Political Quotes

“I want to echo the words of my colleague from Iowa about the upcoming vote this week, which is so important. We know a lot of what has happened with student loan debt, which now exceeds $1 trillion--that is 1,000 billion dollars. It is more than credit card debt in this country. It is more than auto loan debt. It is also second only to mortgage debt of 300 million people of this great country. According to the Wall Street Journal, the average student loan debt for a college graduate who borrowed to finance a bachelor's degree this year is nearly $30,000. My wife, who graduated some years ago from Kent State University--the first of her family to go to college--graduated with just $1,200 in debt. Her father carried a union card, worked at the local utility company in Ashtabula. Her mother was a home care worker. They had no real money to put into her education or the education of her two younger sisters and younger brother. Yet she graduated with only $1,200 in debt, getting a 4-year degree from Kent State University and going on to a very good career in journalism. For students such as the young man named Amish Patel, who works two jobs to pay tuition at that same university, Kent State, Stafford loans are important. Stafford loans are essential to helping students such as Amish achieve their goal of obtaining a college degree.…”