2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren holds town hall in Orangeburg, South Carolina

The North Carolina A and T. I never would've made it to MIT, he said when I left Lake City. I had to take remedial courses. It's a new math and physics. But I was speaking a little bit of government would making subject and verb agree, but it was the nurturing and the attention given me by those faculty members at AT and T that prepared me for I T and Doctor Clark told me on the discussion I had with him once he says he was the most prepared students for his doctor. At MIT HBCUs take Diamonds. From the Sea Islands and other underserved communities, we've gone to high schools that are underfunded. And they take those students and help turn those diamonds from roughness to valuable what I call commodities So suck my state and its sister school next door and the other five HBCU that we have other six really five micro district. We have seven. In the sixth Congressional District in this one Clinton College up in Rock Hill. These skills are very very important to the future growth and development of our young people. Now there's one other thing about these schools when they come from the communities they come from families. In many instances, these are the first in the families to go to College. They come from families who know far of their own cannot really afford the tuition. Some of them are found Cannot even afford the pay the application fee. They need assistance and that's why we're here today because 10 years ago, the state of South Carolina funded 40 -. The student cost here this institution 10 years ago today. That's down to 20 -. The ditch, 40 -, five percent of the University of South Carolina to be fair at the University of South Carolina. Now is down to only 11 percent, so wow the Is going down the cost to attend these colleges and universities is going up. That's why we're here. We're here today to talk about how we can go about making that problem much less of a problem. We're not going to eliminate it. We are trying to get rid of problems. We are trying to equip students and families with the ability to find. Solutions solutions to those problems so we can debate on whether or not College should be free. But ain't for you now, it won't be free tomorrow and what we gotta do is figure out how to make it affordable. I say all the time that our job in the United States Congress. To make this country's greatness accessible and affordable by all of his citizens, that's what we are about. And so that's why I read here. War introduced legislation over in the Senate sometime ago to address this issue. It has been introduced. I'm talking to the staff one day and I said this is something that I'm running around my district and I know that people want jobs. People want a lot of things but they also want us to do something about student debt student debt. It's just killing it and so I started telling what I had on my mind, one of them said to me, he said. We know Senator Warren has introduced a bill to deal with. Over in the Senate so how about go over there and take a look at and seeking sticking into the House. That's what I did and we got together and we announced to the world that we were addressing this now. we talked about eliminating some of it not all of it and then making some of it loan to allow you to be able to pay it back and also address the whole issue of bankruptcy. Family bankruptcy that come about in many instances because of health care costs and educational cause allowing student debt to be a part of that and I wanna say this before I present her. She has a way to pay for her bill in the Senate. That's different from the way I approach paying for it in the House. Sometimes people ask me yo Y'all get together on that. You know, I had a man who was my chief of staff for about eight months before he passed away every time he left Columbia South Carolina to go to Washington DC. His preferred route was taken. I 70. Up to Interstate 80 - five, then over the Richmond and get on nine to five to go into Washington. I hate it that I preferred Going over to Florence and take a 90 - five and going on up the distance about the same. He preferred the scenery on 80 - five. I prefer the sinner on 90 - five. Our destination was Washington DC and we both got there, so the senator has a way to pay for her legislation. That's different from the way that I had to pay for mine, but our goal So they are identical but the goal is a same. It is that I present to you. The senator from the state of Massachusetts Senior Senator of Massachusetts. Thank you. Thank. Thank you. It's so nice. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. So let me start by saying thank you very much. President Clark for your warm. Welcome to the South Carolina State University Bulldogs. Go Bulldogs. I love being part of the family. And a very special thank you to all of you for sharing the stage here with us the Miss Emily Climber and Scholars. you carry a name of great meaning in the state and across this country much is expected of you but I know that you will deliver on it. So thank you very much for being here. And most of all a very special thank you to the congressman. you know I have a lot of plans and I got teased about this but it is really important that we focus on how we're gonna make a difference in people's lives and when the congressman's folks called over and said, we're interested in taking a look at the student loan debt forgiveness bill. I gotta tell you my heart left. Cuz I thought if I get somebody like Congressman Clyburn who is such an important figure in the United States House of Representatives to say I'm interested in this bill maybe even to back this bill. That's what lifts it up and I'll just be blunt with all of you. I get it right now. Mitch McConnell's not likely to give us a vote in the Senate on this but the importance of being able to lift this up in the House. The impor. Of being able to start hearings on this the importance of making this part of the agenda for how we understand as Democrats to build a future, not just for some of our kids but to build a future for all of our kids. Cannot be overstated. I am deeply grateful to the congressman for lifting this issue up and moving it forward. