Education And Student Loans
By Congressman Mark Takai from Takiai House
In order for America to remain a leader on the global scale, we must provide the future leaders of our nation with the tools they need to succeed by increasing our investment in education at every stage of development for our keiki.
Every child has the right to an education. Access to high-quality child care and prekindergarten programs are essential to lay the foundation for success and provide a clear path for achievement for students. Our public education systems need vital resources that will educate and empower our students. This means we must ensure that students not only have a high-quality education, but also an affordable and attainable one.
Education continues to be one of my top priorities. Hawaii will see increased funding for educational activities in 2016, and I have worked hard to implement new programs that will increase opportunities for our middle class.
Last year, Congress came together to craft a bipartisan reform of the No Child Left Behind Act and pass a landmark education authorization that:
Preserves federal Impact Aid funding to help serve Hawaii’s military-connected children
Strengthens Native Hawaiian education
Improves educational data collection
Repeals adequate yearly progress and replaces it with a statewide accountability system;
Maintains important information about student performance;
Helps states to improve low-performing schools;
Targets funds to at-risk children;
Helps states increase teacher quality; and
Provides greater funding flexibility to enhance support for students and schools.
The cost of attending college has soared in the recent years, and it has become increasingly more difficult for our students to earn a degree. Graduates have recently been saddled with tremendous amounts of debt, which is why I support measures that will make college affordability a reality for working families in Hawaii.
I support President Obama’s plan to provide two years of community college for free to qualified students and am working to make college more affordable and accessible for everyone.
My bill, the Clarity in Lending for Education and Repayment Act (CLEAR Act), will streamline the student loan repayment plan for federal loans help simplify and accelerate repayment for students being crushed under student debt.
During consideration of our defense priorities, I doubled Department of Defense Impact Aid to our schools and created a commonsense new national program to help Veterans transition from careers in the military to the Merchant Marine fleet, a critical sector in Hawaii. I joined my colleagues to restore GI Bill benefits to veterans duped by for-profit schools that closed and left them with no place to go.
Education is a vehicle through which communities are built, and economies are strengthened. I have always been an advocate for providing the resources needed to succeed and will continue to champion educational opportunities here in Congress.
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