy, competition, and choice that characterizes excellence in higher education is so important and so fragile and needs to be respected by us as we pass higher education bills, rather than to use a blunderbuss and start stacking boxes and boxes of regulations on institutions such as Vanderbilt.

Why do we think we can do a better job in the Senate making Vanderbilt University a better university by complying with all this stuff, when it takes money that might be used to educate the students and improve academic excellence? They already have deans, vice chancellors, provosts, chancellors, and a board of trustees. If they are a public institution, they have a Governor, they have a higher education commission. They have plenty of overseers. They do not need us.

Two other letters, one from the president of Duke University, office of the president, Richard Brodhead, an equally thoughtful letter about the Federal role in higher education. I might say that North Carolina has done one of the best jobs of any State in accountability for higher education.

No one is doubting we need accountability for the money the Federal Government spends. As I mentioned earlier, the dollars we spend for research, tens of millions a year, are made accountable by being competitively granted, for the most part. The dollars we spend for colleges and universities don't go to the colleges and universities, they go to the students, and the students choose the school. If they do not like the school or the cost of the school, they may go to another school. Each of those schools has to be accredited before the student can choose the school. That has been a marvelous system for helping to give autonomous institutions the freedom to be good, while at the same time allowing for accountability for the money we spend.

Finally, two letters that were written to Senator Isakson of Georgia. One is from the president of the University of Georgia, Mike Adams, who was president of two other colleges before he was president of the University of Georgia. A distinguished educator. Georgia, of course, is one of our distinguished public universities in America.

Finally, a letter from the President of Emory University, James Wagner, and the president of Georgia Tech, Gary Schuster, to Senator Isakson, making the same objections.

As I said at the beginning, I admire my colleagues, I admire their 4 years of hard work, and I admire their commitment to a result. My hope would be we could go on two different tracks from here. One would be to look for ways to deregulate higher education, not add regulations to it. Realize that in America, where we are worrying that this might work or that might work, our system of higher education, with all its warts, is the best in the world. The rest of the world is trying to emulate it. Its greatest threat, in terms of its quality, is overregulation, not underfunding.

That leads me to the second track we go on. I hope we will be careful as Members of Congress that if we have a great idea for States, that we don't pass it and send them the bill. Because I know from having been Governor and having been president of a university and having been Secretary of Education, and seeing it in different areas. As a Governor making up a budget, it's pretty well set that you start with K-12. That is pretty well set. He then goes to prisons, and that is probably in the courts. Then he does mental health. That might be in the courts too. Then he or she goes to highways, and that comes from the gas tax. Then they are pretty well down to the choice between Medicaid and higher education. I can guarantee you that if we continue to increase requirements for funding of higher education at the State level, at the rate of 7, 8 or 9 percent a year, when State budgets are only going up 2 or 3 or 4 percent a year, we will significantly reduce the quality of our State universities and colleges. We will significantly increase the tuition costs that we say in this bill we would like to lower.

Exhibit 1

National Governors Association Statement on Higher Education Bill

governors Say Inclusion of Maintenance of Effort Will Raise Tuition for

Students

Washington.--The National Governors Association released

the following statement regarding the impending vote on the

Higher Education Reauthorization bill:

``The nation's governors are committed to providing

students in their states with affordable access to higher

education and agree that the reauthorization of the Higher

Education bill is a priority. However, inclusion of the

Maintenance of Effort (MOE) provision in the bill has

negative implications for states; therefore governors oppose

the passage of the conference report with this provision.

``Governors must balance their budgets in both good and bad

economic times. This mandate means that states will be unable

to make major increases or invest one-time surpluses in

higher education during good times because they will be

penalized if forced to reduce spending during difficult

times. In the end, this will increase the cost of college for

students and their families.

``Governors are responsible for making funding decisions

that serve the best interest

of all their citizens. MOE undermines governors' authority

and guarantees that students and their families will be

writing larger, not smaller, tuition checks in the future.

This is not the answer to affordable higher education.

Governors oppose the higher education bill because of the

negative impacts of the maintenance of effort and implore

Congress to vote against it.''

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, may I have 60 seconds to respond?

I am sorry.

If I may just acknowledge the remarks of the Senator, I feel the same way about working with her. I am delighted we will be working together to take a look at the rules and regulations that we impose from here in Congress to make sure they are useful and needed. The natural thing here is to add. It is also very natural for us to have good ideas, but we might discover that the dean or the provost or the Governor or somebody else might have a good idea as well.

This is one of those issues that has no partisan attribute whatsoever. As far as I am concerned, the Republicans are as bad as the Democrats on unfunded Federal mandates and unnecessary regulations. I look forward to an opportunity to work with the Senator from Maryland to see if we can identify a process that makes certain that institutions are accountable for the Federal dollars, but at the same time we leave them free to be excellent in their own autonomous ways.

Mr. President, I rise to express my support for the conference agreement of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which would reauthorize the Higher Education Act. This conference agreement represents a major victory for America's students and families. I can't say enough about the tremendous role that Senator Mikulski has played in getting this wrapped up. I often say, on bills it takes 90 percent of the time to get the 90 percent done, and the other 10 percent also takes 90 percent of the time. I think she did a significant job of cutting that other 90 percent to get the 10 percent done.

My only regret is that Senator Kennedy isn't here to share in this great moment. He has been working on this with me for 3 years. We actually worked a little bit on it before that. Without his able help on this bill and the superb help of his staff, who have continued to work on it, we wouldn't be in this position today. I will be eternally grateful, though, that he asked Senator Mikulski to step in and help out. She has been tireless and has done a phenomenal job. Without her leadership, we also wouldn't be here at this moment.

This is an important step, and it will have an impact on the lives of students of all ages for years to come. It is much like the launch just over 50 years ago of the Sputnik satellite that sparked a great debate about our place in the space race. The success of Sputnik sent shockwaves through the Nation. Russia was getting the better of us technologically, and we couldn't allow that to happen. It sparked a change in our education policies, and it sparked America to do what it does best, which is to rise to the challenge with innovation and a marked determination to be second to none. No longer could we rest on our past triumphs as a nation. We met the challenge of Sputnik through the National Defense Education Act.

Today, we are again being challenged but in a different way.

Now, instead of a race for space, it is a race for knowledge and skills that confronts us. It is a race we dare not lose, for the stakes this time are even higher. What is at risk is our strong economy. The solution to this difficult problem is to make a college education more accessible, more affordable, and more accountable for more Americans. It is more important than ever to make sure students and their families have good information to use on making decisions about college.