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll talk about whatever you all want to talk about about College and College costs and all those things but I just wanna start by laying down a little bit of foundation on student loan debt because it is so powerfully important. We've got about 40 - five million Americans who are dealing with student loan debt right now it's about a trillion and a half dollars outstanding the total and here's one for you. The interest rates and fees are going up so fast. I want you to think about this number of kids in College not going up Right, some kids graduate every year. Some new ones come in but the interest and fees are starting to accumulate like a snowball rolling downhill that the amount of student loan debt is going up annually at a rate of about a hundred billion dollars a year. Think about that and it's just rolling over an entire generation of young people. Who what did they do? Did they go to the mall and hoop it off? Nope. To get an education and it's falling particularly hard on African-American students, African-American students are more likely to have to borrow money to go to College more likely to borrow more money while they're in College and more likely to have trouble paying it off after they get out of College, so we're not only crushing an entire generation under the weight of student loan debt. We are disproved. Fortunately, crushing a generation of students of color that is not how a country builds a future and we gotta change that. So the congressman and I have a plan to be able to cancel a big hunk of that student loan debt. it's got a lot of details to it. We're glad to talk about the details if anyone wants but here's the part, I want you to hold it here. We can do this as a congressman says we use different funding ways to get there and we can talk about the advantages to your root in my room. But the point is we know what the goal is and there are a lot of folks with us on this goal, teachers across. This country University President's across this country just hardworking families across this country. The N double A CP all behind us on getting this done and with the congressman we now start to build real momentum on this. Now. I just want to make a point as we get as we think about the student loan problem. The congressman made a good point about why it happens now. I tell you. When I went to College so I grew up in a paycheck to paycheck family and I've had the same Dream since I was in second grade, I wanted to be a teacher. That's what I wanted. I want to be a public school teacher by the time I graduated from high school. My family didn't have the money for College application much less to send me off to four years at the University. Nobody in my little family had graduated from. My big chance was a commuter College back, then that cost $50 a semester. Think about that on a price I could pay for on a part-time waitressing job. I could finish a four -year diploma student loan debt was not something you had to do in order to get an Today that opportunity just announced there for our kids. We're not giving that kind of public support to our colleges and universities. Instead, we have shifted from America that said in effect you wanna do the hard work kid will keep a few pathways open for you to be able to get an education now that has shifted over to you wanna get an education. This is how much it costs and the state will help pick up. Some of this but the rest is on you and your family and the consequence of that overtime is just to burden our kids more and more and more. I now meet people at town halls and meet him out on the Street and they start by holding their hand out and saying 40 - $6200.20 - eight thousand $900.60 - $4020. I'm dead. I've got I I work second and third jobs. I talked to public school teachers now who work second and third jobs and the entire second and third paycheck goes to trying to pay off their student loan debt and understand if you don't have anybody who's trying to struggle with student loan debt, you're you're out of it. You don't have kids. You don't have Grand kids. You don't have neighbors or friends. I don't know where you're living but if you don't have anybody who's dealing with student loan debt, you still should care. Because it's affecting our entire economy, the Fed has been watching the data on this. The Treasury Department, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and what we're starting to see now is young people are not buying homes at the rate. We would expect them to the whole smack our entire economy. They're not buying cars. They're not moving out of their parents home. Here's one they're not even starting their own businesses and why cuz I gotta make that student loan monthly payment. I think of this is two things. It's about how we build a future as a country and it's also about what kind of a people we are who is it we believe we should be investing in and Congressman Clyburn and I are here today because we believe that the way we invest in a future for all of Americans is first of all. Let's get rid of the student loan debt. So thank you all for being here. Hello. Alright. Can you hear me? Sorry. I'm tall. Move this up a bit. Facility you were all offered a ticket with a number on it if you would like to ask a question, if you didn't get a ticket and would like to ask a question, please just raise