▶ 0:16:17Chair Cassidy: The senate committee on health education, labor, and pensions will clung to order. -- come to order. In some respects, the american higher education system has lots of promise. Many college students are not learning skills needed to succeed in the modern workforce and study show the cost of college as quickly outpaced the value of a student's education.
▶ 0:16:44Chair Cassidy: In the last 30 years, tuitions and fees at private nonprofit colleges rose by 80%, and public for-your institution they've increased by 109%. Meanwhile, according to a,'s degree programs and 43 of masters degrees have a negative return on investment. This is to say that students pay more for their degrees in the increase in salaries they can expect.
▶ 0:17:12Chair Cassidy: This increased cost often is not going to improve education. Often those dollars are being funneled to promote a dei ideology, dividing students based on race and ethnicity. A report studying 65 colleges and universities about the average institution was paying for 45 staff members to promote dei policies. By the way, these programs are subsidized by taxpayers who contribute significant funding annually for these universities.
▶ 0:17:41Chair Cassidy: Instead of promoting academic excellence, many campuses have been ideologically captured to become hotbeds of hate and division. Students leave woefully unprepared and cannot pay the debt back. Comprehensive reform to higher education is needed. President trump and secretary mcmahon are making progress including fixing the student loan program. Congressional action is needed to make change. There were multiple legislative attempts to improve higher ed to benefit students.
▶ 0:18:12Chair Cassidy: This includes my bipartisan college transparency act with senator warren which allow students to compare the differences between prospective colleges and to see if the value of the degree is worth the cost. Senator tuberville is leading the graduate opportunity and affordable loans act to end graduate plus loans which have been inflationary to tuition costs. This bill puts downward pressure on rising college cost by limiting graduate school borrowing.
▶ 0:18:42Chair Cassidy: There's also been the streamlining, accountability, valuing, say for students act led by senator cornyn, which streamlines repayment offense for borrowers, decreasing the nine options to two, giving students and family clarity as to which payment plan best fits their needs. I look forward to discussing these and other policies in depth today. It's a date given but none the power of education.
▶ 0:19:09Chair Cassidy: It can transform lives, lifting not just a generation that attends college out of poverty but the subsequent generations in the family as well. It is also a life changing innovation and research that helps to research life-saving cures and divine solution to some of america's biggest challenges. But when universities fail in their basic responsibilities to ensure a safe learning environment, when students leave college in debt and without hope for a brighter future, the american people lose trust in higher ed.
▶ 0:19:39Chair Cassidy: There is no one who can advocate for higher education better than the institutions themselves. Universities must make the case to the american people as to why they are valuable to the nation and are worthy of taxpayer investment. I think taylor university and to university for being here. Rarely are hbcus or religiously oriented universities mentioned in conversations about the landscape of how to improve america's higher education system.
▶ 0:20:07Chair Cassidy: We will also hear from the austin texas community college district which offers an interesting perspective beyond traditional four-your universities. A great opportunity for all to share stories and the value of y. I will make one more comment. As I mentioned earlier, it's important everyone has the opportunity to speak to the american people in this important topic. Each person and institution should have the right to make their case.
▶ 0:20:31Chair Cassidy: In light of that, it is known but I will comment upon that harvard university had been requested to attend today's panel. Harvard is world famous for its cutting-edge research which helps make not only our nation but the world healthier. There have been recent episodes in a recent report on anti-semitism within harvard's culture. This would have been harvard's chant to sell the committee and the country how it's addressing anti-semitism and removing dei from priorities and highlighting their value as a research institution.
▶ 0:21:03Chair Cassidy: Unfortunately, they declined the invitation. Thank you to our witnesses for being here. I look forward to discussing how we can improve higher education so students can succeed in the classroom and beyond. With that, I recognize senator sanders.
▶ 0:21:16Sen. Sanders: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Let me thank our guests for being here to discuss a very important subject. Needless to say, Mr. chairman, you and I look at this world a little differently regarding the subject.
▶ 0:21:31Sen. Sanders: In my view, in a highly competitive global economy, in an economy where technology is changing the very nature of work and the jobs we perform, if we are going to have the kind of standard of living that the american people deserve, we need the best educated workforce in the world. I would trust there is not a lot of debate about the importance of that. Sadly, that is not the case today.
▶ 0:22:02Sen. Sanders: Our nation used to lead the world in the percentage of adults with a college degree. We were number one. Today, despite being the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, we are in 11th place in terms of the percentage of adults with a college degree.
▶ 0:22:25Sen. Sanders: We are now behind countries like japan, south korea, canada, united kingdom, ireland, australia, switzerland, among others. Being 1th being 1t1th in a competitive global economy, the number of people with a college degree, is not a good place to be. Mr.
▶ 0:22:45Sen. Sanders: Chairman, we must not only strive to have the strongest economy in the world, we also need an economy and educational system which provides for the basic necessities of life for the american people.
▶ 0:23:01Sen. Sanders: Yet today, in our country, we have an understaffed workforce -- something this committee has discussed -- which has led us to a shortages of doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, mental health counselors, and psychologists. So we are living in a country where, in terms of health care, we are not able to provide the kind of care that our people need. That is one of the failures of our educational system.
▶ 0:23:34Sen. Sanders: Furthermore, at a time where we face major infrastructure challenges, when we need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel in order to save this planet from the ravages of climate change, we don't have enough engineers, construction workers, plumbers, pipefitters, sheet metal workers, electricians, because we have not made apprenticeship programs and trade schools by the available. Moreover, Mr.
▶ 0:24:01Sen. Sanders: Chairman, I happened to be a strong believer in lifelong learning. Learning is not just a means to getting a good job. As human beings from two to 102, people strive to learn, it part of what human is being about. We should make that opportunity available to all.
▶ 0:24:23Sen. Sanders: In the early part of the 19th century, not only did low income and working-class kids not have the opportunity to go to college, many of them were unable to receive a high school education or even a primary school education. Young people at that point were working on farms, working in fields, and they were working in factories often under terrible, terrible conditions.
▶ 0:24:52Sen. Sanders: Higher education at that time was available only to the children of the wealthy, mostly boys. Working people and trade unions understood at that time how unfair that was. They looked around and saw the rich kids going to harvard and yale, and their kids not getting any indication at all. And they fought hard all over the country to say we want a public education system, free for all kids to the 12th grade.
▶ 0:25:22Sen. Sanders: That was a major step for the united states of america. Well, the world has changed just a little bit over the past 100 years. 40 or 50 years ago in louisiana or vermont, virtually any state in the country, if you received a high school degree, the odds were pretty good that you would be able to go out and get a decent paying job, raise a family, buy a house, and survive on one income. That was 40 or 50 years ago.
▶ 0:25:53Sen. Sanders: That world has changed. Today, the global economy has changed the world, technology has changed, and our educational needs have changed. Anyone think that I high school degree is all kids need today? Most people don't. In america, a college degree is the equivalent of what I his school, was years ago.
▶ 0:26:19Sen. Sanders: Today, the average person with a bachelor's degree will earn more than those with just a high school diploma. Young people want to get the best education they can so they can be productive and contributing members of our society. All over the country I've had the opportunity to talk to young people who did well in high school. One of the saddest stories that you'll hear. Kids did well in high school, want to get a college education but they cannot afford it.
▶ 0:26:46Sen. Sanders: They look at the price tag and say no way will I go 50 or $100,000 in debt. How many young scientists or teachers do we lose because they cannot afford to go to college or don't want to leave school deeply in debt? This committee deals with health care. Everyone on this committee knows, you are a working-class person that wants to go to medical school. You leave medical school with $500,000 in debt.
▶ 0:27:12Sen. Sanders: Anyone think that is vaguely sane at a time when we have a massive shortage of doctors? All of us have talked to people paying off their student debt 30 years after graduating school. So what is the answer? In my view, the answer is to do what many other countries around the world are doing.
▶ 0:27:32Sen. Sanders: In the richest country in the history of the world, all the people, who want to get a higher education should be able to do that regardless of their income. That is why, Mr. chairman, I've introduced legislation called the college for all actor that will do just that. Bottom line is, countries all over the world, in germany, france, finland, denmark, sweden, iceland, public colleges and univer the kids f we shoule the witnesses and introduce each witness as he is going to testify. Not all at once. I will introduce the first witness, Dr. andrew gillen. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Dr. gillen is a research fellow at the cato institute, independent think tank that advocates for individual liberty, free markets, and peace. Dr.
▶ 0:28:01Sen. Sanders: Gillen is one of the most prolific and respected researchers in higher ed, finance, and accountability and has written extensively on student loan reform, federal accountability measures, and transparency in college outcomes. Thank you for your expertise. Please proceed. You have five minutes.
▶ 0:28:13Dr. Gillen: Chairman cassidy, ranking member sanders, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on these important matters. My full testimony has been submitted for the record. Unfortunately, I will not have time to cover everything but I want to cover a few key points.
▶ 0:28:25Chair Cassidy: Mr. gillen, could you pull the microphone closer to you?
▶ 0:28:29Dr. Gillen: A couple highlights on the topic of accountability, affordability, and innovation. Regarding affordability, one of the main impediments to federal action improving college the main impediments affordability refers to when colleges raise tuition or cuts institutional aid when financial aid is provided.
▶ 0:29:04Dr. Gillen: There is a lot of literature that argues this is happening but we can fight against it. The two most important ways to fight against it are, one come introduce caps on the federal aid program. Things like pell grant in undergraduate loans are capped.
▶ 0:29:32Dr. Gillen: We don't need to worry about that too much of their. But things like grad plus and parent plus our uncapped. To the extent we keep these programs come is very important that we put caps on them to avoid colleges undermining the effectiveness of those aid programs.
▶ 0:30:03Dr. Gillen: The other thing we an do is adopt what is called the median cost of attendance. Right now, the way financial aid is awarded, the college set its own cost of attendance. If it increases the price by one dollar, the student gets one dollar more in aid.
▶ 0:30:30Dr. Gillen: This went between the college increasing price and aid eligibility is what is driving the hypothesis. We can sever that link by using the median cost. You still have each college setting its own cost of attendance but you determine aid eligibility based on the meeting among all the colleges. I would argue we should do this at the program level rather than the college level but the concept is the same. Regarding accountability, most colleges are providing good education at a reasonable cost.
