ContactsNewark Office Camden Office Washington, DC 
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Improving Education and College AffordabilitySenator Lautenberg knows that education is a primary key to success. He is the product of New Jersey’s public schools and credits his careers in business and public service on that education and the opportunity to get a first-rate college education through the G.I. bill. Public Education Simply put, making sure children in New Jersey and across the country have access to a good education should be one of our top priorities in Congress. Senator Lautenberg is dedicated to a strong early education system for young children. That is why he has worked so hard to increase the availability of programs such as Early Head Start and Head Start, and cosponsored legislation to reauthorize, strengthen and increase funding for these programs. And because Senator Lautenberg feels there is no substitute for a thriving public education system, he is consistently fighting to support our public schools and our nation’s teachers. Senator Lautenberg is also committed to reforming the No Child Left Behind Act so local schools have more flexibility in determining how to prepare students for the challenges ahead. He understands that although testing can be one effective tool, it is not the only way to determine if a school is succeeding, and can lead to its own problems, particularly when educators have to “teach to the test” rather than on what students’ need to know. Senator Lautenberg serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee with jurisdiction over education issues. In that capacity, he has pressed Congress to help communities get the funding they need to upgrade school buildings, decrease class sizes, increase teachers’ pay and improve special education. He also coauthored a 2007 law, the America COMPETES Act, which increases the nation's investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce development and will strengthen educational opportunities in these areas from elementary school through graduate school. College Affordability and Safety People with a college degree earn seventy percent more than those who don’t graduate from college. Unfortunately, college is too expensive for many families. That is why Senator Lautenberg helped enact a law just last year to cut student loan interest rates in half, increase Pell Grant awards by twenty-five percent to $5,400 over the next five years and reduce college debt for people who commit to public service. And on behalf of our brave men and women in the military, he was a primary author of the new 21st Century GI Bill to update and improve the GI bill program, which had not kept pace with the rising cost of college, so that soldiers who have served since 9/11 can access first-rate education benefits. In addition, Senator Lautenberg wrote a new law this year to make college campuses safer for students. Responding to a tragic dormitory fire at Seton Hall University that killed three students and injured more than 50 others, he wrote the Campus Fire Safety Right-to-Know law, which gives students and families information about the fire safety records of colleges and universities. Before this law, colleges and universities—which were required to release crime statistics—did not have to make fire-related statistics available.
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