your hand and the ushers will give you a ticket so that you'll be able to ask your question. All right, we will choose numbers at random when we call your number, please come down to one of the microphones on either side to ask your question and so we're gonna call a few numbers right now. So please get them out your tickets out and get ready for your number to call. Alright, the first number the last three digits are zero 54. Next number zero 52. I think they left together. Zero, 57. Alright, we got one. Zero, 34. Maybe. He said. The same. So it's all the same zero. It starts with the three digits zero 64 zero 49. One, zero, 49. Zero five, eight. We have a question. Alright. You can cut it down there. Zero 24. Okay, zero 41. Zero two, zero. Is that one? Okay. We have a question. We will cook kick things off with having our very own Charlie Patton to tax our first question. Alright. Alright. So thank you again. Congressman Clyburn and Senator Warren for gracing our lustrous Institute with your time and presence today, Senator Warren. Why did you think it was important to have this conversation with Congressman Clyburn focused on student loan debt relief here at South Carolina State University. Thank you for the question because I believe in. BC and when the congressman and I were first talking about how do we, how do we lay this issue out? He said. How about my alma mater and I said you bet and I'll tell you why part of how I see this whole question is about where we make investments who government works for is it just gonna keep working for a thinner and thinner slice at the top or we can make it work for everyone and for me. HBCUs are a great place to see this issue up close and personal. You know, we know that well over a century ago across this country, there was a lot of investment made and state universities, but students of color were often barred from going to those schools and the consequence was there was a lot of investment than from the African-American community into what became the HBCU. it was. Through charity was done through the churches, it was done through a few people who done well and we're willing to try to give back. But the problem was. The HBCUs were always built on a thinner financial footing. Then the other state supported universities and the consequence has been that HBCUs have done more with less in the way of resources for decade after decade after decade after decade, and while they have a. And proud history. I think it's time that we actualize the resources and put real money into our HBCU and so every chance I get to come to a place where we lift up the story of the HBCU. I hope we're not only building a little momentum to cancel student loan debt but building up a little momentum to make a real investment in HBCUs going forward. So that's. Alright, so we'll go ahead and start our audience question. Okay. Oh my name is Dakota so as we know that the rising amount of student debt and the rising cost of attendance, they correlate directly how do you plan to fight administrative bloating and low state funding and other issues that contribute to the rising cost of attendance at public universities. I want you this one congressman or we both camp. However, you wanna do it. So I actually have some other plans in this whole area and one of them. To make College tuition free, we're talking about student loans here debt today but part of making College tuition free for our students and it's technical schools. It's a two -year College. It's four -year College public colleges plus HBCU's whether they are public or private cuz they're all running in the public interest here. there's I don't wanna get too deep in the weeds here but a big Is to make sure two things one is that when the federal money goes in that the States do what is called a maintenance of effort that they have to continue to put the money in that they were putting in before. In other words, you don't just substitute $1 for another and the second is that the universities have to be a lot more transparent about how much they're helping their students. What graduation rates are what they're putting in to make those graduation rates happen and. Lifting the graduation rates and lifting the graduation rates in particular for students of color and for students from more modest backgrounds. So there are a lot of markers in this bill for the universities for the public institutions, the HBCU to be able to get a big influx of federal money but they gotta show that the consequence of that on the other side is they're putting that money into education. They're putting that money into helping the students make it through and graduate and I wanna say on this. Every confidence that when they have the resources to do it. That is exactly what they will do but we got it built into the bill. Good question. Let me if I may add to that, we have to be careful. The senator talked about colleges and universities being transparent with their cause. We have to listen and be very careful how we make decisions now. Remember if College to issue is free, that's fine. What is the cost of going to College? It is much more than tuition. So when you get the tuition free then who's gonna pay for the room and board who's gonna pay laugh fees who gonna play for the books you have. This is not a silo here and it's got a vicious to me when I he is students my own grandson telling me free College and so yeah, I hope my dress you who gonna feed you and how do we do all of that? So what I want us to do is to listen to what is being said. Think about what the cost is think much more. Than the emotions, let's give you an example, I remember several years ago, the person was running for Governor of South Carolina and he said. If I'm elected Governor, 30 -, six third of all state employees will be African-American and people