▶ 0:31:00Dr. Gillen: But there are too many cases where the benefits from education do not justify the cost that are being paid by either the government or the student. Or parents. And accountability system would help reduce or completely eliminate the problem. A well-designed accountability system would do a number of things. One would focus on programs or institution. Programs is like a credential, bachelors in nursing, that would be a program. Utilize labor market outcomes.
▶ 0:31:33Dr. Gillen: You to be applied university to all colleges and programs rather than selectively. These are steps that are pretty widely discussed but there are two that are less widely discussed that would really benefit. The first is we can use carrots. All the accountability programs that we use in this country have been sticks. The only thing we have threatened to do is take away financial aid. We can use carrots. They can be financial, performance bonuses, or it can be regulatory relief.
▶ 0:32:02Dr. Gillen: Why require a top performing to be accredited to have authorization? We can waive these regulatory requirements for high-performing colleges. By using carrots and sticks, that will introduce a lot of variation in the accountability system that will get us improve performance. The other thing that would be important for accountability systems going forward is to use relative performance rather than a numerical cut off.
▶ 0:32:30Dr. Gillen: The top 25% of colleges should have different sanctions and rewards than the bottom 25%. What accountability metrics could we use? People on this committee have advocated earnings. These are all good things. One underappreciated option is the payments. This makes the most sense, the most logical accountability metrics for student loans. Unfortunately, we have not done much on repayment rates.
▶ 0:33:03Dr. Gillen: The last metric that gets a lot of discussion is risksharing. Risksharing is the idea that if the student fails to repay their student loans, the college will be responsible for all or a portion of it. This is the approach the house has taken where they introduce a somewhat complicated risksharing formula. I would argue that it is no more complicated than the income employment regulations which we have implemented for close to a decade here on and off.
▶ 0:33:35Dr. Gillen: I would argue it is not too complicated but we can make it simpler if we wanted to. Regarding innovation, the main barrier is accreditation. Accreditation is a giant barrier for new colleges and forces all colleges to use the same recipe of inputs and processes. Both of these suppress innovation. To the extent we can reform accreditation to improve outcomes, that would lead to vast improvements and innovation.
▶ 0:34:05Dr. Gillen: Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
▶ 0:34:07Chair Cassidy: Thank you. I will introduce Dr. lindsay. Dr. michael lindsay is the president of taylor university in upland, indiana, one of the oldest evangelical christian universities in the country. He's a trained sociologist, known for his focus on faith and informed leadership, institutional excellence, civic virtue in christian higher education. Dr.
▶ 0:34:33Chair Cassidy: Lindsay has positioned taylor as a national leader to prepare students for redemptive influence in society. Hank you for joining us.
▶ 0:34:41Dr. Lindsay: Thank you, chairman cassidy, ranking member sanders, members of the committee. I serve as president of taylor university, a christian institution in the heart of rural indiana. I begin with a simple observation. American higher education has lost the trust of the people is intended to serve. American public watched over several decades as recognized institutions grew rich but rudderless.
▶ 0:35:07Dr. Lindsay: Too many have become places that grant credentials without conviction, offering dialogue without direction. The american public is not impressed. But it doesn't have to be this way. For hundreds of campuses across the country going in a different direction, and taylor is one of them. You don't see outrage culture on campus or students walking on ideological egg shells. We have students thrive and not in the absence of accountability but actually because of it.
▶ 0:35:36Dr. Lindsay: Our students, faculty, and staff commit to a shared set of values which articulated in something that we call our foundational documents. Not rulebooks but more like roadmaps designed for moral formation and institutional accountability. We place a copy of these documents in our admissions reception room. Prospective families know exactly what we stand for. Turns out moral clarity can actually be a competitive advantage. Our incoming student numbers have grown by more than 60% over the last four years.
▶ 0:36:07Dr. Lindsay: I think the first thing we want to say is our sector needs a renewed sense of moral purpose. Higher education should not be where conviction goes to die, rather it should be where character comes to life. We also need to redouble our efforts around the important work of what we would call student formation. Too many places have spent years chasing research dollars and reputational rankings, but there are real limits to this particular strategy.
▶ 0:36:33Dr. Lindsay: What is most needed is a commonsense approach to focus on student learning, student development, and student engagement. We need to look at the kind of communities we are cultivating. What I love about the liberal arts approach to education is it encourages connections across disciplinary boundaries, developing intellectual friendships that go beyond individual departments. It's part of a larger commitment to the holistic developing of students who care about not only about their intellectual formation but there professional, vocational, social, spiritual formation.
▶ 0:37:05Dr. Lindsay: We also need to devote a lot more energy to student learning. At taylor we have the center for teaching and learning. Some of my most senior faculty regularly participate in programming to sharpen their skills in the classroom. This should be the norm, not the exception. We need to look for tangible ways to get students more chances to lead and support them in that.
▶ 0:37:27Dr. Lindsay: Most college students don't arrive on our campuses knowing how to be excellent communicators or problem solvers, but they can learn that while on our campuses through experiences and through expert coaching. All this of course requires investing in our students, why I'm very grateful for the expanded pell grant support, because I've seen the difference it makes in the lives of students. I'm proud of the way taylor has married generous financial aid with strategic cost savings.
▶ 0:37:57Dr. Lindsay: Since 2010, our average net tuition cost has decreased by 24% when adjusted for inflation. We have more than triple the amount of award to be given student scholarships, as you can see in my written testimony. Went from $14 million to over $48 annually. Many of our peers are doing similarly good work. For every dollar a student receives in federal aid, member institutions for the council of christian colleges and universities contributes five dollars of their own and institutional aid.
▶ 0:38:25Dr. Lindsay: It's a model of shared investment that is making a measurable investment in the lives of thousands of students. Third, the mission of higher education cannot stop at the edge of our campuses. It has to make a difference in the community. That is why taylor launched the main street mile initiative, a $100 million public-private investment strategy to revitalize our hometown of upland, indiana.
▶ 0:38:48Dr. Lindsay: As you can see from the graphic in my testimony, we are developing more than 100 new units of housing, collegiate inn, restaurant, six miles of trails, this tripping over a million dollars in seed funding for ventures, welcoming over 100 3000 annual visitors to our old town. We're in the midst of a $500,000 fundraising campaign. I'm proud that we committed 20% of those dollars to benefit not our campus but our wider community.
▶ 0:39:16Dr. Lindsay: We are not just transforming upland, it is transforming us, making as a campus that generally loves its hometown. That is something every college in america ought to do. These three touchstones, renewed moral purpose, student formation, and tangible community impact are the key to american higher education reclaiming its place as the world's most powerful force for human flourishing.
▶ 0:39:42Chair Cassidy: Thank you, sir. Now I will turn to senator tuberville to introduce Dr. brown.
▶ 0:39:51Sen. Tuberville: Thank you, Mr. chairman. It's my pleasure to introduce our second witness, Dr. mark a. Brown. He is 20 miles about from where I live as we speak in auburn, alabama. Dr. brown is president of tuskegee university, home of the tuskegee airmen. Very proud, historically black college in alabama. He is the first columnist in tuskegee's 143-year history to leave the university.
▶ 0:40:22Sen. Tuberville: A retired air force general, Dr. brown brings unmatched experience in educational leadership in federal student eight policy and hcb you advancement. We are thankful to have you here today to hear your perspective, Dr. brown.
▶ 0:40:35Dr. Brown: Thank you, senator tuberville, good morning, chair cassidy, ranking member sanders, members of the committee. On the 10th president of tuskegee. I testified before you as one representative emmer nations 100 hbcus and as the first alumnus to lead tuskegee in our 143-year history. Between 1986 and 1990, I personally utilized most forms of federal assistance that we will discuss today.
▶ 0:41:04Dr. Brown: While I'm now serving as college president and retired air force major general, as stated, I began as an hbcu student who benefit directly from these final financial aid services. First I'd like to introduce you to two recent tuskegee university ambassadors. I would ask them to stand. Behind me is miss ariel o'neill from los angeles, california. She is a military dependent. Her major is political science and she is studying for the lsat.
▶ 0:41:30Dr. Brown: [applause] next to her is Mr. tyler smith. He is from atlanta, georgia by way of millersville. His major is biology and his aspiration is to attend medical school. He wants to work in family practice in rural areas. Thank you, tyler, for being here.
▶ 0:41:51Dr. Brown: [applause] hbcus represent just 2.3% of the grants of the universities in, the united states yet their impact far exceeds their numbers. 40% of all black engineers are hbcu graduates. 40% of all black congress members are hbcu alumni. 50% of all black lawyers graduated from hbcus. 80% of all black judges hold hbcu degrees.
▶ 0:42:23Dr. Brown: 90% of undergraduate hbcu students receive some form of financial aid. Reductions in federal needs-based funding would negatively impact nine out of 10 hbcu students. Today, pell grants provide up to $7,395 annually to eligible students, yet this covers only 31% of cost at the average four-year public college. Compared to 79% in 1975.
▶ 0:42:51Dr. Brown: At tuskegee university, we recently celebrated our spring 2025 commencement, confirm degrees to nearly 800 graduates. For that same academic year, we processed over 22 million in federal loans, including over 5 million in graduate plus loans, 10 million parent plus loans, nearly 5.3 million in subsidized loans. These programs are not luxuries but the for our students.
▶ 0:43:18Dr. Brown: Eliminating or reducing graduate plus loans without an alternative would severely limit access to graduate education, particularly for high need, high potential students in critical fields. This funding made it possible for students in fields like veterinary medicine, engineering, computer science to afford not just tuition but basic living expenses. This is not about dependency, it's about opportunity, and investing in futures that will benefit society and our nation.
▶ 0:43:49Dr. Brown: For example, we graduated over 60 new doctors of veterinary medicine in last couple of weeks. With 100% secure employment almost immediately. With the rejected national shortage of 24,000 veterinarians by 2030, tuskegee's contributions help address critical workforce and national needs. There are economic impacts.
▶ 0:44:10Dr. Brown: According to a 2024 united niekro college fund hbcu impact report, tuskegee university generates $237.1 million in total economic impact for alabama. Our institution supports 2006 he for jobs, and for every job created on campus, another 1.5 jobs are created in surrounding communities. For us, that is highway 85 corridor, between auburn, tuskegee, and my memory.