We find ourselves at a time when 200 of the 230 highest wage, highest paying, and in-demand jobs require some college education. In this environment, it is necessary for America's students to be able to access the tools and assistance they will need to complete their college education and acquire the knowledge and skills that will enable them to be successful in the 21st century economy.

Institutions of higher education and employers have expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that our high school graduates need remediation in order to do college-level work or to participate in the workforce. Each year, taxpayers pay an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion to provide remedial education to students at our public universities and community colleges. The cost to employers is even greater.

The legislation before us will take historic steps to provide students with the tools, the means, and the power to get a higher education.

We can all appreciate the complexity of the Federal student aid system. Filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, prevents many of our students from even considering college. We have taken that from multipages down to three pages--incidentally, that is both sides. One of the significant things is that it has kept people from even applying for financial aid, and without the financial aid, they cannot go to college. In 2004, an estimated 850,000 individuals who would have been eligible for Pell did not file a FAFSA. Completing bureaucratic financial-aid forms should not be a barrier to thousands of students who need financial aid to attend college.

This bill breaks down FAFSA to just those necessary questions to determine a student's financial need. In addition, Federal agencies will be required to examine and reduce the amount of information needed to establish eligibility for student aid. We also have included sunshine and transparency requirements for institutions, lenders, and guaranty agencies to restore confidence in student loan programs and eliminate the appearance of inappropriate arrangements.

As important as it is to increase the number of first-time college- going students, the fact is that nontraditional students are the students of the future. With seven community colleges in Wyoming, I know the value of serving adult learners who are returning to college for additional education and training. This agreement provides Pell grants for year-round education. You can think of it as 9 months and 3 months off, but people who are in this position need to be able to go continuously until they get the certification or degree they are working for. Again, this agreement provides Pell grants for year-round education, so students can complete their programs more quickly.

One issue I have concerns with is the maintenance of effort provision. I am worried that it may serve as a disincentive to States to reasonably allocate resources to higher education. I expect that we will find the provision unworkable, and we will be back in the future to make technical changes to fix it. We will leave that for another day.

For students today, a higher education is no longer optional. Without a lifetime of education, training, and retraining opportunities for everyone, we will not meet the 21st century challenges. This historic piece of legislation goes a long way toward meeting our commitment to all Americans.

This conference report is not a perfect bill, but it is a good bill and an important accomplishment because we followed the 80/20 rule. We focused on the 80 percent of the issues we could agree on, not the 20 percent we disagreed on. We also followed the regular order to craft this bill. It went through committee and was considered on the floor. The House did the same. Then we met with the House to draft a conference report. This process takes time, but the result is an important accomplishment for America's students and their families. What we are doing today will make a great difference in the lives of our children and our grandchildren for many years to come.

I thank all of the members of both the Senate and the House committees, and in particular Senator Kennedy for working toward this goal for years and keeping his commitment that we would get this done. Senator Kennedy has long been a champion for education in our country. He shares my determination that the education we provide to students of all ages will be second to none. That is a difficult challenge. When he and I started on this challenge to reauthorize the Higher Education Act 3\1/2\ years ago, we knew there would be many bumps along the way. I believe we hit every single one of those bumps, but he provided the kind of leadership in committee, in the Senate, and in the Congress that made it possible for us to reach this agreement today.

I also thank Senator Mikulski for the key role she played in assuring that we reached agreement on the bill.

In addition, I acknowledge the tremendous work of Chairman Miller and Ranking Member McKeon of the House Education and Labor Committee. There were a tremendous number of meetings between us to work in a very positive way toward getting to this point.

As well, I thank Congressmen Hinojosa and Keller of the subcommittee. They helped to shepherd this bill through the House so we could take it up on the Senate floor.

There are many congressional staff who worked on this conference report. The breadth and importance of the issues, not to mention the length of the legislation, requires many people working on it to get it done.

I have always said that I have a staff worthy of gold medals and my staff who worked on this bill have shown their gold medal status once again. I must first acknowledge and thank Beth Buehlmann, my education policy director. It is no exaggeration to state that without Beth there would be no Higher Education Act reauthorization bill today. She truly was the force to start the reauthorization 3 \1/2\ years ago. She worked tirelessly to ensure that we drafted a bill to reflect the changing nature of our student bodies as well as to ensure that we, as a Nation, will maintain our status as having the best education system in the world. Her team of Ann Clough, Adam Briddell, Kelly Hastings, and Lindsay Hunsicker is comprised of remarkable individuals who brought their talents and knowledge to the forefront in this bill. I would also like to thank my staff director, Ilyse Schuman, and Greg Dean, Amy Shank, Randi Reid, John Hallmark, and Ron Hindle who also put in many hours and added invaluable input into the bill as well as the overall process.

I would also like to thank members of Senator Kennedy's staff for their hard work--Michael Myers, Carmel Martin, JD LaRock, Missy Rohrbach, Erin Renner, Roberto Rodriquez, and Emma Vadehra.

Additionally, I would like to thank all of the other HELP Committee staff for their hard work throughout this process, especially David Cleary and Sarah Rittling of Senator Alexander's subcommittee staff. Also deserving thanks are our Republican members' staff, including Allison Dembeck, Celia Sims, Glee Smith, Karen McCarthy, Juliann Andreen, Alison Anway, John van Meter, and Elizabeth Floyd, as well as their Democratic staff counterparts. Also, I would like to thank Scott Raab from Senator McConnell's office for helping us work through some of the more difficult issues in the negotiations.

Also deserving my gratitude is the House staff including Mark Zuckerman, Alex Nock, Gabriella Gomez, Julie Radocchia, and Jeff Appel with Chairman Miller's staff and Sally Stroup, James Bergeron, and Amy Jones with Mr. McKeon's staff.

Also, with any piece of legislation that we draft, we should not forget the legislative counsels in both bodies who worked tirelessly to put this 1,000 plus page agreement together--Steve Cope, Molly Lothamer, Mark Koster, Kristin Romero, and Amy Gaynor--who all deserve to be recognized.

I look forward to getting the conference report to President Bush for his signature soon so that students and their families who are making plans to attend college this fall will have the benefits of this bill to help them.

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

I believe under the previous order we will move to Senator Murkowski for 5 minutes at this point.

