On the recordMay 8, 2012
we just passed the deadline for students to decide where they are going to college this fall. This is one of the biggest financial decisions students will ever make. Nationally, student loan debt is over $1 trillion. It is higher than credit card debt. Over 60 percent of the class of 2010 graduated with outstanding student loans, college graduates. In Minnesota we are fourth in the country for the level of debt college graduates take with them. It is $29,000. This is hurting us as a nation in competition with other countries. It was not too many years ago that the United States was No. 1 in the world in the percentage of its adult population that had graduated from college. Now we are something like 16th. That is going to hurt us. We have to do something about student debt. Behind every one of these statistics, there are stories. I had students from the board of MNSCU-- it is a Minnesota organization of colleges and universities--in my office, and there must have been about 15 or 20 of them. I said to them: How many of you work at least 10 hours a week while going to school? All of them. How many of you work 20 hours a week? Most of them. How many of you work at least 30 hours a week while going to school? A lot of them. How many of you work 40 hours a week while going to school? How many of you work full time while going to school? A few of them, a number of them. That is no way to go to school. Time after time when I talk to kids, I hear their stories.…