▶ 0:44:41Dr. Brown: Every dollar spent by tuskegee generates an additional $.43 in economic activity throughout our region. Our 2020 one graduates alone are predicted to earn $2 billion in lifetime earnings, far more than they could ever earn without their degrees. In the case of tuskegee, we are ranked number one in alabama for social and economic mobility.
▶ 0:45:05Dr. Brown: R 81% retention rate demonstrates our commitment to student success and our outcomes, again looking at the 2025 graduating class, speak for themselves. 44% of those graduate secured full-time employment. 2% pursue graduate school. 7% entered professional school. Others continuing to military service, postgraduate work, volunteer programs like the peace corps and teach for america. 74% of our alumni earn between $50,000 and over $100,000 annually.
▶ 0:45:37Dr. Brown: Hbcu graduates earn 57% more in their lifetime there they would without their degrees. That is over one million in additional lifetime earnings per graduate. Gainful employment, I will divide up the way we define it at tuskegee. We require an internship, relevant industry certification, rigorous degree requirements for all students. This approach bridges the gap between classroom learning and workplace demand, positioning our graduates for economic mobility.
▶ 0:46:07Dr. Brown: This model honors our founder, booker t. Washington's vision of educating the hand, head, and the heart. Making employment outcomes central to the educational journey. Evidence-based programs with transparent historical outcomes should be aligned with federal assistance. University should be incentivized to emphasize fields of study that result in positive employment outcomes upon graduation.
▶ 0:46:31Dr. Brown: While we achieve these outcomes, keep in mind we accept 30% of our applicants, compared to other schools that keep 2% of their applicants. It's a risk care model that fails to recognize the uneven distribution. In conclusion, Mr. chairman, I ask you to consider with your tough budget decisions and evidence-based approach. Continue reforming the pell grant and federal work-study programs to reduce reliance on federal student loans.
▶ 0:46:56Dr. Brown: Incentivize employment gainful metrics rather than risk sharing models that fail to recognize students that begin their educational journey in poverty. Incentivize industry partnerships with hbcus to bridge the gap between classroom learning and workplace demand. I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:47:11Chair Cassidy: I defer to senator sanders to introduce the next two witnesses.
▶ 0:47:16Sen. Sanders: Our next witness is Dr. russell lowery-hart, the chancellor for austin community college district. Under his leadership, austin community college district started a free tuition program which led to a 40% increase in enrollment. Previously served as vice president of academic affairs. Thank you very much for being with us, Dr. hurt.
▶ 0:47:43Dr. Lowery-Hart: Chairman cassidy, ranking member sanders, members of the committee, thank you for hosting us. Thank you, senator sanders, for inviting me to advocate for community colleges. Our free tuition program, and to underscore the importance of federal support for our students that are uniquely missing from policy conversations that I hope to illuminate.
▶ 0:48:09Dr. Lowery-Hart: As the chancellor of austin community college, we cover a 7000-square mile radius. We are larger than the state of texas -- the state of connecticut. We serve rural and urban institutions. We serve 70,000 students annually as a comprehensive community college. Yet come in the last 12 years, we have not raised tuition once. Austin commute to a jan community colleges like us are the reasons why I left universities over a decade ago.
▶ 0:48:40Dr. Lowery-Hart: We are the entity and sector of higher education where innovation goes to breathe, where I think higher education is actually being reimagined. We are the region's primary workforce education institution. We are proud to partner with our local employers such as samsung, tesla, major health care partners, to launch careers where students can earn a sustaining wage.
▶ 0:49:06Dr. Lowery-Hart: Our moral clarity is a commitment to loving our students to success, because this work is personal, and the decisions that you do make are not just political, they change trajectory of lives, of neighborhoods and communities. Our average student is named ashley. We did a naming analysis and ashley was the most common name in every demographic measurable. But there is nothing common about ashley.
▶ 0:49:37Dr. Lowery-Hart: She is smart, she is capable, she is ambitious, but she is not the college student that we often think about when we are making policy decisions. She is a 27-year-old mother, she is working two part-time jobs, she is responsible for a kid and probably family member, she is first generation, she faces significant financial pressures. She is going to school part-time which means she takes longer to get a degree.
▶ 0:50:06Dr. Lowery-Hart: She is continually in a state of stress because she is one flat tire are one sick child care worker away from having to drop out of school. Which then consigns her to a life of poverty, when we could offer a few supports at key moments that could open up a life of wealth building for her and the generations that follow her.
▶ 0:50:31Dr. Lowery-Hart: But her success is built on really important programs such as the free tuition program, pell, childcare access, the c campus program, all of these programs of support help ashley and ensure she is able to overcome the significant life barriers that get in their way. Ashley, like 60% of our students, couldn't access $500 in a case of a man emergency. 40% are food insecure.
▶ 0:51:03Dr. Lowery-Hart: 50% of our ashley's are housing insecure. According to our data, ashley living in central texas has to earn at least $60,000 a year just to keep her head above water. That means ashley needs to make at least $5,000 a month to get by with rent, childcare, utilities, transportation, basic needs.
▶ 0:51:24Dr. Lowery-Hart: These are not insignificant barriers, which is why the financial support is so important, and why the potential changes to pell, especially part-time pell could be devastating to her in the generations that follow her. Senator hawley recently wrote in the new york times, our economy is increasingly on friendly to working people and their families. This is especially true to working people trying to go to school to get a better job. People like ashley.
▶ 0:51:54Dr. Lowery-Hart: Which is why the college for all act could be transformative. In central texas, we are taking ashley's challenges head on. She does face challenges inaffordability, and community colleges are the sector that has taken on affordability with courage. Yet, in central texas, in the last decade, 60% of our students, a decade ago went to post secondary education. Now only 42% are leaving in enrolling.
▶ 0:52:23Dr. Lowery-Hart: Working with trellis strategies, the number one reason they told us they were not enrolling was because of the cost to attend college and they had to get a full-time job. It is one of the most important decision that our trustees made, to initiate the free tuition program. I am proud that my board chair from Mr. sean hassan, was a leader in this effort. It has dramatically brought students that didn't think higher education was possible back to education.
▶ 0:52:54Dr. Lowery-Hart: They are staying in school, in workforce program primarily that will lead to a family sustaining wage. It is why we are supportive of the proposal that would move 10 million people from low income, low skill work into industries that offer real career pathways, at a time when our country is challenged and faces innovation and global economy shifts, and community colleges, if funded appropriately, can be the answer
▶ 0:53:24Dr. Lowery-Hart: To the global challenges that we seem to be struggling with.
▶ 0:53:28Sen. Sanders: Thank you, very much, Dr. lowery-hart. Our final witness is Mr. mike pierce, the cofounder of the student protection borrow center. You were to defend student borrowers as a higher education expert on financial protection bureau. Mr. pierce, thank you for being with us.
▶ 0:53:50Mr. Pierce: Good morning, chairman cassidy, ranking member sanders, members of the committee. I'm the executive director of the student borrower protection center. I also spent seven years as a federal financial regulator charged with overseeing the federal student loan debts it at the consumer financial production bureau serving under both presidents obama and trump. For too long the promise of a higher education has been pushed out of reach.
▶ 0:54:16Mr. Pierce: Rising costs fueled by unstable state budgets, diminishing purchasing power of the pell grant, the rise in predatory for-profit colleges have left too many drowning in $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. Over the past half-century, we've increasingly privatized our public higher education system, forcing students and families to bear the growing financial burden of what should be a public good.
▶ 0:54:40Mr. Pierce: I'm here today to mourn the committee about the unprecedented economic shock facing tens of millions of working families across the country roof and buy a set of reckless and cruel policy choices made by president trump. More than 21 million americans, roughly one in 12 U.S. adults, will experience immediate financial harm as this administration pulls back on student borrower protection center.
▶ 0:55:02Mr. Pierce: These include nearly 8 million people who sought a lower loan payment that remain in limbo, more than 6 million people in the fall that face wage garnishment and seizure of their social security benefits, nearly seven point five distressed borrowers who are careening toward a preventable default. These are families who are already contending with the rising cost of living in a moment of extreme economic uncertainty whose only mistake was going to school. Preventing the mastiff also millions of stressed borrowers should be the top priority for this administration and committee.
▶ 0:55:32Mr. Pierce: Nearly six mill people already 90 days past due and during catastrophic damage to their credit. This will cause even bar was with christine credit to be locked out of the conventional mortgage market and see the cost piling up. Crucially for this committee, borrowers in default lose access to pell grant and other financial aid greeting and aunts -- unsurmountable barrier. Instead of working to get these borrowers back on track, the trump administration is blocking access to borrowers rights to affordable repayment option.
▶ 0:56:01Mr. Pierce: Borrowers are waiting on nearly 2 million unprocessed education for lower payments. We have been here before. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, big banks and loan servicers similarly conspired to block families access to affordable payments based on the belief that moral hazard induces waves of strategic defaults by families across the country. As a result, government efforts to help families avoid foreclosure failed. As many as 10 million families lost their homes.
▶ 0:56:30Mr. Pierce: The spillover effects of this financial catastrophe prolong the great recession and hurt us all. The trump and's actions may cause similar catastrophic harm to the U.S. economy and scar the family finances of a generation of working people. Rather than check the abuses of the executive branch, congressional republicans appear ready to abuse the reconciliation process to rewrite higher education policy, shrinking access to financial aid, cutting grants for two thirds of pell recipients, removing guard rails or protect student from predatory schools,
▶ 0:57:01Mr. Pierce: And placing enormous pressure on state budgets. The result will push millions of families into the private loan market. In the same bill, got the cfpb, the regulator charged with protecting these families from predatory student lenders. This legislative war on regulars comes behind an extraordinary attempt to purge enforcement officials across the federal government.
▶ 0:57:22Mr. Pierce: I want to express my solidarity with the workers illegally fired by the trump administration who worked to hold student loan companies in predatory schools accountable, a mission in conflict with the trump andmusk vision of crony capitalism. President trump's proposed skinny budget further hurts working families. These efforts create the perfect storm that will make students and families even more vulnerable. It remained strong bipartisan agreement that the student loan system is broken.