The Senator from Oklahoma has up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, may I ask how much time I have?

Mr. President, I won't use nearly that much time, and I would be happy to share with my colleague, if she wants to make some closing remarks as well.

I rise to summarize why the Higher Education Opportunity Act is a major victory for America's students and their families and for our future economic security. Simply put, it ensures that a college education, which is the gateway to the future for working families and for businesses, will be within their reach in the years to come.

I thank those who have made their comments earlier: the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, and the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, who pointed out some things that still need to be done in the area of higher education. It would have been nice to have been able to do them in the bill.

One of those is deregulation. If we have that much paper, that many billions of dollars' worth of paper that need to be done, it is time for us to appoint a task force to evaluate their usefulness. I did that with some of the elementary education issues the first year I was here, and we found that every single paper that was submitted to the Department of Education was looked at to be sure that every blank was filled in and every ``t'' was crossed and every ``I'' was dotted. Our disappointment was that they were then filed away and nobody made any use of them.

We were able to get rid of some of those forms. Obviously, this is an even bigger opportunity.

The Senator from Oklahoma pointed out the lack of metrics for progress in these areas. Although there are new programs, past experience has been that many of them do not get funded because they have to come out of discretionary funds. They are good ideas that probably will never happen. But it would be a good idea to have metrics in there so we can gauge how well things are doing. We have a law that provides for that kind of measurement and requires each agency have a program to set up the guidelines by which we can measure, and then they are required to measure. I have noticed over the years that there are a number of agencies that are actually failing their own evaluations. We never do anything with that, which is another challenge.

Our country is being challenged today, and it is a challenge we cannot afford to lose. We are engaged in a race for knowledge and skills, and the nation that wins will have a head start on building a stronger economy. The solution to this challenge is to make a college education more accessible, affordable, and accountable for all Americans. That is what we are trying to do in the Higher Education Opportunity Act.

In this era of rising college costs, students and families must have good information to use when making decisions about which college to attend, how to finance their college education, and how to manage their student loans once they are out of college. This agreement is about good information, sunshine, and transparency. College is no longer an option. It is a necessity. Most good jobs today require some college. I want to make sure everyone has access to the education and training they will need to be successful in the global economy. This legislation gets us much closer to that goal.

I am pleased to say that with the passage of this agreement, we will have completed the work of two of the four pieces that make up Federal education and training policy.

Late last year we finished Head Start. Today we will finish higher education. We still have more work to do because we must reauthorize and improve the Workforce Investment Act so that our workers have the skills they need to be successful in an increasingly skill-driven economy. That leaves reauthorizing No Child Left Behind to complete our education task.

Mr. President, as this debate on this legislation comes to a close, it is necessary to thank those who have worked long and hard on this bill. First and foremost, I thank Chairman Kennedy for his commitment to keeping this process bipartisan, and working with me and all of my Republican colleagues on the HELP Committee throughout this entire process, lately by telephone, but with the same passion and enthusiasm.

I also thank Senator Mikulski for taking the helm and getting us to the finish line when others might have given up.

Because this has been a bipartisan, bicameral process, I want to thank our House counterparts--Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, Congressman Hinojosa, and Congressman Keller--for their commitment to working with us to find ways to reach

an agreement on issues that many thought would be impossible to achieve.

There are many other Members I wish to thank for contributing the time and effort they did to make sure we were putting together good policy. It is difficult to single out just a few. I have to immensely thank every single Senator who is on my committee, both Republican and Democrat. That is where we share ideas. That is where most of the changes in the bills are made. That is where people are able to get together and debate at length their ideas for how to make things better. And we do.

I thank Senators Alexander, Burr, and Coburn for their comments. They have disagreements on some of the key issues in the conference report, but, nonetheless, they continued to work to reach a resolution and improve the final product.

There are many congressional staff who worked on this conference report. The breadth and importance of the issues, not to mention the length of the legislation, requires many people working many hours to get it done. Actually, it is not only many hours or many days or many weeks or many months--but this one has been many years.

I have always said I have a staff worthy of gold medals, and my staff who worked on this bill have shown their gold medal status once again. I must first acknowledge and thank Beth Buehlmann, my education policy director. It is no exaggeration to state that without Beth, I do not think there would be a Higher Education Act reauthorization today. That is what I hired her for several years ago. She truly was the force to start the reauthorization 3\1/2\ years ago. She worked tirelessly to ensure that we drafted a bill to reflect the changing nature of our student bodies, as well as to ensure that we, as a nation, will maintain our status as having the best education system in the world.

Her team of Ann Clough, Adam Briddell, Kelly Hastings, and Lindsay Hunsicker is comprised of remarkable individuals who brought their talents and knowledge to the forefront in this bill.

I also thank my staff director, Ilyse Schuman, and Greg Dean, Amy Shank, Randi Reid, John Hallmark, and Ron Hindle, who also put in many hours and added invaluable input into this bill as well as the overall process.

I also thank members of Senator Kennedy's staff for their hard work: Michael Myers, who has been tireless on this and has provided the kind of leadership that coordinated it through some of these difficult times; Carmel Martin, the expert on education; JD LaRock; Missy Rohrbach, who, incidentally, had twin babies today, a boy and a girl. It is my understanding she is doing well. She worked while pregnant and helped to get this pregnant bill done. I also thank Erin Renner, Roberto Rodriguez, and Emma Vadehra of Senator Kennedy's staff.

Additionally, I thank all of the other HELP Committee staff for their hard work throughout this process, especially David Cleary and Sarah Rittling of Senator Alexander's subcommittee staff. Also deserving thanks are our Republican Members' staff, including Allison Dembeck, Celia Sims, Glee Smith, Karen McCarthy, Juliann Andreen, Alison Anway, John van Meter, and Elizabeth Floyd, as well as their Democratic staff counterparts. Also, I thank Scott Raab from Senator McConnell's office and Jim Johnson in Senator Shelby's office for helping us work through some of the more difficult issues in the negotiations.

Also deserving my gratitude is the House staff, including Mark Zuckerman, Alex Nock, Gabriella Gomez, Julie Radocchia, and Jeff Appel with Chairman Miller's staff, and Sally Stroup, James Bergeron, and Amy Jones with Congressman McKeon's staff.

Also, with any piece of legislation that we draft, we should not forget the legislative counsels in both bodies who worked tirelessly to put the 1,500-page agreement together. They are Steve Cope, Molly Lothamer, Mark Koster, Kristin Romero, and Amy Gaynor, who also deserve to be recognized.