went wild. Now. 3030 -, three and a third at the time he made the statement 30. That's a fact he didn't talk about where they were working. He didn't talk about what job levels with the income, he just said what the number is gonna be and everybody went crazy over the number. So listen very carefully and compartmentalize. These things think about what the cost of going to College is is much much more than two issue. Hello, my name is Arabia Satellite and my question for you today is how can how can your bill currently help students that are already in debt and have not finished their undergraduate program yet I'm sorry. Did you just say that like a little trouble for the students that are already in debt and they're still in College? How will your program help them? Somebody we haven't. We can't. Okay, so for the students that are already in debt and have not finished College yet how will your program and benefit them? Okay if you're already in there sure and the answer is you can get rid of the debt you've got I mean look we can't get this through before 2020. - one. I I'm just being blunt here. Mitch McConnell is not gonna let us push this through. We wanna lift it up. Now we wanna build momentum. We wanna build pressure behind it but that's the idea the way our bill is set up is that it literally cancels the debt. That's the point is that the debt is canceled and much of it will happen automatically based on what's known from your tax records and so on about where your income is and there will be now as I said earlier, I pair this with Colin. Being tuition free, going forward and expanding Pell grants and making a bigger investment in HBCUs. We're talking about the student loan debt part of this but if all of these happen together, that's the whole idea from my perspective is that we wipe out the existing student loan debt and we set up pathways. So nobody has to take on this debt to get a four -year diploma in the future. Is that make sense? Yes. Congress should take a look at it and mine. we talked about castling up to 50000 that's cancelled. Now then you'll be eligible basically how much you can get to borrow to eliminate other debt but then if you over 50000 that means you may have seen. Thousand you still owe 20 - 5000 and. We have to work out a way for you to work that so all of this is in the legislation and and it will load to get too much in the weeds here today but I would ask after your exams or over next semester make this a part of your study going forward cuz the campaign is gonna be on next year and you need to be sure of what the student did is all about and while you're looking at other positive candidates platforms look at the student debt Okay. Okay. Moving along. 116. 114. Zero 16. Zero 19. Hi, my name is Turner Jones. I'm sorry and I was born and raised here in Orangeburg, South Carolina. I'm currently a freshman at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. wait force is one of the best institutions in the country. We're right number 20 - seven for undergraduate education this year. However, it cost 70 - $5000 a year and if you if you look at the all the top 30 or even top 50 institutions in the country, the cheapest one you're gonna see runs about $50000 and Allergies is about that's how it is that I can go to College without running up debt because there was a public investment. One free to to provide that for $50 as a semester was not what it cost to provide that education that I got there was a lot of support for it. Now there were schools that were a whole lot more expensive, but my door opening opportunity was a College that I could afford a four -year College and I'll just It opened A million doors for me. I got to finish my four -year diploma and become a special needs teacher. I've lived my Dream job and then later on I ended up going to law school and by the way I went to a public law school that cost $450 a semester and and I understand that there will be colleges. It'll be more expensive but I think our public responsibility is to make sure Pathways for every kid who wants to work hard to have a way to make it through and get that four -year diploma if that's what they wanna do so for me, that's what this is all about and also remember if you want to go to wait Fars, then the question is how do you put the package I'm not talking about anything that I'm dreaming up here. I'm talking about stuff that I've done for young people. I remember sending over 700 kids to College back in my in the early sixties down in Charleston that they causing University all over the country because we sat down with him, he put packages together this much about 10 to 15 percent but student loans. We went to the library. We set down with folks and put together. The whole package is also something. A young person put together a couple of million dollars in scouts, scholarships and loans and grants for one person. You gotta be have some ingenuity about yourself. The other sit down and be disciplined and so this don't let the student loan be a hundred percent of what you do. let that be manageable. See if their grants scholarships other places you know we meet down that I have a little group nine at Santa first weekend every August President clock has been to it last. We give out a hundred and 50 scholarships every kid. They got a laptop. Everyone got a software package and they got from one to $6000 each in cash. That was just part of the package that wouldn't go pay for everything. They were able to go because they got other things as well so you have to think about this a little more holistically. All of it shouldn't be student loans. Pell grants are different work study grants are different. There are all kinds of ways that you can do it. If you use a little ingenuity. Thank you. Hi, my name is Kayla. how do you plan to add add value to bachelor's