▶ 0:57:53Mr. Pierce: America's grand experiment of debt-financed higher education has failed. While we disagree on what comes next, one thing is clear. Our government should focus on making the markers of middle-class american life including education cheaper for students and families. Instead, families are facing extraordinary uncertainty as reckless executive action and others push the american dream beyond reach. I want to thank members sanders for his fight.
▶ 0:58:18Mr. Pierce: We deserve to live in a country where public college is free and there is no student debt, where higher education is an engine of upward mobility and no one is forced to forgo their dream because no one can afford the cost of a degree.
▶ 0:58:30Chair Cassidy: I will now turn to questions and defer to senator turberville to go first.
▶ 0:58:36Sen. Tuberville: Thank you for being here. I am passionate about this, I spent 50 years in education. More than anybody in the room, although maybe not Dr. brown. I've been in high schools all across the country in almost all 50 states. We have gone backwards. Today we are talking about higher education. I spent 30 years in that, done a lot of great things for a lot of kids, men and women, rich and poor.
▶ 0:59:07Sen. Tuberville: It has to be merit-based, folks. If we don't merit-based this thing, we will not survive as an educational system. This country gives you an opportunity. I was in a situation where athletics was merritt-based. I didn't care who you were. I had to win games. I recruited kids with good gain -- grades, could play football. If they couldn't do those things, I didn't recruit them. It has to be the same thing in college and terms of getting a good education.
▶ 0:59:39Sen. Tuberville: I know a school that has a happiness degree. That isn't going to get it. I am for paying everyone's way to college but not for a degree or when they get out they cannot get a job at walmart. We need degrees that kids can prosper, raise a family, have a great life in this country. I would like to ask each one of you one question, starting with Dr. gillen.
▶ 1:00:09Sen. Tuberville: What factor do you see that have caused massive, skyrocketing cost at our universities across the country?
▶ 1:00:17Dr. Gillen: So, I would argue that the main driver of cost is what is called the bone revenue theory of cost. When you look at higher education -- the bill when revenue theory of cost. The idea is that it is not higher faculty that salaries are increasing, driving higher spending.
▶ 1:00:45Dr. Gillen: It is that one more revenue is available, colleges will spend as they can. These are mission driven institutions. If you give each of these schools a million more dollars, they will find a good way to spend it. The problem is if you keep doing that, eventually those good way to spend it our not so convincing anymore. But when we have these mission-driven institutions, the more money they have, the more they will spend.
▶ 1:01:10Dr. Lindsay: I think the opportunity before us is, as you say, to bring accountability and outcomes. We have to be very intentional about the formation occurring on our campuses. Really proud of the fact that we have something called the good work initiative which is trying to transform on campus implement opportunities for students who paid more than minimum wage to give them more spending money but also paired with money and discernment exercises to help them so that when they graduate they have the professional experience.
▶ 1:01:42Dr. Lindsay: It's a pilot. We've had good success with it. We are allowed the opportunity for students to take on more leadership roles, giving them good things for the resume but also buttressing their opportunities when they graduate.
▶ 1:01:54Dr. Brown: I went to my board of trustees this upcoming year and said I would like to freeze tuition for two years at our school. They approve the freezing of the tuition. But when I looked at the cost of insurance, which is a subcomponent of that tuition, we had to go up. So the real cost to the customer, the family was more. The same is true for the cost of dining, food. And the cost of the utilities that it costs to run the campus.
▶ 1:02:25Dr. Brown: My campuses is like any other business. Those costs we would not be able to absorb. So our cost went up because costs in the economy went up. It is not that we would spend more because we had more. Those costs were real and we had to realize those as a school just operates like a business.
▶ 1:02:42Dr. Lowery-Hart: Thank you for the question. I would say in a community college sector, there has not been a massive skyrocket of rising prices. At austin community, we have not raised tuition in 12 years. I think we raised it once in 15. We are the sector of higher education that lives within our means because our students are so price-sensitive. I think there could be a lot to learn from how community colleges effectively manage their budgets.
▶ 1:03:13Sen. Tuberville: Agree with you on that. You do a good job, by the way. I think more kids need to go to community colleges. Mr. pierce.
▶ 1:03:22Mr. Pierce: I think it's my turn to talk about for-profit colleges which seems to be missing from my colleagues's responses to your question. We have watched the education sector raise costs far in excess of the higher education system and also watch some of the largest participants in the for-profit college turn into a private nonprofit colleges or enter into deals with colleges. We are not at a place where we were addicted to go, talking about the proprietary sector.
▶ 1:03:53Mr. Pierce: We should be looking at the back room deals that some of the largest colleges are cutting and how these deals are driving the increasing costs that are being pushed on the most vulnerable students.
▶ 1:04:01Sen. Tuberville: Thank, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:04:04Sen. Sanders: Thank you Mr. chairman. Thank you all for your testimony. I believe all of you mentioned pell grants. I think the elephant in the room, many of you know, right now, there is a republican-led so-called reconciliation bill that would provide massive tax breaks to the rich and cut programs that working families need. One of the program that is being cut our pell grants.
▶ 1:04:31Sen. Sanders: Where we are right now, the bill is in flux, but it would eliminate -- this republican bill would eliminate pell grant's for one point 4 million working-class students and substantially reduce pell grant for 3 million low income students across america. That is what the bill does. Dr. brown, what does that mean for tuskegee?
▶ 1:04:52Dr. Brown: Thank you, senator sanders. The vast majority of our students use pell grants. If you reduce pell grant's, you will probably increase the amount used in student loans. If you cap access to student loans and at the same time reduce pell grant's, you will hurt access to education for those who begin their educational journey in poverty.
▶ 1:05:14Sen. Sanders: Dr. brown, if you can convey that message to republican members of congress, I would appreciate. Dr. lowery-hart, but would that do to your college?
▶ 1:05:24Dr. Lowery-Hart: Over 70% of our students at austin community are part-time because they are working two part-time jobs and raising a family. If the proposal is to increase part-time pell went into place, there are 5000 austin community students right now that are taking between six and seven hours that would lose pell access, which means workforce programs they are engaged in, they might have to drop out of or withdraw from.
▶ 1:05:53Sen. Sanders: Dr. lindsay, what would this mean?
▶ 1:05:57Dr. Lindsay: Pell is an currently important catalyst for hundreds of our students. The expansion has made a tremendous difference. I work directly with students, see how it has allowed them to be able to come to taylor and stay at taylor. It's a huge differentiator. All of us recognize the key difference that pell has made.
▶ 1:06:18Sen. Sanders: The three folks running universities think that these massive cuts in pell grant's would have a very negative impact on the lives of your students, am I hearing that? Dr. lowery-hart, talk a little bit -- to me, education is a human right, like health care. Rich, poor, young, old, you should be entitled to it.
▶ 1:06:47Sen. Sanders: As an investment for our country, wanting the strongest possible and best educated workforce, it makes sense to encourage all of our people. I understand you have a young man that wants to go to medical school behind you. Dr. brown, I don't know what his financial circumstances are, but if he doesn't have a lot of money, he will graduate medical school many hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt at a time when we desperately need to marry care physicians. Dr.
▶ 1:07:13Sen. Sanders: Lowery-hart, what has been your experience in providing free tuition for the students in the austin area?
▶ 1:07:20Dr. Lowery-Hart: It has been transformative for the families we serve. Our enrollment has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Our students are now enrolled in workforce programs that will lead to a family sustaining wage. We saw a 40% increase in enrollment based on the free tuition program. It is already producing outcomes and increased retention and success in the classroom.
▶ 1:07:48Sen. Sanders: What I'm hearing from you is the investment made in those students is going to pay off in a whole lot of ways.
▶ 1:07:57Dr. Lowery-Hart: Yes, the roi on this is undeniable. Every economist will tell you that education attainment is the biggest predictor of which communities will succeed or fail. Right now in austin, we are importing talent from all over the globe. We need to be investing in our own local students. The free tuition program is helping us to do that.
▶ 1:08:18Sen. Sanders: Mr. pierce, what is your sense of what free tuition would mean to working-class families in this country?
▶ 1:08:25Mr. Pierce: It would mean widespread economic opportunity. And it is not just for those families that are going to be able to get a job with a family-sustaining wage. Our communities are better off when we have more education. There is more innovation, more jobs. An economy that we build in the middle of 20th century that is the envy of the world. We get back there educating our workforce.
▶ 1:08:49Sen. Sanders: Thank you come Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:08:52Chair Cassidy: My turn? Dr. brown, you have written about the challenges facing the parent plus program, pointed out that hbcu students and parents rely on parent plus, but sometimes it settles a family would that they cannot pay. So that which is extended in compassion becomes a shackle keeping them from growth. Could you comment on that? Those are my words, not yours, but I feel just as passionate as you.
▶ 1:09:20Dr. Brown: I agree that the parent plus loans, loans in general, create a financial burden on students that is not sustainable. Specifically if a family has an estimated emmy contribution of zero and you extend a parent plus loan to that family, what is the likelihood that family will, with any reason, be able to pay it? But it's a far more complex question than that.
▶ 1:09:48Dr. Brown: If you remove those loans without an alternative, history tells us that stops access. If we go back to the founding of the whole title war program, this was supposed to be solved within the pell grant part of the program, not in the loan part. The loans created that trap, takes away the social and economic mobility that is intended of education. So I wish we didn't need the loans at all, but until we do something to reform the level of pell grant, it ends up being the difference in access.
▶ 1:10:18Dr. Brown: I will offer one more example. In 2011, when there were credit changes to the parent plus loan system, we saw immediately a decline of around 3% to 4% of students who attended hbcus, while enrollment was going about other schools. So in a sense, we made education available for the elite, did not make education available for the masses.
▶ 1:10:44Chair Cassidy: The parent plus program -- looking at some statistics. I understand about a 34% borrow more than the $50,000 cap being proposed. I've heard stories of people borrowing from multiple kids and they end up in incredible debt, drowning in debt from this. So I think when you are saying is there needs to be another way to finance this.
▶ 1:11:10Dr. Brown: I'm saying it is the wrong tool for social and economic mobility. The loan is the wrong tool. But it is the only tool unless there is an alternative to make sure you have access. It is definitely the wrong tool. You don't give a person who cannot make a payment a loan. You instead went to a different tool. Again, I believe the intent of the original higher education act was to fix this within the pell grant program.
