A College Degree Shouldn’t Be a Debt Sentence

At an event this spring, I spoke with a mom who just returned from dropping her daughter off to finish her first year of college. She shared how proud she was of her but as her eyes began to swell with tears, she shared that her daughter was accepted at every school she applied to but the family couldn’t afford her first choice because she and her husband were still paying off their student loans.

Her story is all too familiar as the cost of a college degree has become a debt sentence for countless families across the country and right here in Pennsylvania.

Over 45 million people shoulder $1.6 trillion dollars in student loan debt. Right now, Pennsylvania students graduate with the most student debt. Our broken federal student loan system, perpetuated by predatory lending and collection practices, double-digit interest rates, ruinous monthly payments and complicated regulations have become a crippling cocktail for the middle-class, leaving many college graduates with little buying power in today’s economy.

This week, I introduced the Justice For Student Borrower’s Act, which restores legal rights to students too often taken advantage of by private student loan lenders. This bill, co-led by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerold Nadler, Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, and Education & Labor Higher Education Subcommittee Chairwoman Susan Davis, would prohibit private student loan lenders from including these arbitration agreements in their private education loans and prohibit private educational lenders from using pre-dispute joint-action waivers in their private education loans.

I have also cosponsored the following bills to protect student borrowers.

Employer Participation in Repayment Act: Expands the tax exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance to include payments of qualified education loans by an employer to either an employee or a lender.

The Pell Grant Restoration Act: This critical legislation would amend Title IV of the Higher Education Act to restore students’ Pell Grant eligibility for any period of time during which they would have qualified for loan forgiveness due to school closure or institutional fraud or misconduct. A companion measure was introduced in the Senate by Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA).

Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act: Amends the Higher Education Act of 1965 to provide for the refinancing of certain Federal student loans.

What You Can Do for Your Country Act: Amends the Higher Education Act of 1965 in order to improve the public service loan forgiveness program, greatly expanding the pool of students who can apply to have their student loans cancelled after 10 years of on-time payments.

Student Borrower Bankruptcy Relief Act: Allows student loans to be dischargeable under bankruptcy filings, effectively treating them like any other kind of consumer debt.

College Transparency Act: Establishes a postsecondary student data system producing new data on program-level college student outcomes like graduate earnings and loan repayment

Relief for Defrauded Students Act: Strengthens the borrower defense rule of the Higher Education Act, allowing for student loan relief in cases of misconduct by institutions

PROTECT Students Act: To protect students of institutions of higher education and the taxpayer investment in institutions of higher education by improving oversight and accountability of institutions of higher education, particularly for-profit colleges, improving protections for students and borrowers, and ensuring the integrity of postsecondary education programs. For student loans, this bill would strengthen the ability of students to seek discharges under the borrower’s defense provision if they were the victims of predatory institutions.

We must do all we can to protect our students and hold entities defrauding students accountable.