degree in this job economy but I notice is that these new graduates they make it through. They finish their bachelors. However, they go into the job market and they're told their bachelor's is not enough. They they're asked for 23 years of experience but they just walked across the stage. So how do you get them to play? Their bachelor's still has value where they don't have to jump right into master's program, create more debt and still be up in the air in terms of whether or not they can even have a job in the field that they they Dream of so shot gonna shape. I think instead of a question for the congressman or me, that's really a question for the President internship working on back. You get the opportunity to have a job experience work experience. That's. That is that is critical to have an experience learning be part of what the University offers to you and that is something that we are aggressively pursuing here in the States. Yeah, I might say it. You are doing that. You're getting rid of the sign and agreement with the industry not far from here this past Monday. I think it was Monday afternoon. didn't technical College in HBCU just signed an agreement. With the industry down in North Augusta to develop a work study program. Now it works dated program may simply that you go to the class on that campus for six weeks or eight. Whatever the time frame is then you go to that company and you work on the job training for eight weeks and it's gotta come pop. I happen to be a great believer in that program. I did not know it but there are seeing this that are doing that now. so work-study programs ways that we can be innovative, be very creative and if we get students who industrials, we can work a lot of this out, I had a reporter come to me and ask me so well you give out these scholarships down here. Tell me what happened to the students, how successful other I said, I don't know. Don't you think it's your responsibility to find out that no, it's my responsibility to provide an opportunity and once I give the opportunity then the student and the family, the church and the community will kick in to try to help that student be successful. Alright, so before we get to the next question, we'll do some more raffle. 123, zero 31. Zero 25. Zero 42. Okay and zero three, zero. What's your question man. Hi, I'm Jen and thank you so much for being here and starting both of these bills. This is crucial stuff I'm a school counselor and I work with eleventh and twelfth grade students and I find that in my day, I don't have enough time to gather all of the information that I need to gather for my students and to provide them with the necessary information about student loans and scholarships and grants and I guess my question for you is what can we do to alleviate the case load for school counselor so that we can better equip our students in in College. I think it starts well before they get into College. So this is a great question. I have been a consumer advocate for decades. It's been my principal thing and after the big financial crash in 2008 which was largely brought about by giant financial institutions who figured out they could boost their profits by tricking people trapping them cheating them out, right and who targeted communities of color for the worst of the worst mortgages and then the worst of the worst foreclosures. I really. Like going forward, one thing that ought to come out of this crash is we needed a consumer agency that would make sure that at least that way of cheating the American consumer would be stopped that we wouldn't have anymore of this from financial institutions and so I started pushing for the consumer financial Protection Bureau. President Obama fought for it and ultimately even though I have to say the big Bank spot us every step of the way Republicans fought us every step of the way. It's just fact it's not politics, it's fat but we got the thing through President Obama signed it into law and that little agency has now forced big financial institutions to return more than 12 billion dollars directly to me. And there are just two kind of pretty simple ideas that underlying the first one is if you're gonna have to make a financial decision, there ought to be enough information presented clearly enough that you can actually compare one product to another and say, Oh that's the cheap one that fits where I think I'm headed in life and I say just enough information because part of this is there's a lot of information, for example, in credit card agreements used to be back in the 19 eighties. The average credit card agreement is about a page and a half long by the early two thousands. They were more than 30 pages long and the additional 28 and a half pages was not to help consumers better understand credit card agreements. So what started happening for example on mortgages is there's now just a form and this now goes to your point. It's just real clear that anyone who wants to lend you money on a House has to use that. So you can lay three of them down next to each other and see what the total amount is what the interest rate is and what your monthly payment is gonna be and whether or not it's gonna go up or stay level during the time you have the mortgage and you can make a decision. I think where we need to head and we've got some pending plans on. This is basically to do the same thing around the College education that somebody wants to come to. I'm gonna use South Carolina State but it could be anywhere that there ought to be a pretty straightforward. Here's the sticker price. Here's how much you're being offered in scholarships or whatever but here's the price you're gonna pay. Here's how much you're expected to borrow or the families expected to come up with and so this means here's your bottom line and you can compare that to what would happen