lower health care benefits and worse pensions and then the republicans in congress, in the house, are passing a bill saying, oh, by the way, you're only going to make $1,500 a year less but if you have a student loan that you signed on to for your son or daughter, you're going to have to pay double that interest rate. or if you get a student loan, you'll have to pay double the interest rate that it is now. and if you have health care and maybe your kid was going to stay on it because he's under 26 or she's under 26 years old, republicans want to repeal that . so now your kid's got to go out and get health care and pay more on a student loan where you're making $1,500 a year less and your pension's going to be less and your health care's going to be less. what are we doing? this is not the kind of america that we all believe in. and the student loan issue i think cuts right to the heart of it and then you have this compounding assault on the american worker, whether it's right to work for less or whether it's destroy collective bargaining as they tried to do in ohio last year and now it's the student loans and now we can't even ask warren buffett to help out. i think it's time for us to wake up as americans and say, wait a minute, where's the balance, where's the fairness, where's the investment into our future? and many of us are either sons and daughters or grandsons or grandsons or great grandsons or great granddaughters of immigrants. and the value placed upon education in those families -- on those families because that was the way out, that was the way to have success in america. and what scares me about this is that this is not the kind of america many of us believe in. this is not the kind of america many of us want and this is the kind of america that is very, very shortsighted and where we're going to end up. and let me just say lastly, and i'll yield back to the gentlelady, do we really think with 300 million to 400 million people in america, do we really think that we're going to be competitive with 1.3 billion or 1.4 billion, 1.2 billion, 1.5 billion people in india if we are not making adequate investments in education so those that have to deal with right to work, student loans, less pension, less health care, less this, less that at the same time the tax burden is going to be pushed on to them, they'll be forced to vote on a local property tax for police and fire, they will be forced to vote on a local property tax for their local school levies, mental health, the whole nine yards and it's getting continued squeeze for the middle class. and this student loan issue and what's happening with the rates here and the cuts that are being made here are a major part of that and i yield back to the gentlelady. ms. edwards: i'd like to thank the gentleman. i'm reminded as he's speaking there are middle-class families in ohio and all across this country for whom this isn't just about feeling good about making sure that young people can go to college. it's go -- about making certain our middle-class families aren't struggling but they're really surviving in this economy and in the economy going forward. i was reminded again that in ohio, 379,000 students would see an increase of about $294 million if this -- if this increase in student loans is allowed to go forward. and i think about those students at ohio state university, at overland college, at xavier. i can name a lot of them. i remember as a second grader living on wright-patterson air force base in deyton, ohio, and there was not a moment in second grade that my parents would impress on me that i would go to college. my mom and dad didn't know how to go to college but they knew i had to go. and at the time i was such a fan of all those great ohio universities. but i also know that in addition to our savings and to academic scholarships and maybe even to pell grants i would also need to take out student loans. and that's the situation that students in ohio and across this country face in realizing that on july 1, without action by this congress, republicans and democrats, who owe it to middle-class families, to make sure that those student loans don't increase. everything else is increasing. let's not increase the interest rate on student loans. and i thank the gentleman. mr. ryan: you're welcome. i think when you're looking at a state like ohio and like many states. like maryland, like pennsylvania, where you're retooling your economy so you've got to grow scientists, engineers, you know, people involved in technology and math and you got to grow that field so that we can generate the new generation of jobs necessary and you've also got to educate the work force. so no more high school diplomas, not even a year, but get in these apprenticeship programs that the unions have, go to the community college, we have to start lifting them up. if we want to sell products to the global world, solar, wind, renewables, whatever the case may be, batteries, whatever, those people on the factory floor have to have skills that they're not going to get in high school. and this is all part of that program. so i want to thank the gentlelady for taking the time to do this special order and look forward to continuing to support her and the democrats as we try to bring some sanity to this place. i yield back. ms. edwards: i thank the gentleman. you know, yet again, here we are we're talking about a situation where since january, the president and congressional democrats, since january of this year, have been urging republicans to please act so that we don't see an increase in student loan interest, from 3.4%, a doubling to 6.8%. and here we are in april and april is a time when many families, young people have received their notifications that they've been accepted into college, they've received maybe notification of a scholarship opportunity, they also know that their families may have to dig into their savings or they'll have to get a job and then they begin to think, too, about applying for and receiving that student loan so that it puts together the full package of what's needed to go to college. those are the decisions that here in april families all across this country are making. and they're making those decisions not knowing whether this congress is going to fail to act, that would result in an increase in a doubling of student a lot interest. that would cost students not just the $23,000 in debt that they're likely to graduate -- to graduate college holding onto and needing to repay, but an additional $11,000 over the course of that loan, over the history of that loan and the repayment. i