On the recordMay 7, 2014
I want to thank my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Reed. Senator Elizabeth Warren, our new colleague from Massachusetts, and Senator Reed and I have started this effort, but we are welcoming ideas and supporters from both sides of the aisle to join us. The conversation tonight on the floor of the Senate may be the most important conversation that millions of American families could hear, because we are talking about student debt. Student debt in this country has reached the breaking point. It has reached the point where the cover of Time magazine would have a question mark. It shows a student headed off to college and the comment of the question mark is, Is It Worth It? It has reached the point where the cost of higher education is so high, the indebtedness associated with it so high, that many are stepping back now to ask that very basic question: Is it worth it, to go this deeply in debt for college courses--an associate's degree, a bachelor's degree, or more? That question would have been unthinkable in my day--unthinkable. If there was one driving idea in my mind from my mother and father, it was stay in school, go to college, do the best you can and don't quit, keep working at it. Thank goodness, for me-- thank goodness, for me--the Soviet Union decided to launch Sputnik. That was the biggest break I ever got in my life and I didn't even realize it. It was October 1957. They launched this basketball-sized satellite that circled the globe.…