if you went to University of Georgia or you went to MIT or you went to anywhere else and you can lay that down. In front of you, I think I hope that would at least help relieve the burden for high school counselors that anybody could go online crank in the numbers and get back. This is what it's gonna look like make your application and here's the offer from the school. So the financial part is easy to compare the rest of it. This is what I really do think the universities ought to be good at telling their story. Why you come to an. B C U instead of 40 - 5000 students at a bigger state University. Why you come to a place that has an undergraduate program in nuclear physics instead of a place that's emphasizing nursing and that's great. If you wanna be a nurse, you may wanna be at a different place. You wanna be a nuclear engineer. This may be the place for you to start as an undergrad and for On the schools, the students flag themselves as interested for the schools to get out there and make their case. We got a lot of terrific schools. We're here at one today and I think every opportunity those schools get to be able to show students what it would mean to come. Here is an opportunity that is good for the school but most importantly is good for the perspective student. So I hope that's helpful. I hope. Hi, can you hear me? Hi. Okay. Hi. My name is Mariah. I'm currently an undergrad student at South Carolina State University. My question is for you Elizabeth. I mean I look warning. So if the President election does not go as you planned. Will you seal by? It's hard to give it a student loans? Yes. Let me let me put a little credibility behind that. the very first bill I introduced as a senator when I'm just a baby Senator wet behind the ears have never done this before never thought I was gonna be an elected office but I got elected by the fine people as a commonwealth of Massachusetts and the first bill I did was to reduce the student loan debt burden up for me. This is about how you build an opportunity in America and one way you build opportunity. You open up doors, you create pathways and you don't crush people who are trying to get an education with a bunch of student London. So I mean all the. Wherever I am. Evening Senator Warren. I know you said you already had your Dream job but I'm hoping your Dream job comes in 2020. A change has to come in Washington and I thank you and some of the others that are there will make that change. you spoke of consumer advocacy first of all. I'm Doctor Lily Hitler and I'm from Orangeburg, South Carolina. Originally I'm a graduate of Claflin University. And I was a first-generation College student for my family so I understand and I applaud what HBCUs do in the African-American and in the communities at large, we produce find distinguished individuals and I'm very proud to say that now we talked about earlier the fact that they are first generation students and as I. My research preparing to come here. I noticed that student loan interest rates very very dramatically some as low as and I wrote it down cuz I wanna make sure I get it right. three point 76 percent with the Bank of student emergency loan refinancing act and some go as high as 16 percent under the guys of consumer advocacy. What can be done? Stop the predatory lending of some of these student loan agencies. Good crash. actually it can not to say the problems even worse the new identified because private student on companies don't have to deal with their gentle strict sorry so it's really falling but when you have seen it just but public view what's happening by him according ah can actually be worse and others make sure everybody knows this only things about still on india is How much financial trouble you get into current law basically says you can't discharge it in bankruptcy. You get sick. You don't get a job terrible things happen. You gotta keep paying that student loan debt. If you can't pay it. This is the part that just kills me. It just keeps mounting up. So the delayed interest, the late fees and the thing goes. I meet people occasionally. It's heartbreaking who borrow $40000 to get themselves. School got sick, something went wrong, fell behind and now $300000 and that's to the federal government. It can be to a private lender and not only is that protection that is protection for the lender. Therefore, the federal government that is you can't discharge their federal student loans. The same thing is true for these private student loans. No matter how much they charge. No match how much they gauge the consumer. Okay so what I'm doing is agreeing. Your question that this is a real problem. Congressman. You want tell her what we're gonna do. You want me to do that? We just got. We put right into our bill a cap on interest rates and it is a low cap on interest rates moves a little bit within with inflation cuz you gotta have a little bit of flexibility in the system but we cap the interest rate on student loan debt so even above the amount of debt that is cancelled which just said we've had with the federal government doing this. It isn't right and we also left it. So anyone who's got private loans can refinance them into federally guaranteed loans. So we're tacking this. Head on and basically the answer is no more. So thank you. Go ahead. Oh let's also allow if problems come and you trying to discharge something you're bankruptcy is to the loans that can be added to that. Yeah. So changing that part. Okay. Alright. So before we get to the next question, we're gonna pull three more people to come and ask your question. Zero, 55. 