think it's really shameful, and i know that there are some in this country who didn't have to worry about how to pay for college. i know that there are some in this country who didn't have to wake up and know that they had to get into a work study program or do like i did, wait tables in addition to going to class, in addition to receiving loans, in addition to receiving scholarships to pay to go to school. but that's the exception in this country. it's not the rule. the overwhelming majority of students across this country who go to college, who want to do better because their parents want them to do better than they did have to do a combination of things in order to afford college. whether it's a four-year institution or community college and getting those skills to put you into the work force or an apprenticeship program, this is the situation that our students and their families are facing. and with that i'd like to yield time to my good friend from rhode island, mr. cicilline. mr. cicilline: i thank the gentlelady from maryland for having this conversation this evening and i say how important it is for me and for residents of my state, the state of rhode island, addressing this issue in a responsible way. rhode island is, of course, the home of the great senator pell after whom the pell grants were named for his great work and making sure there was access to affordable higher education. there was a recent report done that said from the year 2008 to 2018 it's estimated that there will be 47 million job openings created and more than 30 million of these jobs will require at least some level of postsecondary education. so this is really about thinking about our future, the economy of our country and our ability to meet the demands of the new economy of the 21st century and it's an economic imperative for families that they have the ability to access higher education and to do it in an affordable way. in my state, this is particularly important where we have very high unemployment. young adults in 2010, young adults from the ages of 16 to 24, there's an unemployment rate in rhode island of nearly 27%. 2011, 22% for that same age group. that's between 16,000 and 17,000 young adults without the ability to find work in those two years. and this is a very important issue. i talked to so many of my constituents, both students and families who are worried about their ability to continue to access education, that are making decisions as they're getting their letters in the mail where they're going to go to school and thinking about what those costs will be. what's disappointing, what we saw today in this chamber, we've seen this movie before. we've seen it during the extension of the payroll tax cut. we saw it in the transportation bill. this idea of very urgent need that we have to address, working in a bipartisan way and at the very final hours some poison pill is thrown into the bill that is obstructing progress on this issue. today it was women's health and children's health and cutting $12 billion or nearly $12 billion from an important wellness and prevention fund to do this. look, we have got to do this for the sake of young people in this country who are in school, who have school loans, who are thinking about new opportunities. we have got to prevent this increase in interest rates. it's important to families who are struggling in a really difficult economy, but it's also important to the future of our country. we have got to be in position to ensure the best talent has the ability to access education in this country and, you know, there are so many young people who without school loans will never have the opportunity to pursue higher education and to pursue their dream or to make a life for themselves and their family. and we have a responsibility to be sure that we keep these rates low, as low as we possibly can, so that young people and families are not having to struggle with this additional burden at a time when we ought to be encouraging as many as young people as possible to be pursuing higher education and the opportunities and careers that come with it. i come from a state that understands that investing in education is critical to families and critical to economic opportunity. education still is the best tool to bring people from poverty into the middle class and beyond and we have got to make sure that it's available to every single american. and i'm very disappointed today that the measure was undertaken in the way that it was and the president has already indicated an intention to veto this proposal. we have -- there are other proposals we have in this house. i am a co-sponsor that will do this in a responsible way, that has bipartisan support in the senate. we have to do this for the sake of young people in this country and we owe it to families to make sure the interest rate does not double on july 1. i thank the gentlelady for her leadership on this, and i am proud to continue to be part of this important fight for the sake of the future of our young people and for the sake of the future of our country and i thank the gentlelady for yielding. ms. edwards: i thank the gentleman from rhode island, and just want to point out to him as i've pointed out to others of mine colleagues here -- and thank you so much for your eloquence. not just about what those loans mean to individual families but what they mean as an economic imperative for the 21st century . as democrats we recognize that. i mean, i would note that in the great state of rhode island, we have an opportunity for 43,000 students in your state, mr. cicilline, to make sure that students aren't facing an additional $34 million in increase because of what might happen on july 1. as republicans and as democrats, we can do something about this. we don't have to get to a point where we're saying to students for the future that we really don't care about you. we don't care about the fact that we helped you do and be all that you can through high school but now we're going to dump you when it comes to going to college. and so i thank the gentleman for his leadership. you know, up until today, the republican majority simply refused to acknowledge that this hike would affect millions of students and families. perhaps today after a reverse albie the assumed republican presidential nominee, we voted on a bill that would finally address the issue. but it's so sad that they did that at the expense of health care for working families. and no one understands that more than the gentlewoman from the district of columbia, my friend and my neighbor, i'd like to take a moment to