It has been 10 years since the last major reauthorization. I believe it was worth the time and the effort to get it to this point. The changes we make today will affect today's students and students for generations to come.

I yield the floor and yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Maryland.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

It is a great honor for me to be able to bring to the floor of the Senate the higher education conference report for the Health, Education, and Labor Committee. I bring this bill to the Senate on behalf of Senator Kennedy.

What I wish colleagues to know is that this bill is truly a bipartisan agreement. It was led by Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, the ranking member, our colleague from Wyoming, who worked tirelessly. This bill has been a work in progress for more than 5 years.

Early this summer, as Senator Kennedy advanced this bill, we are all aware that he received some pretty surprising news. As he went into his own treatment regime, he called me and asked me to take over the conference report. I viewed it as an honor, I viewed it as a privilege, and I view it as an honor and privilege today.

Before I go into describing the bill and presenting it, I again wish to thank Senator Enzi for his work with Senator Kennedy and his collegial and civil attitude in working with me to move this bill.

As I get ready to present this to the Senate, however, I have a letter from Senator Kennedy. I have been in touch with Senator Kennedy on a regular basis, receiving his advice, his guidance, his caution, and his jocular wit. I know he is watching us as we begin this debate today. This is a short statement he asked me to read to his colleagues:

I'm pleased to express my strong support for final passage

of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008. This

legislation builds on key measures we've approved this

Congress to increase college aid and make loans more

available for students. This bill goes even further to assure

that a college education is affordable and accessible to our

citizens.

This legislation comes at a time when students and families

need more help then ever to deal with the rising cost of

college. Average costs at public colleges are more than

$13,000 today, and $32,000 at private colleges. Each year

780,000 qualified students don't attend a four-year college

because they can't afford it.

Our bill takes major steps to expand college access and

affordability. It holds colleges accountable for rising costs

requiring the top five percent of colleges with the greatest

cost increases to submit detailed reports to the Secretary of

Education on why their costs have risen, and what they will

do to hold costs down. It simplifies the complex student aid

application process by replacing the seven-page Free

Application for Federal Student Aid with a two-page ``EZ-

FAFSA.'' It also expands aid for our neediest students by

enabling them to receive Pell Grants year-round for the first

time.

The legislation also responds to the ethical scandals in

the student loan industry, which the Committee documented in

investigations last year. It bans lenders from offering gifts

to college officials, and requires college to adopt strict

codes of conduct on student loans.

I'm particularly proud of provisions that help students

with disabilities and veterans.

It enables students with intellectual disabilities who

attend postsecondary transition programs to receive Pell

Grants for the first time, and provides support for colleges

to expand these programs.

The bill helps service members by enabling them to defer

payments on their student loans--interest-free--while they're

on active duty. It also allows service members and their

families to receive in-state tuition rates for college when

they move to a new state, and enables them to re-enroll in

college without delay when their service is complete.

This bill creates a lasting legacy for students and

families, and it wouldn't have been possible without the

bipartisan cooperation of the members of the HELP Committee

and the House Committee on Education and Labor. I commend our

Ranking Member, Senator Enzi, and Chairman Miller and Ranking

Member McKeon in the House for their strong support. I'm

especially grateful to my friend, Senator Mikulski, for her

impressive work in resolving some of the most difficult

issues in this bill.

We can be proud that with passage of the Higher Education

Opportunity Act, we're meeting our responsibility to help all

our citizens obtain a higher education. By improving their

lives, we also strengthen our nation and our future. I urge

all my colleagues to support this needed legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that a longer statement by Senator Kennedy be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I wish to add to this. I won't repeat what Senator Kennedy reminds us are the good things in this bill.

In addition to our empowerment opportunity, which was expanding Pell grants from $4,800 to $6,000, we are also making sure Pell grants are available all year long, not just during the academic year, as well as getting rid of the cronyism in private lending where there were kickbacks going on between lenders and those at colleges who were offering it.

In addition to that, one of the things I am very proud of is how we met two major shortages in our country. Right now, there are the issues related to the nursing shortage. This bill recognizes the fact that though there is a nursing shortage, there are now several thousand people who want to go to nursing school but can't get in because the nursing schools either have no room, no labs, or no faculty.

Working together, we have been able to pass in this bill a very significant empowerment opportunity that will expand faculty and laboratory capacity so that we can crack the nursing shortage code by making sure all who want to go have the opportunity to go. By the way, there are 40,000 qualified applicants who could not get into nursing programs. They were smart enough. They were good enough. There was even financial aid to help them, but there just wasn't room. But we are making room for them.

Another issue that we were able to deal with was promoting innovative and effective teacher preparation programs. Our Nation faces a shortage of high-quality K-12 teachers, and new approaches are needed to make sure that every child has an effective teacher. In this legislation, we create a pipeline for high-quality teachers to teach in high-need schools by promoting partnerships with teacher education programs in higher need districts. We hold institutions of higher education accountable for the quality and progress of their teacher preparation programs as well as encouraging them with substantial help to develop alternative certification programs.

The Presiding Officer would be interested to know that on this 25th anniversary of Sally Ride going into space,

neither Dr. Ride nor I could teach in a Baltimore high school. Dr. Ride has a Ph.D. in astrophysics, two undergraduate degrees--one in physics and one in Shakespeare. I have a master's degree in sociology. I think I am qualified to teach current events but couldn't do it. That is OK. We should be qualified, but it would be darn hard to get into an alternative certification program.

I think there is a lot of talent coming out of our military, retired people who are looking for second careers--an experienced core. We need to give them an opportunity to come into our college classrooms, bringing knowledge, expertise, and the kind of mentoring that goes on. This is what is in this bill. It is not a laundry list of programs. It is about helping those young people who want to get into school, making sure we deal with some of the critical shortages facing our country, and at the same time having empowerment opportunity where we help important historic institutions, such as our Historically Black Colleges.

I am going to speak about this bill in more detail, but for now I wish to yield to Senator Enzi, who has been such an able partner and who has a particular area of expertise, because of his accounting background, in the fiscal reforms we did and a real passion for the community college.

Mr. President, I yield time to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, a member of the HELP Committee, who played a significant role in crafting this bill as it moved through our committee.