121 One, zero, five. Hi, I'm John I'm a teacher at the University of South Carolina and a graduate student and also a librarian at another fabulous H B C U Allen in Columbia. when I talk to my students there are two kind of clouds over their future. You're talking about building the future. one of those is student debt. the other is the threat of climate change. I was wondering if you had a any answers to how you're gonna provide jobs and a fossil free fuel economy for their students. You've discharged their student loan debt when you're President so this a little outside the scope of what we're doing. So I'll try to do this one quick but but I understand the urgency of this question. Climate change is the threat to every living thing on this planet and we're running out of time. We got a spa and I gotta get back. So I'll give you just a couple of pieces on this. The first is we need smart people who have lots of skills. We just don't need them always where they are. They're gonna be changes in jobs. So I think of it this way we're gonna have to harden our infrastructure. we're gonna have to make real investments in changes in our infrastructure and this is everything from raising bridges and building seawalls in some areas and a. Of good technical hard work, we're gonna need a lot of people to do that work. That work is is not gonna happen by itself. It's gonna be good hard work and it's gonna be local work. It's not work you can ship off to Mexico. It's not work. You can ship off to China. It's work that has to be done right here in the United States of America. Second part around this is we have to rethink our economy and for the first time in generations, we actually need an industrial policy in American. Here's how I think we should be thinking about it. We could go. And by to zero carbon emission in the United States by 2030 and that would only fix 20 percent of the world's problem. We're not the only one submitted carbon right now. It's still 80 percent around the world so we can't think of this problem as solely. What are we gonna do here in the United States. That is our first responsibility but it's what's gonna happen around the globe. Here's the good news is that the best economists and scientists around this say that there's gonna be a period coming really soon where there's about a 17 trillion- dollar market worldwide for Green Green Cleaning up the air, cleaning up the water desalinization all those things and much of what is gonna be needed around. The world has not been invented yet. So here's my proposal. We increase by 10 fold the investment we're making in science. Yes, I do believe in science research development, basic science all the pieces that get us there and then we say. You can anybody who wants to can use what we invent can use the new things we develop but whatever you're gonna build with that new science, you gotta build it right here in the United States of America. American taxpayers pay for the research and development than it should produce American jobs and here comes part three of it and that is then we go sell it around the world and in some places will even give it away right in a marshal plan. Help make sure our goods make it around the world. These clean goods, these Green goods and think of it this way right now for every dollar America spins marketing American goods around the world China's spending. A hundred dollars. So how about we step up at least to $10 right? It's 10 times what we're spending right now and market those Green products all around the world. We do that. That's an industrial policy and the best estimate is it will produce about one point two million new manufacturing jobs, good jobs, Union jobs jobs were. One job is enough to make a living for a family so I think we can do this. We just have to work on our time. Hi, my name is Judy Scott. I'm currently a sophomore here at South Carolina State University and my question to you is in high school. I wasn't really educated on student loans or exactly how to pay for high school and there weren't a lot of counselors there cuz my school was fairly large. So do you have any plans to implement programs early on before kids actually go to College to teach them and educate them about student loans about paying for College and and etcetera Congressman you want. You want to talk about this? Absolutely you know once again we have to continue to invest in what I call a secondary education K through 12. that is where we make the preparation. We have to redouble our efforts at the Middle school level. We've done a lot of studying on this. My staff is recommend us in fact, I just did something I haven't talked about a whole lot. We just lower the eligibility or modified eligibility for Junior ROTC because what we found is rule schools. When I talk to Goddess Counselors principles, they told me they're one of the best things disciplinary tools. They have to give students something to belong to and one of the things. Was at the junior high level. They thought if we could allow junior high school students to get into junior ROTC then there would be a dick too. We did that. we now have made it impossible for Middle school students. They go into junior ROTC so that they will have that belonging. They will have that discipline and they tell me it will reduce the dropout rate dramatically. So we're working on various tools to keep young people in school. One of the things we gotta do once again is to invest in Indiana what we've done as soon as you start losing the assistant director or assistant principal. The granite counters will become a disciplinarian, become assistant principal and that's not what God has called for. They are there to help develop curricular for. I would call post secondary pursuits and so that is one of the things I would hope we can convince the Congress to begin making an investment in and that is in providing guidance for young people to help them make decisions about their futures and let me just say this and I know that sometimes get in trouble for saying that but I get in trouble