recognize her and her leadership and if i recall, she taught at a law school and understands those students who really struggle to get through and make sure they're doing what they need to do academically but that they're able to pay for a quality education and i'd like to recognize the gentlewoman from the district of columbia, ms. norton. ms. norton: i want to thank my very good friend from maryland, congresswoman edwards, it's so typical of her to come to the floor on an urgent issue like this and i have to chuckle because when you say about my -- i having been a tenure of professor at law business, the professor from rhode island was one of my students and the gentleman from detroit was another. it makes me feel pretty ancient but it makes me feel very good to see that young people got to come to the congress while i was still here. you know, i can't imagine what the gentleman from rhode island went through because i never experienced it, but he probably had college loans coming out of college, don't even let me talk about going to georgetown law school. very good law school, but one of the most expensive in the country. as a matter of fact, i'm still a professor of georgetown because under the rules of the house you can teach and still be a measure and so i teach -- member and so i teach one course there every year, come to the end of the school year, go over every other monday, just to keep my brain in tact. sometimes this is a place that gets your brain out of order. and it's certainly out of order when it comes to student loans. the notion that we have to come to the floor today to plead for students, during a great recession when these young people get out of school, they are not likely to get a job. the very least you would think this congress could do effortlessly would be to say, look, you had to take loans, you have to pay interest, we know that means that you're going to be delayed years from doing what all of us did, which was to get to buy a house pretty early in our careers. these students will not have the credit to buy a house. first of all, they'll have to pay off their loans. they can't liquidate them in bankruptcy, no, we don't let you do that. like other debts. and now they face the possibility of a doubling of their interest, right after democrats, when we were in power, adjusted those interest rates. what a cruel hoax. particularly since we just are coming out of a recovery. college students are now beginning to get jobs for the first time, the leftover bunches who started out their careers without any jobs and faced with humongous loans. i don't know how people go to graduate school like my good friend from rhode island. of course if you go to certain kinds of graduate schools, there are stipends for people in graduate education. even some of that doesn't take care of the undergraduate loans but if go to law school and medical school, you're on your own. and you're going with huge amount of debt. in my own district, which, remember, is only one city, the borrowers in this year were $60,000, almost $65,000 and if the interest rates increased it will bring them to something over $13 billion. i don't even want to tell my constituents that. they're depending upon me to do something about it. and here on the floor we hear nonsense about how you're going to pay for it. are you going to pay for it by stripping from health care for women, children, for your parents, in order to keep your interest rates from going up? are you going to pay for it by leaving alone big oil in order to keep your interest rates from going off? our values are way off, way off kilter when we can't have reached a solution by now, that we're this close to drop dead day and that's what it will mean for many students them. won't be able. and we haven't come to an understanding. first that we'll raise it, got -- the president had to go all around the country making it clear that this issue was on the front burner, because it certainly wasn't there until he did so. and now people come forward, for example, mr. romney said, oh, he's for making sure these rates don't go up. does he have an idea about how to make sure they don't go up? why doesn't he tell our colleagues here in the house? so they don't hurt one group of citizens in order to help another group of citizens. so, we come to the floor today, the gentlelady from maryland, the gentleman from rhode island, because we don't intend to let this issue go until we in fact find the way to pay for the loans we have told the young people to take. we told them, go to college, yeah, have a little debt, go to college, then you're made. we've already broken that promise. because they come out of college now and they don't have the work force opportunities that we ourselves had. let's not break another promise, the promise that they will not be stuck with a debt which is much greater than the debt they already paid, the debt they already paid will delay their coming to the same kind of amenities that their parents have become used to. yes, they're going home to live with their parents. because if you got this student debt, you're hardly able to go out and rent an apartment in washington or in maryland or rhode island. yes, they're going home. and if we want to make sure that they're able to strike out on their own, one thing we want -- don't want to do is to burden them with a greater debt than they already have and they have on the average $25,000 debt. i cannot imagine, even when i got out of school, you know, that was some time in the 18th century, i can't imagine what i would have done with a $25,000 debt, even in real terms today, that's a lot of money, friends. if we care at all about our kids, we will find a way that does not rob peter to pay paul in order to relieve them of this debt. and i thank the gentlelady for yielding me time. ms. edwards: i want to thank the gentlewoman and especially for her leadership. as you were speaking i was doing a little calculating. i went to undergraduate school at wake forest university, had academic scholarships and some student loans and i also waited tables in order to pay for my expenses. had i not been able to get those student loans, with only the combination of academic scholarships and waiting tables, i would not have been able to afford to go to school. i came out with student loan debt from undergraduate school and then i worked for a time, saved a bit and went to law school. but even out of law school i still couldn't pay all of my living expenses and all of my tuition without also taking out student loans. when i finished law school, the combination of