If I may say to the Senator two things. One, I believe the agreement is that we have from----

Mr. President, our order of agreement was that after Senator Enzi spoke, we would take 10 minutes for Senator Bingaman and Senator Reed. If Senator Reed is not here, we can then see how we can accommodate the Senator from Tennessee. The Senator from Tennessee was to go after the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. President, following our agreement and time allocation, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Rhode Island--the other Senator from Rhode Island, the senior Senator, Senator Jack Reed, also a member of the HELP Committee. He is a very persistent person in engaging in the content of this bill.

Mr. President, under our agreement, I will yield time to our colleague, Senator Harkin from Iowa, but before I do, I wish to do two things.

First, a few minutes ago we heard from our colleague, Senator Bingaman, about the untimely death of one of Senator Bingaman's key staffer's sons. Bob Simon is a staff director on his Energy Committee. Bob Simon's 16-year-old son passed away, and he, Senator Bingaman, was paying an eloquent tribute about this very melancholy situation. On behalf of the Senate, we would like to extend our condolences to the Simon family.

The other comment I wish to make is in response, very quickly, to the comments my colleague from Tennessee made.

First, I would like to thank my colleague from Tennessee for his very collegial and thoughtful efforts as we moved our bill through. I enjoyed our conversations, from talking about bluegrass and Grand Old Opry, we went on to high notes and higher education, and then we went on to maintenance of effort.

I am sorry you took out the regulatory stack you had because it is bigger than I am. As we said in our conversation, I look forward to working with the Senator from Tennessee to see if some of the regs might be dated, arcane, duplicative, and so on and how, over the next year or so, we could look forward to doing that.

But before I move off from the reg comment, I do wish to comment about the maintenance of effort. In many ways, I understand the point the Senator from Tennessee is making. My own home State of Maryland's Governor O'Malley inherited a $1.7 billion budget deficit that was not of his making, and at the same time I understand Governors and State legislators are facing real obstacles. However, we need to be realistic. Congress is doing its part by increasing Pell grants, and families can be assured that as the Federal Government increases its commitment to colleges, funds will not be offset by the States.

Last night we did pass an amendment offered by another gentleman from Massachusetts, Congressman Tierney. What his amendment does is provide incentives and funds to Governors, which they can use for a broad range of college access activities. They would be able to access $66 million to States to use on a variety of very important college access activities, particularly need-based grants and college prep programs.

But I also want to acknowledge the validity of the issues raised by the Senator from Tennessee on unfunded mandates.

Over here we have a champion.

Yes, but I am not done with my comments so I have not yielded the floor.

I wish to comment on the unfunded mandates. The Senator who will speak shortly has been a champion of the disability community and a leader of the IDEA community. We have been fighting to double IDEA and we have been trying to do it on both sides of the aisle. We look forward to having the Senator's support to do exactly that. We look forward to increasing the Federal role in Medicaid, particularly in SCHIP, which would be a very important component of Medicaid.

Last, but not at all least, in Medicaid, 80 percent of the money goes to 20 percent of the population. That 20 percent of the population that gets that Medicaid is primarily old or fragile people in nursing homes, many of whom have serious cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer's.

Let's get the Coburn hold off my bill to double funding for Alzheimer's. One of the ways to lower the cost of Medicaid is to find the cure of the cognitive stretchout for people with Alzheimer's. It is estimated by NIH and other institutions that comment on these things that we could reduce Medicaid by $5 to $11 billion a year if we could do that.

I think we can work our way through this, but I must say, working with the Senator from Tennessee has been indeed a pleasure. It has been based on intellectual rigor, good conversation, excellent exchanges of ideas. I look forward to doing more of it and trying to solve some of the problems that we both strongly believe need to be addressed.

I yield to the Senator from Iowa, Senator Harkin, also a member of the Health-Education committee and who is a prime mover in the area of expanding access for people with disabilities to be able to have access to higher education.

I yield the Senator from Vermont 2 minutes so he can make a brief statement before he presides, and then to Senator Brown.

I control the time. I now yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown.

I yield the Senator from Illinois 3 minutes.

Mr. President, how much time do I have?

I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Connecticut, who also chairs the Banking Committee. On behalf of all of us who worked on this bill, I thank Senator Dodd for helping us resolve some very serious issues that existed between the Banking and Education Committees on the student loan issue. His steadfastness and work with Senator Shelby actually helped us bring this bill to the floor. I thank him.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming.

We are now heading to our wrap-up.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of 48 letters in support of the bill be printed in the Record. They range from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, to the United States Student Association, to the Chamber of Commerce, and many others.

Mr. President, I too thank the very hard-working staff on this bill. There have been many compliments of me tonight, but I could not have done what Senator Kennedy asked me to do without the very able help of Senator Kennedy's staff. Senator Enzi articulated them by name, but especially Mike Myers, Carmel Martin, JD LaRock, and others. I could not have done it without them. Also, I say to Senator Enzi, we could not have done this without you. I worked with you on pensions and I knew how solid our relationship was and how carefully you pursue these matters. Senator Kennedy said you were a prince of a guy to work with, and he was absolutely right. I extend my thanks to you and to your professional staff as well.

There were also other Democrats who worked on the bill on our side-- two who could not speak tonight, but I acknowledge the very hard- working role of Senator Obama, who was a very aggressive advocate on many of these issues, along with Senator Clinton.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of the staff thank-yous be printed in the Record so we do not forget one person who helped make this legislation possible.

Mr. President, I also thank our colleagues in the House. Congressman Miller and Congressman McKeon were absolutely stalwarts in working with us. Congressman Miller and I had daily conversations on how to move this bill forward, and it was both fruitful and productive, and what the Congress should be.

A word about working with my colleague, Senator Enzi. We had disputes. We had issues. We had things that had to be worked out. You heard some of them this evening from the Senator from Oklahoma, the Senator from Tennessee. But at the end of the day, the day was over. We would be able to work and follow that kind of Ronald Reagan-Tip O'Neill rule that when the day was over, the dispute was set aside. We went home and thought about what we could do to move this bill.

I wish the whole Senate could work the way we worked on this bill, starting with Senator Kennedy's leadership, and Senator Enzi's, as they held the hearings, listened to us, and included us. We need to do more bipartisan work. When all is said and done, we have to start doing things and less saying things. Because one of the great things I like about this bill is it achieves a very important American freedom.

