Mr. President, I speak today in support of the Higher Education Access Act of 2007, a bipartisan piece of legislation that will increase student aid by billions of dollars by curbing federal subsidies to private banks and lenders. This is a significant victory for students around the country and in my state of Wisconsin, which will receive over $270 million dollars in new need-based grant aid by the year 2013. Wisconsin has a world-class higher education system and I am pleased to support this much-needed legislation that will help open the doors to college for more students in my state.

I have long supported and led efforts in Congress to expand the availability of student aid, and ensure that qualified students have access to a postsecondary education, including raising the individual Pell Grant award. I was pleased to join with my colleagues in February to pass a significant increase in the maximum Pell Grant award to $4,310 from $4,050, the first increase in four years. Earlier this year, I also joined with my colleagues Senators Kennedy, Collins, and Coleman to lead letters to both the Budget and Appropriations Committees that advocated for the highest possible increase in funding for Pell grants. The Pell grant program provides need-based aid to low income students and I am pleased that the Higher Education Access Act retains the Pell grant’s focus on need-based aid for low income students.

Access to a higher education is increasingly important in the competitive, global environment of the 21st century workforce as an increasing number of jobs require education or training beyond high school. But while the importance of attending college continues to increase, the cost of attending college also continues to increase, which often causes financial strain on students and their families as they seek to finance the cost of higher education.

My colleagues and I have long fought against the declining purchasing power of the Pell grant by supporting substantial increases in the maximum grant award. According to data from the Department of Education, the maximum Pell grant covered half the cost of tuition, fees, room and board at public four year colleges twenty years ago, but only covered a third of these same costs during the 2005-06 period. The declining power of the Pell has impacted my state of Wisconsin as well. In 1986-7, the $2,100 maximum Pell grant covered 58% of college costs for Wisconsin students. In 2005-06, the $4,050 maximum pell grant only covered 38% of college costs in Wisconsin. This legislation seeks to address the declining purchasing power of the Pell grant by funding new Promise Grants which will supplement the Pell grant awards received by students throughout the country and target need-based funds to Pell-eligible students.

In addition to the declining purchasing power of need-based aid like Pell, the availability of such need-based grant aid does not come close to meeting the demand for it. As a result, an increasing number of students turn to federal and private loans to finance their education. According to the College Board, in the late 1970s, over three-fourths of the federal aid to students were grants, while twenty percent of federal student aid were loans. Recent data from the College Board indicates that the breakdown between grant aid and loans had switched by 2006, with grant aid only making up twenty percent of the federal student aid.

Mr. President, students in my state of Wisconsin, like students in other parts of the country, are greatly affected by the federal government’s increased reliance on student loans at the expense of grant aid. The Project on Student Debt reports that more than sixty percent of Wisconsin graduates in 2005 graduated with debt and the average student who graduated from a four-year college in my state in 2005 owed over $17,000. While the prospect of these large debt burdens impact many students’ decisions about whether to attend college, low income students may be even less inclined to attend college if they have to take out large amounts of student loans. These students are understandably nervous about the significant debt burden they would have to undertake and some students choose to forgo college all together for this very reason. This legislation’s focus on increasing need-based grant aid for these very students takes a big step in the right direction toward promoting better access to higher education for low income students.

Higher levels of debt can also influence the decisions students make about whether or not to take a job in the public interest sector or in the more-lucrative private sector after graduation. We’ve all heard about students who are interested in working in public interest jobs fields like teaching, law enforcement, legal aid, or state and local government but who decide against taking these public interest jobs because of their high debt loads. It is unfortunate that so many students are forced to consider their debt loads when deciding which jobs to take or pursue. The loan forgiveness and income-based repayment provisions of this legislation will help those graduating students in Wisconsin and around the country who want to pursue careers in public service.

Mr. President, while I applaud much of the policy included in this measure, I am disappointed that we are again seeing the reconciliation process used to advance legislation that is not primarily a deficit reduction package. While there are better arguments for using reconciliation to consider this particular bill than there were for the reconciliation protection proposed for the legislation to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, I am still troubled by the use of this extraordinary procedure as a way to advance a significant policy change that is not primarily a deficit reduction package. Thanks to the efforts of our Budget Committee Chairman, Senator Conrad, the days when the reconciliation process could be totally subverted to protect legislation that actually worsened the deficit are over. I also commend Chairman Conrad for insisting during the conference discussions on the budget resolution that this particular reconciliation instruction move closer to a more reasonable qualifying threshold of deficit reduction than was initially proposed. I hope that in future budget resolutions, we can further tighten the use of reconciliation to ensure that it is used for what it was intended, namely to advance significant deficit reduction.

A student’s access to higher education should not depend on his or her family’s income, but rather on the student’s desire to obtain a higher education. Passage of the Higher Education Access Act of 2007 moves our nation in the right direction and represents a great victory for students in my state of Wisconsin and around the country. I have long led and supported efforts to expand federal higher education programs including Pell and TRIO and I am pleased to support passage of this legislation. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the coming months and years to continue to expand important need-based grant programs so that hard-working students will be able to take advantage of the full opportunities that access to a higher education offers.