▶ 1:11:35Chair Cassidy: Dr. lindsay, a lot of conversation about the lack of moral clarity on college campuses, about tolerance of incivility that then becomes violent, about counseling people with different views. You are a christian organization. I imagine there would be very noxious views. There is a tension there, the counseling versus the moral clarity.
▶ 1:12:01Chair Cassidy: In your experience -- because were enrollment is growing, you are doing well -- how do you manage that tension between some viewpoint which might be noxious to your theology, but at the same time, having more clarity?
▶ 1:12:19Dr. Lindsay: Fundamentally, we believe all truth is god's truth, so we are not afraid to debate issues. I was on the research faculty for a number of years. At taylor, I feel like we have more freedom to engage in contentious topic that I ever faced on that research campus. Part of what happens is when you are part of a community that has a shared set of moral commitments, which we do, it creates a degree of freedom within a framework of faith. We have found our students thrive with the opportunity.
▶ 1:12:51Dr. Lindsay: We want our students to be well equipped to address all the pressing issues. They are not simple answers, we know that. You have to engage a variety of concerns in a thoughtful and deliberative way.
▶ 1:13:00Chair Cassidy: If somebody advocated for polygamy, they could speak, but it would be in the context of an audience which had well grounded sense of moral clarity.
▶ 1:13:11Dr. Lindsay: We have students that are incredibly thoughtful about their theological commitments, how it informs their academic pursuits. We welcome any speaker to come to our campus. They will find our student to be engaging, prepared, bring a degree of clarity to the pressing moral issues we see in our day.
▶ 1:13:29Chair Cassidy: Dr. gillen, Dr. brown just spoke about we know these parent plus programs really end up burdening people in tremendous debt. You made a statement that sometimes increased revenue is spent but there is diminishing return in terms of the benefit, however you define the benefit. He said if you cut the parent plus, how do you replace it? There is a tension there. From your perspective, how is that tension addressed?
▶ 1:13:58Dr. Gillen: I totally agree that the parent plus is the wrong tool to try to do an address this problem. I actually had a paper that argued we should get rid of parent plus an increase pell grant to make up for the gap that parents were contributing to their student's education. That is one option, increase pell grant. Another option is just rely more on the private sector to do that lending.
▶ 1:14:28Dr. Gillen: The main problem with the parent plus loan is that they are not doing credit checks. You are giving parents who cannot afford the dt a huge amount of debt, c1 they are not going to get repaid.
▶ 1:14:45Chair Cassidy: You are not disputing the money is there, just a wise way to finance it. Senator hassan.
▶ 1:14:53Senator Hassan: Thank you Mr. chair and ranking member sanders. To the panel, thank you for clear and compelling and interesting testimony. I think it is really important to frame this a little bit. For a lot of time, the debate about higher education has been about either we should increase scholarships and I agree we should expand pell grant's more and I'm also concerned about the
▶ 1:15:23Senator Hassan: Current republican congressional proposal to cut back on pell and make it harder for working students in particular. We should also make higher education less expensive and have alternatives for students as we move forward. I'm focused on making higher education more accessible so I want to get at a couple of things.
▶ 1:15:54Senator Hassan: One of the things we have to start with Mr. pierce is how difficult the process is for fafsa right now. We can all agree the rollout of the simplified fafsa could have and should have gone a whole lot better. Students and institutions deserve a well-functioning fafsa process and staff. The trump administration announced it was slashing department of education personnel by half.
▶ 1:16:24Senator Hassan: Within 24 hours, the fafsa site was down for several hours. I was the administration's chaotic and arbitrary cuts at the department of education impacting operations and are there concerns that the agency will be able to fulfill legal obligations without adequate staff?
▶ 1:16:41Mr. Pierce: We are already watching federal student aid come apart at the seams. They surveyed their members.
▶ 1:17:11Mr. Pierce: Students and families are scared they won't know how to navigate the complicated financial aid system.
▶ 1:17:18Sen. Hassan: Thank you. Dr. lowery-hart, I want to talk about credit transfer costs. According to research by southern new hampshire university, it is a real issue.
▶ 1:17:50Sen. Hassan: Loss transcripts, transcript request fee's, students lose valuable time and are less likely to complete their degree. What more must be done to recruit -- remove credit transfer barriers and is there a role for the federal government?
▶ 1:18:11Dr. Lowery-Hart: I think community colleges make the attainment of a bachelors degree more affordable. It is going to require header your education -- higher education to align itself. In austin, we have aligned ourselves, faculty alignment to ensure no credit loss. Scholarships waiting for them, data sharing, advising those students from day one.
▶ 1:18:43Dr. Lowery-Hart: Those are things that aren't just a best practice, they should be required.
▶ 1:18:46Sen. Hassan: I appreciate that and senator young and I last introduced fasttrack to and through college and one of the other things is align high schools who have students ready for college level work so the students are getting those credits in place. Dr.
▶ 1:19:12Sen. Hassan: Lowery-hart, one commonsense step we can take to drive down student loan debt and increase consumer transparency is by making sure that the student financial aid process is clear and easy to navigate one of the front end ever get senators grassley, smith, tuberville and I introduced the true cost of college act which would create a form so students can more easily compare financial aid packages between schools and determine
▶ 1:19:43Sen. Hassan: What is the best fit for them. How will reducing the complexity of the financial aid system and empower students on the front and help students access and afford college?
▶ 1:19:54Dr. Lowery-Hart: First of all, please make that happen. [laughter] it is one of the biggest barriers especially with first-generation college students who may not have the support to make sense of the bureaucracy. It is wide austin community college we do have a financial literacy requirement before students sign. Any loan or even scholarship, it is a very cumbersome, difficult process to articulate for people that don't have experience with it.
▶ 1:20:22Sen. Hassan: And even for those of us who do shepherding students through it is a challenge. Thanks, Mr. chair.
▶ 1:20:29Chair Cassidy: I will note that under chairman alexander and ranking member murray, this body pushed to make fafsa more understandable. The work that had been done in trump 1, was never met on deadline by the biden administration so importantly trump 2 is having to rebuild from something that was a disaster.
▶ 1:20:56Sen. Hassan: Something we should be able to work on together all of us.
▶ 1:20:59Chair Cassidy: Yes. Senator marshall.
▶ 1:21:02Senator Marshall: Thank you. Welcome to our guests. The student that the ranking member spoke about was me. I was the student that graduated first in a class of 200, had act scores that were really good. I applied to kansas state, kansas university thinking this is where I'm going to go. But I would have had to borrow money to do it. So instead I chose a community college.
▶ 1:21:33Senator Marshall: Near as I can tell calc 1 was calc 1. Everybody makes decisions and part of it should be financial. I looked this up a second ago, the tuition at a community college on average, $5,000 a year. A state university, $12,000. Out-of-state university, $30,000. A private school is $43,000.
▶ 1:22:05Senator Marshall: So, that first year in community college I spent way less than $5,000 but today you could spend $5,000 versus $43,000 and I would note that the cost of living typically in community college cities is a lot less than the big university cities as well. I think the question is at what point should the federal government reward people for making financial decisions that they should be responsible for? But it is a lot more than just choosing the school.
▶ 1:22:35Senator Marshall: Students today are told to take five years to go to college. When they should easily be done in four years. One way you can do that is to rack up credits in high school. It is why we support the perkins grants as well. Maybe you enter a lot of students today have an opportunity to enter that first year of college and already have a semester underneath her belt. I think that is a false narrative that it should take five years.
▶ 1:23:08Senator Marshall: I've made decisions through my whole life whether to borrow money or to work. I worked part-time jobs in high school, community college, college, med school, even residency I worked part-time jobs rather than borrow money. When we had our first child in medical school, I chose to join the army reserve as opposed to borrowing money. And I understand that some people are going to do better in a private college, knock your socks off. Some people are going to do better.
▶ 1:23:37Senator Marshall: I can't imagine students that couldn't do just as good at a community college. And somehow financial literacy should be important to making that decision. And of course, Dr. lowery-hart: and of course, Dr. lowery-hart, you are my community college person here. Do your kids struggle when they go on to universities and onto med school? Or was it ok that they started at a community college? How much money did they save?
▶ 1:24:07Dr. Lowery-Hart: Well, depending on where they went, the level of savings will vacillate, but they all saved money starting at a community college. The data is pretty clear and my colleagues will confirm, community colleges that transfer to universities perform at or better than students that originated at those universities. They are well prepared. It is because of what you mentioned. Calc 1, comp 1 is the same.
▶ 1:24:38Dr. Lowery-Hart: The difference is at a community college, they are being taught by a masters or phd rather than a graduate assistant, so I think the instruction in those basic courses are better because our faculty is more experienced in teaching in those areas. And the dual enrollment piece, senator marshall, is really critical. It can be a solution for making college more affordable. It was for my own three kids, all of which went to a community college before university.
▶ 1:25:09Dr. Lowery-Hart: The challenges for the millions of adults that need to come back and upscale and how they can afford it while still working is why I think pell eligibility is particularly important.
▶ 1:25:22Sen. Marshall: Speak a little bit more about the flexibility of a pell grant. More and more, the great paying jobs, if we just get them in the door for 6-8 hours at a time. How would that be for you?
▶ 1:25:38Dr. Lowery-Hart: Really important. They can lead to a family sustaining wage. Those students can enter that profession whether it is at tesla or samsung, work for six months. Those stackable credentials are what will change their family for generations to come and ensure that our communities are able to meet the moment we are in an economic challenge that we have.
▶ 1:26:05Sen. Marshall: You see time and again, the story of a person that came back in a year or two and continued that education and that particular person ends up being a superstar on the job site. Thank you, chairman.
▶ 1:26:20Chair Cassidy: Senator kim.
▶ 1:26:23Senator Kim: I want to start with something you had raised in your remarks. Part of this conversation is about what value does education give to our nation? How do we make education valuable to our country? That idea of value is not just about the cost and price tag. I guess I just want to address this issue of risksharing.
▶ 1:26:51Senator Kim: How do you hold a college or university responsible for many of the personal actions or disk -- that a former student may be making. You have talked about the holistic challenges facing some of the students at your institution.
▶ 1:27:13Senator Kim: What different factors would affect the pay back loans, it is not just about the wages, but also about health care costs they might have.