Our Constitution explicitly guarantees many rights: the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, the freedom of religion, the freedom of press. But implicit in our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, and all of our documents, all of our beliefs, and all of our values, is we believe in the freedom to achieve, that in the United States of America you can be anything you want to be, and you have access, and should have access, to an opportunity ladder that enables you to participate in the American dream.

We are a country whose values say: Dream about what you can be and dream about what you can contribute. And when you want to follow that dream, you should not be barred from it because of the size of your wallet. Your dream should only be shaped by the size of your talents.

I think this bill today, tonight, will advance this whole freedom to achieve, this opportunity ladder for our young people. I am very honored to participate in it. I am very honored Senator Kennedy asked me to take on this conference. But we could not have advanced this idea without Senator Ted Kennedy.

Senator Ted Kennedy is a giant in this institution and in this country. His whole life has been devoted to access to opportunity, access to education, access to health care, that there be no barriers in the area of civil rights where people were sidelined or redlined.

So tonight, as we move to the adoption of this bill, I say to my colleagues here, I urge the adoption of this bill.

I want Senator Kennedy to know many of us today, and while he has been recovering from his illness, have worn these blue armbands. They say: ``Ted Strong.'' Well, we know Ted is strong.

So, Ted, this is for you tonight.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the adoption of the conference report.

Mr. President, I understand that the actual vote on the conference report will occur at a time to be determined by our leadership.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I will assure everyone I will not take 20 minutes.

First of all, let my thank all of those on the committee who worked on this bill.

The Higher Education Act of 1965, HEA, authorizes the Federal Government's major Federal student aid programs, as well as other programs which provide institutional aid and support. HEA also authorizes services and support to disadvantaged students, and to students pursuing international education and certain graduate and professional degrees. The last time the act was reauthorized was over a decade ago, in 1998.

The Senate passed HEA reauthorize on in July of 2007, with a vote of 95-0. The House of Representatives passed their version February 7, 2008, with a vote of 354-58. The final conference agreement is the product of nearly 6 months of work between the House and the Senate.

The Higher Education Act conference report, by the numbers, is nearly 1,200 pages, authorizes for appropriation of roughly $3.7 billion, creates 65 new programs, requires 24 new government studies, and requires the Department of Education to create and publish 26 different lists with information from more than 6,463 schools.

This bill seeks to address an enormous concern for many American families and students who are struggling to afford the cost of a college education. During the 2006-2007 academic year, more than $130 billion in financial aid was distributed to students in the form of grants, Federal loans, work-study, and tax credits and deductions. However, this financial aid is hardly keeping pace with the increasing rate of tuition.

According to the College Board, from 1996 to 2006, tuition rose 51 percent at 4-year public colleges and universities, after adjusting for inflation. Furthermore, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, the average rate for undergraduate tuition and fees has nearly tripled over the past decade.

No one argues that the cost of college is rapidly rising, or that Congress, the States and institutions of higher education should examine this issue and work together to increase access and affordability for students. However, we must ask ourselves, is this bill the right solution? This bill dramatically increase general Federal financial aid to students through the following:

Increase the Pell Grant maximum from $5,800 to $8,000 at a cost of potentially $1.6 billion per year;

Permits students to receive Pell Grants year-round at a cost of $2.6 billion over 5 years;

Increases the loan fund for Perkins loans at a cost of $1 billion over 5 years;

Expands deferment for PLUS Loans and accrued interest would reduce direct spending $75 million over 5 years; and

Extend Federal loan forgiveness to the following groups--at a cost of $10.9 billion over 5 years: Public-sector employees (including Federal Government employees in Washington DC), nutrition professionals, mental health professionals, medical specialists, dentists, STEM employees, physical therapists, occupational therapists, superintendents, principals and other administrators, fire fighters, librarians, early childhood educators, nurses, foreign language specialists, speech language pathologists, school counselors, and others.

Dramatic increases in Federal student aid may sound like a helpful solution at first. However, research shows that increases in government funding only lead to further increases in tuition. According to a report by the Cato Institute, for every dollar increase in Pell Grants, private 4-year colleges increased tuition by more than two dollars.

The findings of the College Board in ``Trends in Student Aid 2007'' are even more astounding. The College Board reported that student aid increased by about 82 percent over the decade from 1997 to 2007, and Federal loans increased by 61 percent. Interestingly, this increase in aid covered about two-thirds of the increase in tuition at private 4- year colleges and almost all of the increase in tuition at public 4- year institutions.

These statistics demonstrate that both public and private universities are increasing tuition at the same pace--if not faster-- than the Government increases funding. If we truly wish to make college education more affordable for students and families, we must focus on why tuition is increasing, despite increased subsidies from the Federal Government.

A July 31 editorial in the Washington Times discusses the correlation between increased government funding and rising tuition. The editorial states of the higher education conference agreement.

This bill would do nothing to rein in rampant tuition

inflation, by far the biggest problem in higher education.

Indeed, by giving students yet more taxpayer-furnished aid,

it will just keep exacerbating the problem . . . Just look at

the numbers: It's no coincidence that while the inflation-

adjusted price of college has gone up roughly 70 percent over

the last two decades, aid per-student rose almost 140

percent.

The best way to make improvements in higher education is to begin removing the Federal Government from the equation. When Congress and the U.S. Department of Education interject themselves into education matters, the result is generally less competition and individual control, more bureaucracy and an ultimately an inferior outcome.

The American Council on Education states that the higher education conference agreement ``would create a huge number of new reporting and regulatory requirements . . . Complying with these new unfunded mandates will take time and will increase the administrative costs facing colleges and universities.''

Rather than increasing the role of the Federal Government in subsidizing and regulating higher education, Congress should create incentives for families to save money and ease tax burden for students. Federal education tax credits and the Federal tuition tax deductions generated $5.9 billion in savings for taxpayers in 2006.

The Higher Education conference agreement does more than expand financial aid for students. The bill authorizes 65 new programs, many of

which are duplicate, wasteful and unnecessary. By authorizing appropriations for these programs, Congress is allowing them to take funding away from student aid. Consider the following examples of misplaced priorities in the bill:

Henry Kuualoha Giugni Kupuna Memorial Archives: Provides a grant to the University of Hawaii Academy for Creative Media for the establishment and maintenance of memorial archives--such sums as necessary;

Campus-Based Digital Theft Prevention: Provides grants for schools to develop programs to prevent illegal downloading and distribution of music, movies and other intellectual property--such sums as necessary;

Pilot Program for Course Material Rental: Provides grants for college bookstores to operate textbook rental programs--such sums as necessary;

Off-Campus Community Service: Authorizes work study grants to institutions for recruiting and compensating students to supplement off campus community service employment--such sums as necessary;

University Sustainability Programs: Provides grants to establish sustainability programs and practices on campus. The term ``sustainability'' is not defined in the bill--such sums as necessary;

Modeling and Simulation Programs: Establishes a task force to study modeling and simulation and to support the development of the model and simulation field--such sums as necessary; and

Teach for America: Authorizes a 5-year grant to Teach for America, Inc. for $20 million in FY 2009, $25 million for FY 2010 and such sums for each of the four succeeding fiscal years.