doesn't stop you. No. What we have to do is look at people's dreams and aspirations. I said to group the other day. everybody may not be instruct interested in a liberal arts education. What we have to do is provide post secondary education for young people if somebody these lights and electrician they need. The liberal arts education to be an electrician, a plumber, but we have taken away that the support for these kinds of pursuits and so what I think we have to do is really take a look at students. Talk to them. Find out what their dreams and aspirations are and help them pursue those dreams and aspirations. When I was teaching, I used to teach Junior high school when I was teaching diamonds. Austin, when we got ready to do our first House, I wish I was making with the plumber was making. So the thing is we have to look at young people. See what they want to do and God is Council will be helping young people pursue their dreams and aspirations in respect to what that might be. Excuse me before you answer an extra next question after this question Congressman Clyburn, you will give us the closing remarks. We're gonna have one more question. Good evening. My name is Monique Daniel. I am a senior Mass communications radio broadcasting major from Atlanta, Georgia and to you, Senator Warren and Congress Clyburn. My question is will there be stipulations as to which students will be allowed to participate in the program wants to build this past? Nope. Okay. No, I I just mean if you've got stand alone debt, it's not about other kinds of debt. It's not about credit card debt but if this is student loan debt, it can be for undergraduate. It can be for graduate. It can be you gotta go to private school. You got into public school. We gotta bring down the student loan debt burden and I think narrowing it up and saying it's only if you were to public University for example, when you incurred this loan debt, the problem is. Don't have enough pathways open so the idea is to reduce the student loan debt burden for some people. It will wipe it out entirely for Seminole just bring it down. It's to try to make it more affordable to try to deal with the outstanding burden, but there aren't limits on who's eligible for this. Okay so I have two more questions than I'm a hurry up. Okay the next one is I continue to hear you say state that there will be pathways provided. What are the particular pathways that you have in mind to be placed for me? The pathway is we bring judge student loan depth. We invest in HBCU. We increase the Pell grants and we make technical school to your College and four -year College public colleges and all the HBC use tuition free I think that's gonna open up a whole lot of pathways for a lot of lot of people. Alright, thank you. You bet. Let me once again. Thank Senator Warren for being here gracing us with her presence on this campus. This is a school that means a lot to me and to a lot of young people and thanks to all of you who are here. Let me say this enclosing. Taylor's story in order to make the point on pathways several months ago when we were trying to put together the disaster relief bill, we were having great difficult to put in that legislation together and they fill my life to entertain some farmers from all over the country who have borrowed money last year to plant their crops and the storms came floods. The crops they're now trying to borrow money to plant crops again, but we're not credit worthy so I'm sitting down and talking with him and in the Middle of this conversation, a gentleman sitting right across from me said to me now Congressman I came here today to talk to you about my farm but that's not what's on my heart is what's. Heart today are those people in my neighborhood who go off to work in the mornings come back home after five in the evenings, they lowered their children up into their automobiles and take them down to the parking lot of a local library and they sit out in the automobiles to do their homework. They do not have the Internet in their homes that shit not happened in this country. We are just one County away from Cloud County. We're Brown V Board of Education started back in 1940. I went over to Cloud School District one and checked on the adoption rate. It was only 30 - four percent on a 30 - four percent of the homes in that County or connected to the Internet yet today to apply for a job, you gotta do Pathways have to be open. We have got to do some fundamental things in the state of South Carolina for our young people to get a good chance at education. We're not gonna have a highly-educated workforce until we do some by broadband deployment in rural South Carolina. We've closed five rule hospitals. Those hospitals would not have closed if they could have telehealth in rural communities. We're not going to live a health care, adequate health care to rural communities unless we do something about broadband deployment, we are not gonna have good paying jobs for our young people if we don't have broadband deployment so with all that. That we get the infrastructure. Just roads and bridges, there's gonna be water and sewer and it's gotta be broadband deployment. So all of your students. I know a little bit about this campus. Prepare yourself for your pursuit in life. Think about the communities that you came from. Think about what you can do while on this campus to pay yourself not just to make a living for yourselves but to bring that community along with you that what it's all about. Thank you. Thank you Senator Warren and Congressman Clyburn for coming out tonight and thank all of you for coming out to the illustrious South Carolina State University. We really do appreciate all of you coming here to be with us in this conversation about student loan debt relief and with that again, thank you and you guys have a great night.