▶ 1:27:27Dr. Brown: Just to be share on risksharing, we accept 30% of our students at our school that apply. Some schools except 2% or 3%. There is a commitment of historically black colleges. They do better, they achieve social and economic mobility.
▶ 1:27:54Dr. Brown: I think the biggest loans, I think the data will support that. You also consider the risk is not equal among colleges and if you decide you will service a larger group, the risk is going to be higher.
▶ 1:28:22Dr. Brown: The return for the country may be and I think the data supports this, far greater when you look at the social and economic earning power of those students.
▶ 1:28:33Sen. Kim: I can see a potential consequence of this being such that schools may be less hesitant to admit certain types of students if they have lower economic backgrounds. I know there are talks about offsets to their. Could that be an unforeseen consequence?
▶ 1:29:02Dr. Brown: I think in under 10 did -- an unintended consequences that would become more selective on who we allow to enter school and that should not be the basis.
▶ 1:29:31Dr. Brown: Nor do I believe hbcus would do that given our historical mission.
▶ 1:29:36Sen. Kim: Dr. gillen, I wanted to get your perspective on this. How do we try to single out in colleges and universities in terms of that risk when there are so many other issues. Kids and challenges on that front. How do you go about teasing that out.
▶ 1:30:04Dr. Gillen: Those factors tend to be randomly distributed among all colleges. You account for most of that. It makes it so the college that cannot profit so they get all of that money up front even if the
▶ 1:30:35Dr. Gillen: Student never repays the loan right now. So, that to me is the big advantage of the risksharing, weeding out that portion of the higher education sector. But yes, you are absolutely right. I think if you do a general small exemption like 3%.
▶ 1:30:53Sen. Kim: Look, I wanted to share just how much this could be very damaging in different ways and the unintended consequences. The other thing I want to raise in my final seconds, I had -- it has the potential to threaten and undermine our traditional liberal arts education as a whole. And part of what we have profited by is the creativity, innovation.
▶ 1:31:27Sen. Kim: They are much more driven toward specific careers. It could push colleges to divest from arts and humanities programs is that -- if that is going to be a greater risk bringing on those types of students. With that, I will yield back, Mr. chair.
▶ 1:31:53Chair Cassidy: Senator moody.
▶ 1:31:55Senator Moody: Thank you and thank you to our witnesses for taking time to be here away from your families and jobs. This is an important hearings from our earliest beginning as a nation, access to education was seen as a fundamental bedrock for the sustainment of a republic governed by a free people.
▶ 1:32:17Senator Moody: Our founders and subsequent generations new that if we educated with virtue and knowledge that would ensure our fierce protection of our rights and liberties and ensure the strength of this country from one generation to the next and in time it led to more americans having access to education to attend college and improve their lives and the lives of their children.
▶ 1:32:44Senator Moody: As a result, our nation, the prestige of our institution group. However, in recent times we have seen our institutions move away from or even fail in the original, basic mission. Students are graduating with higher amounts of debt, with degrees that are sometimes not even useful and in some cases they even have a disdain for the very principles and ideals needed to continue this great experiment in self-government.
▶ 1:33:16Senator Moody: Further across the country, colleges and universities have failed in their duty to protect students from harm and to foster intellectual debate and a growth of ideas. Instead, as we have seen play out in the media time and again, they have allowed protests to iraq in violence, buildings to be overrun, all while our tuition across the nation continues to rise.
▶ 1:33:44Senator Moody: In florida, we have shown that this does not have to be the case. In fact, we undertook very aggressive efforts to ensure that our students were protected and at the same time we made sure that we are demanding guaranteeing accountability I would like to brag on fiu received an a from the anti-defamation league from
▶ 1:34:14Senator Moody: Combating anti-semitism. As our state continues to make strides to support our students and joining civic workforce and make civic strides. The university of florida, the champions of the basketball world are coming to washington today, go gators. Finally, our colleges and universities.
▶ 1:34:50Senator Moody: Leading to more successful outcomes for students. I would like to turn to our witnesses and I would like to start Dr. lindsay. You have knowledged the role of higher education. Grounded in faith and community. I believe these are traits we are sorely missing today.
▶ 1:35:16Senator Moody: At the same time we need to bring back to ensure that our students are equipped to meet job requirements and demand today, especially as this administration is really bolstering american businesses and bringing those jobs back. But also the demands for the job markets of the future. How do you view the relationship between the two societal needs?
▶ 1:35:41Senator Moody: Do you believe they are intentioned or through your work and experience is there a way to meet both the needs without sacrificing one or the other?
▶ 1:35:49Dr. Lindsay: We certainly believe that you can instill a sense of civic mindedness of service over self and at the same time preparing students for the jobs that might be out there. Two thirds of my freshmen will pursue careers that have not yet been invented. We need to have a degree of having intellectual agility. The liberal arts idea that senator kim was mentioning prepares them for a dynamic workplace environment.
▶ 1:36:15Dr. Lindsay: At taylor, we have found that our students can marry a commitment of civic mindedness and developing virtue and at the same time getting the intellectual and professional development that will serve them well not just for the first job they take but for the rest of their lives. For their communities and the wider world and their professions.
▶ 1:36:38Sen. Moody: What are steps other universities and colleges could take now to meet the approach you are taking but ensure there is balance?
▶ 1:36:45Dr. Lindsay: I mentioned how important it is for us to be committed to loving our hometowns. That is a simple way you can get students involved with volunteering through local nonprofits and interning to solve problems the private sector has. It gives students professional experience and deep engagement in the local community.
▶ 1:37:03Sen. Moody: We need to learn to love our hometowns.
▶ 1:37:06Chair Cassidy: Somehow I think Dr. lindsay is a sociologist. You know what I'm saying? It is coming through, man. It is coming through. When major general macy is doing push-ups behind him. Senator hickenlooper.
▶ 1:37:21Senator Hickenlooper: Thank you, Mr. chair, thank all of you. I want to ask a couple different questions. Maybe I will go down the list. At various times, there has been talk of a website that would allow prospective students to see of any university the best estimate it could be what kind of earnings they could achieve based on what they studied.
▶ 1:37:56Senator Hickenlooper: These are averages and there would have to be qualifications on that. I want to ask each of you to very briefly give a thumbs up or what is a real concern about that? I recognize the limitations. Tied into that, there has also from time to time been efforts to allow students future loans to be able to declare bankruptcy. What would happen if you deployed that right that lenders are looking for to make sure they can get paid back?
▶ 1:38:28Senator Hickenlooper: You would probably see decreased access, I recognize that, but I postulate those two questions. What about the website that tries to give prospective students a vision of what they could earn in the future? Why do we start down at the end with Dr. gillen.
▶ 1:38:42Dr. Gillen: I think that's a great idea. We do have an early version of this. You can look up my college and major. There are some limitations. I think it is borderline criminal that we don't also tell them, what jobs do they get? Did the veterinarian graduates work as a vet? Or they working somewhere else?
▶ 1:39:14Dr. Gillen: It is not necessarily bad, just a great idea.
▶ 1:39:16Sen. Hickenlooper: Quickly.
▶ 1:39:18Dr. Gillen: The second question was about loans?
▶ 1:39:21Sen. Hickenlooper: Can you declare bankruptcy? On loans?
▶ 1:39:25Dr. Gillen: Um, that is a great question. I would argue no for now but I would put it. You can't declare bankruptcy the first few years after graduation, because nobody has any assets but after a few years.
▶ 1:39:44Sen. Hickenlooper: Ok.
▶ 1:39:46Dr. Lindsay: I changed my major four times in college and I think most people do. Oftentimes you choose a major not because you are interested in the field but you love the faculty. I'm not a huge fan of saying what you major in his white your life success will be or the earnings you will have. I did a study of 550 senior leaders and I found 73% actually majored in a liberal arts field even though most of them were working in business later. The major is not the direct predictor of long-term success.
▶ 1:40:16Dr. Lindsay: But I think it is important for us to be more transparent of the outcomes are students are getting and that is what I think you are trying to get at.
▶ 1:40:21Sen. Hickenlooper: And if you are switching majors, I really like this faculty, what is my future like?
▶ 1:40:29Dr. Brown: I believe we should have to show students what the average earnings are for the degree that they choose. I think that is a big deal. There may be some majors and I will use teaching as an example, where we have people who want to be teachers but we all know full well those teachers will not necessarily earn the same thing compared to others.
▶ 1:40:52Dr. Brown: In terms of your second question on bankruptcy, I believe there are catastrophic things that happen in the lives of everyone so student loans like any other kind of debt should be eligible for bankruptcy.
▶ 1:41:02Mr. Pierce: Career and labor market outcomes are critical. We infuse those into our first advising session with our community college students. A national model would be exceptional. It just needs to be reflective of the community and what is happening in the economy in the local community. I think it also needs to be reflected back to the programs themselves, where they know what their student outcomes are and can adjust the curriculum to be responsive to that.
▶ 1:41:33Sen. Hickenlooper: Bankruptcy?
▶ 1:41:35Dr. Lowery-Hart: I'm going to leave that to the policy experts. [laughter]
▶ 1:41:39Mr. Pierce: I will take my cue and say restoring people rights to bankruptcy, we have a decades long experiment and it has resulted in people staying in debt for decades into retirement. The government is required to chase people down and take social security checks. Having an exhaust valve in the student loan system makes people get a fresh start and live full economic lives. I would also note building when when everybody else at which I agree with about the value of data and shopping and transparency.
▶ 1:42:09Mr. Pierce: The trump administration has fired the statisticians responsible for managing the college scorecard. We are flying blind.
▶ 1:42:15Sen. Hickenlooper: That is very sobering. I'm out of time but I'm not out of questions. We can come back for second round later or I will submit them in writing. I appreciate it. For the record, I switched majors three times, I got an undergraduate degree in english and creed of writing, and I sucked as a writer and my friends pointed that out to me so I got a masters in geology. Having a better understanding along the way would have had value to a lot of us.
▶ 1:42:46Chair Cassidy: We have the college transparency act, you should be a cosponsor. It does exactly what you're saying we should be doing.
▶ 1:42:54Sen. Hickenlooper: Im.
▶ 1:42:56Chair Cassidy: Super. [laughter]
▶ 1:42:58Sen. Hickenlooper: We younger junior senators don't always get the notice and appreciation we deserve.