It is important to note that if a Federal audit of Teach for America recently found that the organization did not properly account for $775,000 in Federal funds. The Department of Education Inspector General found that Teach for America was unable to provide documents to support roughly half its claimed spending. The New York Times reported that there was no documentation that any teachers actually attended and completed the class or that there even was a class. Rather than cleaning up the waste, Congress authorizes $45 million for the organization.

According to a July 11 CBS Evening News report titled, ``Teach for America Gets Schooled; Organization That Trains Teachers Gets a Failing Grade for Its Accounting Skills,'' after the audit, Teach for America tried handing over some newly-found documents, but it didn't help. The Inspector General said they contained ``significant discrepancies.''

Another important way to help contain the skyrocketing costs of education is to simply ensure taxpayers' dollars and students' tuition are directed towards educational purposes, and not lobbying or earmarks. We cannot continue to earmark millions of dollars to universities with billion dollar endowments, while students and families struggle to afford the cost of college.

The total cost of earmarks for colleges and universities exceeded $9 billion between 1995 and 2003. At the same time, average annual tuition at public 4-year institutions increased by 137 percent, from $2,357 to $5,836. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that Congress set aside a record $2.3 billion in pet projects for colleges and universities last year, $300 million more than in 2003, when the total was $2.01 billion.

Furthermore, in 2005 and 2006, colleges and universities spent more than $127 million on lobbying activities. This amount could have paid the full tuition for more than 21,760 students to attend public colleges and universities. Most students struggling to pay for housing and tuition may not be able to afford a tutor, much less a lobbyist. They should not, therefore, be forced to pay higher tuition so their school can hire Washington lobbyists.

Nobody who listened to Senator Alexander can come away saying we have not done what we need to do. And this is certainly a compromise piece of legislation.

But it is very worrisome to me that the only thing rising faster than the cost of health care in this country, other than gasoline in the last year and a half, is the cost of a college education. The only way we can compete globally is with an educated workforce. We have to ask ourselves the question, Why is it costing so much? Could it be the 10- foot tall--now with the passage of this bill--group of regulations that require billions of dollars to comply with every year that has taken away from the educational opportunities in this country?

I think another thing that was not addressed in the bill that should have been added in the bill is the fact that we have had over $9 billion worth of earmarks in the higher ed bill over the last 7 years. That is $9 billion that did not get prioritized. It was put in in the dark of night, inside a bill, inside an appropriations bill, that did not go out on the basis of merit, did not go out on the basis of a competitive grant.

And when the American people hear that $127 million was spent last year by colleges and universities to lobby this place, is it not any wonder that we are spending $9 billion on earmarks?

I also want to spend a moment talking about realtime writers. I held that bill; am still in opposition to it. I know it is in the bill. That is the way things work around here. I am going to lose that. But I want you to ask yourself the question: If there is greater demand for realtime writers and we are seeing the salaries rise and we are seeing the numbers start to come in, why in the world are we going to create a program to pay for it when the market is going to create the demand and the pay to get people to do it? We are going to blow that money because those people are going to go do that because the amount of money that is being paid for someone to do that is rising. So we are going to get in the middle of the economics of that. We are going to create a false level of it because we are going to train them. Now, do you know what is going to happen? Everyone who is a realtime writer now is going to make less money in the future.

So we are going to disown the economics of supply and demand, much like we are doing on energy, and we are going to put a grant program in, we are going to make sure these people are there, but everyone who is doing it now is going to make less money, and then we are going to have an overage. And so then what is going to happen is the people who went out and did it on their own and invested in it, they are going to go look for another job because we did not trust what has made this country great, which is the idea that if there is a demand, someone is going to fill the supply, and if they do not, the price is going to rise. So we have put that in this bill.

It will be a part of the bill. It is going to become law. But we are going to waste that money. It is shortsighted. It is wasteful. This bill creates 65 new Federal Government programs. Thirty-six reports are demanded from this bill, and it gets rid of six programs. Of the programs we create, nary a one has a metric on it so we can measure it 2 years from now to know whether what we did was right or wrong. In Oklahoma we call that peeing into the wind. It is going to come back on us.

As to the cost of a college education, we are seeing families squeezed by $2,400 a year in energy costs because we didn't act when we should have acted on energy, and we are not acting now. So they have less resources. Even with the wonderful increase in Pell grants and everything that we have done in this bill, the cost of a college education is going to rise about 9 percent a year. They can't keep up no matter what we do with Pell grants.

The better part of wisdom would be to ask the question: Is what we are doing really making a difference to increase the availability of a 4-year education or a 2-year education post high school?

The maintenance of effort in this bill will kill every community college in Oklahoma because they design programs for certain things and then walk away from them because there is not a demand for them anymore, whether it be for a new business, a new industry, or a new area where there is a shortage, and then they walk away. Now they have a maintenance of effort requirement. There is no exemption on that. You have killed one of the best things we have in Oklahoma, which is our community colleges. You are going to strangle them with this maintenance of effort. Now they will be very hesitant to create a new program that

will make a big difference in the lives of Oklahomans, even though they will only run the program for 2 years because they will have to continue to fund it to be able to get anything else from us. It is shortsighted.

I will not go on. I know everybody who worked on this bill is well intentioned. Their heart is in the right place. They want us to have better educational opportunities. They want us to be able to afford it. They want greater excellence in terms of academia. I just don't think we did it. If we didn't do it, we are not going to be able to measure because we don't have any metrics.

The hope would be that maybe we could learn from this exercise. Maybe we ought to put in metrics. If we are going to create 65 programs, maybe we ought to think about getting rid of 65 instead of 6, and maybe we ought to measure the effect of what we are doing.

I yield the floor.

