Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me associate myself with the remarks of Senator Baldwin and Senator Portman. I thank them for making this bipartisan clarion call to bring this body together on behalf of students. There are over 6,000 students in my State of Connecticut. I believe Senator Blumenthal is going to give some remarks as well to add Connecticut's list of schools and to debate this issue on the floor. We have over 1,000 students at the University of Connecticut, over 700 at Yale University, 600 at the University of Bridgeport, 500 at Central Connecticut, and 400 in Eastern Connecticut. All across Connecticut, students are able to attend college because of the Perkins Loan Program. As one of the few Members of the Senate who is still paying back my student loans, who is also saving as fast as I can for my two boys who will hopefully go to college, this debate we are having today strikes me as crazy. We should be having a debate about how we expand access to college. Instead, we are simply trying to protect the existing access we have. In 10 years the United States has gone from the No. 1 country in the world with respect to the number of 25- to 35-year-olds with college degrees to number 12 in the world. In 10 years we have gone from first to twelfth. The answer for that is the cost of college. The cost of college is making it unaffordable for people to start and unaffordable for many others to complete it.…”