▶ 1:43:05Chair Cassidy: Let's get kane and blunt rochester. Senator hawley.
▶ 1:43:10Senator Hawley: Thanks, Mr. chairman. Dr. lindsay, I want to start with you, you lead a historically christian college, we have a number of faith-based including christian colleges and universities which we are very proud of. You mentioned college of the ozarks in your testimony which is right where I live.
▶ 1:43:37Senator Hawley: Let me ask you about the challenges christian colleges and universities have faced in the last four years. I have heard from our institutions in the state of missouri that they had major problems with the dacian and financial aid and problems getting certified in various programs, we had threatening letters sent from the department of education to numerous of our religious institutions, colleges and universities that have been around a hundred years or more. Our baptist universities, our nondenominational universities.
▶ 1:44:12Senator Hawley: Can you speak to the headwinds christian colleges have faced and preserving this distinctive form of education?
▶ 1:44:19Dr. Lindsay: One of the challenges all of us face or the democratic challenges. Faith-based colleges, people make assumptions about what kind of students we have or what kind of campus cultures we build but I find when people actually come to our campuses, they fall in love with the students and see this as a place that is trying to help students to thrive.
▶ 1:44:46Dr. Lindsay: You are right that the regulatory environment can be challenging and there are certain actors in the political landscape that can make it more challenging. I'm grateful for the progress we have been able to make in recent years which has made it easier than 10 years ago that I think all faith-based -- faith-based institutions have to do a better job making the case of the difference we make in our communities. We need -- we are not enclaves, we are serving and blessing our communities.
▶ 1:45:15Sen. Hawley: Let me ask you about the equal cancer -- equal campus access act that ensures religious student organizations can operate in faith-based principles and it would prohibit funding for public institutions if they deny rights or benefits to student faith-based organizations. You are a faith-based institution. You educate people of faith and many will teach in a book universities.
▶ 1:45:42Sen. Hawley: It is important that if you are a person of faith, whether you are leading a university, whether you are teaching at a public university that you are accorded the same rights and privileges as everybody else. There is no discrimination on the basis of faith.
▶ 1:45:54Dr. Lindsay: Public institutions have a particular object -- obligation to uphold the right for freedom of speech and a recognition of free conscience. It seems antithetical to the very premise of what we are trying to inculcate in our students at public institutions if the students are not allowed the opportunity to organize around their religious convictions and be able to have a chance to express those.
▶ 1:46:18Dr. Lindsay: It has had a chilling effect on many campuses as overzealous administrators have said we are trying to shut down some of the activities of faith-based groups. I think there is a real hopeful opportunity and certainly I support the expression of those constitutional rights.
▶ 1:46:33Sen. Hawley: Very good and I want to come back to the first point I made, it is vital we do everything to protect christian colleges and universities and their rights to educate students on an equal plane with every other university. In the last four years, we saw a constant effort to undermine the mission of christian colleges and universities by the biden administration.
▶ 1:47:01Sen. Hawley: I'm glad the trump administration has reversed course, but congress needs to inscribe into law the equal rights of christian colleges and universities so no one is discriminated against on the basis of faith. You talked about loving your neighbor, I want to think about the crisis of anti-semitism currently afflicting many universities and many parts of this country, frankly. What makes me think about this as I was having a conversation with a dear rabbi friend of mine who is said to me something interesting.
▶ 1:47:31Sen. Hawley: He made a reference to the book of ruth in the bible. I happened to catch it. He said, part of the challenge we face now is that so few people, so few students in particular are taught any kind of biblical history. They are certainly not taught the history of israel.
▶ 1:47:53Sen. Hawley: They don't understand the spiritual foundations that link the people of israel with historically with the united states of america, our shared moral principles. Do you think that christian colleges and universities have a special role to play now in rooting out this scourge of anti-semitism by recalling us to those things that we believe together and are common moral principles and the foundational
▶ 1:48:24Sen. Hawley: Commitments like love of neighbor?
▶ 1:48:24Dr. Lindsay: A couple of years ago, I had a chance to visit our honor students studying at jerusalem university college, one of our partner institutions literally built within the wall around jerusalem. Getting a chance to see up close the holy land and to see the impact it was having under the lives of our students really changed their understanding of the experience of jewish people around the world. Part of what we want to try to do is help our students to actually engage in much wider world for them to understand friends and neighbors from a wide variety of backgrounds.
▶ 1:48:58Dr. Lindsay: As you get past that, you move past a mediocre, small level commitment of inclusion to pursue an ethic of love and care.
▶ 1:49:06Sen. Hawley: In my remaining seconds, let me put a finer point on this. Don't you think that christians in particular have a ticket or obligation to stand up and speak against anti-semitism and hatred of the jewish people? That that is a particular obligation.
▶ 1:49:24Sen. Hawley: I say this as a believer of myself, that we have a particular obligation to stand against hate always, but a particular opposition to anti-semitism.
▶ 1:49:40Dr. Lindsay: Absolutely.
▶ 1:49:41Chair Cassidy: Senator kaine.
▶ 1:49:44Senator Kaine: A personal story, a worry, and a question. Personal story and hearing senator marshall talk about how community college was really orton to his educational path. Getting a good education and not going into too much depth, for me it was dual enrollment, being able to go through the university of missouri, which was at the time relatively low cost public institution in three years rather than four was a really big deal for my family.
▶ 1:50:14Senator Kaine: There is no one-size-fits-all for college. For some it is dual enrollment, for some it is pell grants, we have to equip students and families much earlier. You have the capacity to get a great education, there are a lot of different ways to do it. So often parents and kids don't know the breadth of choices to achieve a high quality education that doesn't break the bank.
▶ 1:50:43Senator Kaine: My colleagues have shared worries about higher education, whether it is anti-semitism and other things. My biggest worry right now is if I look at if I look at the dismantling of the department of education, dramatic cuts in research funding and budgets that are being bandied about defunding to libraries, museums and cultural institutions, elimination of funding to public broadcasting.
▶ 1:51:13Senator Kaine: Even directives to certain agencies like the national weather service and noaa that have a lot of public information they have been sharing with the public like you shouldn't share it with the public, you should sell it, I'm a little bit worried there is a privatization of knowledge thing going on. I'm really worried about that, that knowledge could be available for those that can afford it, not for those who can't. That worries me a lot.
▶ 1:51:38Senator Kaine: There is a famous phrase from jefferson that is sorta paraphrased in the virginia constitution that says, progress in government and all else depends upon the broadest possible diffusion of knowledge among the general population. That was part of a legislative bill that jefferson proposed in 1779 for a virginia public school system that wasn't adopted, but the title and the philosophy was the way to preserve government and progress is to take knowledge and get it into people's hands.
▶ 1:52:10Senator Kaine: And diffuse it broadly among the public. That will be an accelerator of progress. I worry that the combination of budget cuts and privatization of this and that is jeopardizing that. That is the worry I have. Here's my question. Dr.
▶ 1:52:26Senator Kaine: Lowery-hart, I've been proposing during the 10 years through three presidents, presidents obama, trump, biden, trump, with vast bipartisan support the notion that pell grant should not be provided purely to college curriculum where there is a 15 long semester like course. They should be made available for high-quality quality career and technical education.
▶ 1:53:00Senator Kaine: I advocate that has the son of an ironworker? I have been advocating it for manufacturing bills and infrastructure bills. Who is going to make it, who is going to fund it? When I first introduced it with rob portman and a succession of others, senator marshall and collins and senator smith, we fall short.
▶ 1:53:31Senator Kaine: It happened on the house side and not the senate side. I have kind of come to the conclusion in addition to maybe I'm not as persuasive as I could be so I have to own some of that. Number one, there is a snobbishness about college in this place. That college is good and career and technical education is not so good.
▶ 1:53:54Senator Kaine: I'm all for college, a proud university of missouri grad, route harvard law school grad, but I'm also all for high quality career and technical education. I'm happy to say that the chairman of the committee has been a cosponsor in the past.
▶ 1:54:14Senator Kaine: Would it help your students, would it help educate our population if we allowed flexibility and allowed pell grant to be used by students who were seeking high quality career and technical training?
▶ 1:54:28Dr. Lowery-Hart: Yes. Profoundly. We talked about my typical student is named ashlan and she is a when he seven-year-old single mother raising a kid working two part-time jobs. She needs that additional support. It may take her six months to do. There is a family sustaining wage waiting for her on the other side of it. That would change the path for her entire family and the generations that follow.
▶ 1:55:00Dr. Lowery-Hart: I would just say, she deserves our advocacy, she deserves she is cared for that my colleague's students deserve, but she is often misunderstood and ignored.
▶ 1:55:15Sen. Kaine: As I yelled back, I said there are three reasons I think this is not proceeding, I think I'm not as persuasive as I think I should be, there is a snobbishness about college we need to get over, and we don't mark of legislation. We should mark up like the jobs act.
▶ 1:55:35Chair Cassidy: I want to markup legislation. Senator banks.
▶ 1:55:40Senator Banks: Dr. lindsay, in your opening remarks in your written statement, you talked about moral rock. I wonder if you can tell us what you mean by that?
▶ 1:55:51Dr. Lindsay: I think it is the erosion of basic human values that we have seen become sort of the standard and norm and a lot of higher education, which is entirely antithetical to the purpose of what education is designed to do.
▶ 1:56:07Sen. Banks: Words that come from, why do we see a fosters so heavily on college campuses?
▶ 1:56:12Dr. Lindsay: I think it is an e because we are humans that make lots of mistakes that we need to have guardrails that keeps us from our were sensibilities. Part of what we seek to try to do is put ourselves in communities that can occur just to pursue a virtuous life.
▶ 1:56:27Sen. Banks: What motivates it on a college campus?
▶ 1:56:30Dr. Lindsay: I think that probably the important dimension that we want to do is create an academic community and environment where we uphold values that we agreed to. There has to be clarity. Institutions have to say, this is what we stand for and what we are. A lot of higher education hasn't been doing that. We may not be the right place for every student so we want to recruit the right kind of students. We want to create an ecosystem where those virtues can thrive and flourish.
▶ 1:56:58Sen. Banks: I would assume that all of you here, every college president in america would agree that their overall mission is to prepare students for careers and make them good citizens. Prepare them to be better citizens of this great country. Why do so many colleges stray from that?