Mr. PRESIDENT, I am pleased to support passage of the conference report reauthorizing the Higher Education Act of 1965. This law is the main Federal law governing higher education in this country and authorizes a number of important federal programs including Pell grants and other need-based grant programs as well as Federal student loan programs. This conference report, the Higher Education Opportunity Act, will improve college access and affordability for our nation's students in a number of ways including, raising the authorized level of Pell grants, allowing Pell grants to be awarded on a year-round basis, and simplifying the financial aid application process. Congress has been working on revisions to the Higher Education Act for many years and it is welcome news that Congress has finally completed its work on this important, if imperfect, legislation.

Access to postsecondary education is becoming more and more important in this increasingly competitive 21st century. In Wisconsin and around the country, we continue to see a significant gap in which students can afford to obtain a higher education and which students cannot, with students from low income and middle class families increasingly unable to attend college due to escalating costs and less availability of financial aid. Furthermore, students increasingly have to turn to federal and private student loans to cover the costs of a higher education because of declining grant aid. Some of these students are then saddled with heavy debts upon graduation from college, which impact what sort of career decisions and life choices they can make for themselves.

Since coming to the Senate in 1993, I have made increasing funding for the federal Pell grant program one of my top higher education priorities. I have worked with Senators Kennedy, Collins, and Coleman to lead efforts to increase funding for the Pell grant program as part of the yearly budget and appropriations process. I am pleased that the 110th Congress has taken some important steps to boost the availability of Pell grants for our Nation's students. Soon after the 110th Congress convened in January of 2007, we passed a continuing resolution funding the government for fiscal year 2007. As part of that continuing resolution, we increased the maximum award for the Pell grant for the first time since 2003, from $4,050 to $4,310.

As part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act which was signed into law last September and the fiscal year 2008 omnibus appropriations bill, Congress further increased the maximum Pell grant award from $4,310 to $4,731. These recent increases in the maximum Pell grant award represent a good step to improved access to higher education for our Nation's students most in need, but much more remains to be done. This conference report builds on these efforts to boost the Pell grant program, by increasing the authorized levels for the maximum Pell grant award to $8,000 by 2014 and by allowing students to use their Pell grant awards year round. I will continue to work to help ensure that Congress appropriates funds for the Pell program consistent with these new authorized levels.

This conference report also reauthorizes another critical need-based grant program, the federal TRIO programs, which include Upward Bound, Student Support Services, Ronald McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement, and Talent Search programs, among others. Every year, students who have participated in TRIO programs at Wisconsin's universities come out to Washington to meet with myself or my staff to discuss how the various TRIO programs are improving access to higher education and providing support services once these students have enrolled in college. These students' testimonials illustrate how important the TRIO programs are, and have guided my yearly efforts to work to boost Federal funding for the TRIO programs. I am pleased that this conference report also includes language based on previous legislation I introduced that defines the terms ``different campus'' and ``different population'' for purposes of administering the federal TRIO program. The language included in this bill ensures that higher education institutions with branch campuses geographically apart from each other, like some of the campuses in the UW System, can compete on an equal footing for these important TRIO grants.

This conference report also includes language to modify the application progress for Federal financial aid in order to make it simpler for students and parents to complete the process. I often hear from students and parents in Wisconsin that applying for financial aid is a time consuming and confusing process and this legislation should help to simplify the process for Wisconsin's families. This legislation establishes a two-page FAFSA application for certain low-income students and broadens the use of this simplified FAFSA to other students within the next few years. This legislation also improves the process whereby students can reapply for financial aid so that they do not have to fill out a new FAFSA every time they want to apply for additional financial aid. Many of Wisconsin's students fill out these FAFSA forms every year and I hope that the new provisions in this conference report can make the FAFSA application process less burdensome in the coming months and years.

This conference report also retains language from the Senate-passed bill to ensure that the grants for training of teachers will promote a wide range of teaching skills, including measuring students on different forms of assessment, such as performance-based measures, student portfolios, and formative assessments. In an era of increased accountability at the local, State, and Federal level, we need to do all we can to promote more responsible and accurate assessment of students in our K-12 schools.

I remain concerned about the increased use of high-stakes standardized testing at the K-12 level, including using high-stakes standardized tests to make decisions regarding school accountability. By broadening the definition of student learning and teaching skills as this new title II language does, we can better ensure that teachers are trained to more accurately and responsibly measure student achievement through alternatives to high-stakes standardized testing. I hope that Congress can build on these efforts to promote better and more responsible assessments of our Nation's students when we reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act by providing increased funding for the development of these types of assessments as well as the teacher training that is needed to implement these assessments in our classrooms.

The student loan industry has also seen some tumultuous times over the past 2 years, with a number of abuses involving lenders and some financial aid administrators brought to light as well as ongoing unrest in the lending business due to the current instability in our credit markets. While we should do all we can to boost Federal funding for grant aid so that students are not as dependent on student loans to finance their higher education, we also need to make certain that our Nation's students have access to Federal student loans to help cover any unmet costs they face. Wherever possible, we should help students participate in the various Federal student loan programs before making them turn to private loans, which do not offer our students as many safeguards as the Federal student loan programs. Earlier this year, Congress passed a law designed to help

ensure students' continued access to Federal loans in the upcoming school year and this conference report seeks to help prevent certain abuses in the student loan markets from happening in the future. For example, this conference report requires schools and lenders to create codes of conduct governing their lending practices and relationships. This legislation also bans lenders and colleges from accepting gifts as part of their student loan business. I cosponsored many of these provisions in Senator Kennedy's standalone legislation, the Student Loan Sunshine Act, and I am pleased that these provisions were included in this conference report.

I know a number of colleges are concerned about the increased reporting requirements in this legislation related to college costs and tuition increases. These reporting requirements and the provisions creating searchable college cost lists and Web sites are designed to improve access to information for students and their families. This sort of information is important to Wisconsin families deciding which colleges they can afford. I hope that these provisions can be implemented in a reasonable way that addresses the concerns of our Nation's universities while ensuring that students and their families have access to this valuable information.

This legislation has broad bipartisan support and it is good news that we were finally able to reach agreement on this reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The conference report Congress is set to pass this week strengthens a number of existing Federal student aid programs and creates new programs to boost access to and affordability of higher education for America's students who wish to attend college. With the new school year set to begin in about a month, I hope that the President will quickly sign this legislation into law and that the Department of Education will work to implement this legislation in a fair and responsible manner.