▶ 1:57:17Dr. Lindsay: I think probably the larger purposes we are seeing, the noble cause of our education oftentimes gets eroded when we get involved in the nitty-gritty of regulatory environments and trying to respond to the economic challenges we face. All three of us would say we are working hard to try to make our institutions as affordable as possible and it is hard work every single day.
▶ 1:57:41Dr. Lindsay: But it is those larger aims, those higher ideals that draw my colleagues and me to try to do everything we can to serve our students more effectively.
▶ 1:57:52Sen. Banks: To me it almost feels like a political movement and we see it manifest itself in things like d.e.I. For example. You represent a very well respected independent institution in my state, who has rejected this political d.e.I. Movement. Why have some any college in america embraced it? Is it donor driven? Is it pushed on you by institutions in the federal government?
▶ 1:58:22Sen. Banks: Is it tied to federal funding? What would motivate a d.e.I. Movement on college campuses which seems antithetical to the mission you described?
▶ 1:58:29Dr. Lindsay: I can't speak to what happens at other campuses. We love our diverse and global students and that has been a part of what we are. Interesting stories, our first international student was a guy named sandy morris, a liberian prince who had to free liberia when there was a coup. He turned to an american couple who he knew to say, is there a place where I could go?
▶ 1:58:53Dr. Lindsay: It happened to be taylor graduates doing missions work trying to help the liberian people. They wrote to the president of taylor? -- he was our first student of color, his spirit lives on our institution. It sort of informs how we are trying to build a kind of community where all of god's people are welcome at taylor and we recognize we are there to be able to serve and bless. He is a prince, he comes to taylor, we didn't have a room for him to stay in.
▶ 1:59:23Dr. Lindsay: He said give me the room that nobody wants to live in. That kind of spirit of serving others above yourself was what he sort of held up as an exemplar. It has become part of the spirit of our campus.
▶ 1:59:34Sen. Banks: I love that. I grew up in a trailer park in small-town indiana, son of a factory worker. I worked hard just to get into college. And what I appreciate about taylor university is the student I hope didn't get accepted because he was a prince. For because he was a foreign student or because he was a minority student, I hope that he was accepted because of your merit-based approach to accepting students, can you talk about that?
▶ 2:00:04Sen. Banks: Can you talk about taylor embracing more of a merit-based approach than the d.e.I. Or political approach to admissions?
▶ 2:00:10Dr. Lindsay: I think it is super important that you find mission appropriate students. They have to be academically strong, our average high school gpa is 3.89. We are really proud of the academic standards we uphold and it helps us to realize we might not be the right place for every student, but for those who want to be at taylor we want to find a place for them.
▶ 2:00:28Sen. Banks: When we talk about preparing students for their career, to be good citizens, I think that is really important and to reject the political approach and to accept students based on merit and give them an opportunity and I think taylor does that very well. Mr. chairman, healed back.
▶ 2:00:47Chair Cassidy: Senator blunt rochester.
▶ 2:00:51Senator Blunt Rochester: Thank you Mr. chairman enter ranking member sanders and Mr. chairman, I will be looking at your transparency bill. I also want to acknowledge that in the house I had the opportunity to lead on the short-term pell grant bill and I'm hopeful that the jobs act will become the law of the land. I want to thank our witnesses for being here. Thank you, Dr. lindsay, especially, for the comments you just made.
▶ 2:01:23Senator Blunt Rochester: About all of us being welcoming and all of us uplifting each other. It is a comment that needs to be heard far and wide.
▶ 2:01:36Senator Blunt Rochester: We know college isn't for everyone but every student should have the opportunity to pursue higher education not only is the former secretary of labor of delaware who is focused on the jobs of today, but also as a mom of two children who graduated from delaware public schools and hbcus as well, I know a college degree can be incredibly valuable.
▶ 2:02:05Senator Blunt Rochester: It appears the administration is stripping away supports for students, I'm incredibly disappointed that the president's budget proposes eliminating trio programs. They provide support to low income, first-generation students, students with disabilities and veterans, helping them not only get in the door, but to succeed in college and the workplace.
▶ 2:02:37Senator Blunt Rochester: This helps create brighter futures for themselves through higher education. It makes them competitive globally. So many students have graduated from college with this help. Dr. lowery-hart, can you tell me how many students would lose access to support if this was eliminated? It has almost 900,000 students currently and rolled.
▶ 2:03:07Sen. Blunt Rochester: What impact do these programs have on students? Do you think eliminating it would improve our higher education system?
▶ 2:03:16Dr. Lowery-Hart: It certainly wouldn't improve it at all. You have the demonstrable impact of programs that reflect the data nationally. 83% of students in our local area that are upward bound students enroll in a postsecondary entity.
▶ 2:03:41Dr. Lowery-Hart: 46% of the students get a bachelors degree compared to those who didn't have the same kinds of supports. I'm looking at data. 47% of trio students are more likely to finish a bachelors degree than students that have the same demographic background but don't have the same support that comes in the form of financial literacy, mentoring, academic skill building, the very things we have spent our time talking about.
▶ 2:04:14Dr. Lowery-Hart: Trio has already done those historically and well.
▶ 2:04:16Sen. Blunt Rochester: In the budget, the administration refers to trio as a relic of the past. I disagree. We are close in age, it's true. In fact, I just signed on to chairman cassidy and senator warnock's bipartisan funding request for trio.
▶ 2:04:43Sen. Blunt Rochester: To me, it is not a nice thing to do, it is not just about it being a nice thing to do. This year alone, all high school seniors at delaware technical community college will graduate. Again more than 90% of them will be attending college. Do you think trio programs are a relic or are they relevant?
▶ 2:05:10Dr. Lowery-Hart: They are relevant.
▶ 2:05:12Sen. Blunt Rochester: Thank you for that answer. If we want a strong economy, we must invest in programs like trio that help real people access education and the tools they need to succeed and I hope my colleagues see that these budget cuts would be harmful, not helpful and that this program is not a relic but is relevant to today. I yield back.
▶ 2:05:33Chair Cassidy: Senator alsobrooks.
▶ 2:05:37Senator Alsobrooks: I would like to begin my comments by saying thank you as well to Dr. lindsay. Your words were so beautiful and it reminds me of a scripture that says by this they will know that you are my disciples, if we love one another. I so appreciate your courageous comments pointing out today that we have an obligation to love each other, whether we are from here or anyplace else in the world. God commands us to lead with love, so thank you so much for that.
▶ 2:06:11Senator Alsobrooks: I'm disturbed and just so sad at the climate that has been created by this administration that pits people against each other, those who have had the opportunity to go to college and those who have not. I'm the daughter of two parents who didn't have the opportunity to attend college. A mother who was a receptionist and a father who worked so hard selling cars and newspapers in order that I might be educated. I had to tell you, nobody is prouder.
▶ 2:06:39Senator Alsobrooks: My father is the single most intelligent person I have ever met, didn't have the chance to go to college. I'm so proud of him and he is so proud of me, but it was both his work as a car salesman enabled me to become a united states senator. So I think it is important as we think through what higher education looks like that we remember that, that it takes both.
▶ 2:07:02Senator Alsobrooks: Those who have opportunities that we give to them and career and technical education and other ways to making it to the middle class are important. I know time goes by quickly and I want to thank all the witnesses for being here. Dr. brown, I'm glad you are here so we can hear the perspective of our hbcu's. Maryland as you know is proud to host four hbcus in the state.
▶ 2:07:30Senator Alsobrooks: I'm looking forward to being the commencement speaker at buie state university this friday. I'm also the mother of a proud daughter who was attending spelman college. I'm looking forward to working with colleges across the aisle to preserve access to funding. This administration took concerning actions briefly suspending the national scholars program which funds students and education in agriculture at hbcu's.
▶ 2:08:01Senator Alsobrooks: I wonder if you can speak to the importance of preserving funding streams for hbcu's.
▶ 2:08:05Dr. Brown: Thank you for that question. It is vitally important and I will start first with the 1819 program which tuskegee is a recipient of it serves the economy around that area. It is where we teach farming, how to farm using solar and to do so year-round.
▶ 2:08:29Dr. Brown: We do this with students who come to this by virtue of education, not by virtue where they started in their life. We have students for example who had never been on farms, they grew up in detroit, got immersed on that if you will and decided to do that service. This program provides them scholarships to go to school and provides them internships like those in washington.
▶ 2:08:55Dr. Brown: The elimination of that program would not only hurt those students and also all the small farmers in programs within a 200 mile radius. Another instance would be our first scientist program which funds research on cancer, specifically ovarian cancer, prostate cancer and other cancerse cancer and other cancers cancer and other cancers specifically ther cancers specifically related to genes and the study of genes.
▶ 2:09:21Dr. Brown: That program which is a part of a grant that has been canceled causes us great concern. We partnered with the university of alabama birmingham with that research and is it -- it is important for us to do it in the black belt of the south where these diseases have the highest morbidity rates that affect people across the country.
▶ 2:09:43Dr. Brown: Those funding streams are critically important but not only to the student, they are important to the national interest when it comes to fighting problematic diseases and also the economy where we make a big difference by virtue of those.
▶ 2:09:54Sen. Alsobrooks: Thank you so much and I will go quickly. Mr. pierce, can I ask you quickly about pell grants and how important they are to so many students? What message do you think it sends to hard-working students when the federal government walks back its investment in pell grant funding?
▶ 2:10:16Mr. Pierce: They are absolutely vital for students from lower income communities to go to college and participate in the economy. I think the message is loud and clear that to cut back on pell we are not serious about making sure colleges open to everybody. We run the risk of america's colleges becoming finishing schools for millionaires and billionaires kids instead of the engine for the economy that it has been for centuries.
▶ 2:10:42Sen. Alsobrooks: I yield back.
▶ 2:10:46Chair Cassidy: I want to thank all of our witnesses. Republicans ask questions of democratic witnesses and democrats ask questions of republican witnesses and that shows there is a broad interest instead of merely repeating partisan talking points. I thank you all. I will announce for my colleagues that questions for the record is due -- are due june 4 at 5:00 p.m..
▶ 2:11:16Chair Cassidy: I again thank you all and discloses the hearing. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]