Barack Obama Quotes

The need for a college education is even more important now than it was before, but I think that the increased costs are a very severe obstacle to access. It is an American dream, and I think that one of our challenges is to find a way to make that available.

By making college unaffordable and student loans unbearable, we risk deterring our best and brightest from pursuing higher education and securing a good-paying job.

So if a college education is indispensable, the challenge as I see it is how to make it more accessible.

When we make college more affordable, we make the American dream more achievable.

I've always cared about education, and I worked with Senator Schumer on making several thousand dollars of college tuition tax deductible. That will help a lot of your middle class families make college more affordable.

I believe the American people are entitled to some straight talk when it comes to higher education funding.

Pell Grants are, and have been, critically important tools in making higher education a possibility for lower- and middle-income students.

The College Access and Opportunity Act addresses the important need to make higher education more affordable and easier to access for low and middle-income students.

The cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up their dream of going to college, while many others are graduating deeply in debt.

While Obama might not push college education exclusively, like most Democrats he does oversell it and does shortchange the alternatives. And millions of young Americans pay the price.

I'd really love to see a business model for higher education going forward that is actually affordable, that uses modern technology to reach scale and quality and that really reimburses the services rendered in a way that's meaningful to everybody.

I am here to give the American people some straight talk about higher education. Some have said we might have cut financial aid for college students. The truth is we have expanded access to college for our neediest students through the record growth of the Pell grant program.

No one should be denied the opportunity to get an education and increase their earning potential based solely on their inability to pay for a college education.

Michelle and I—we’re where we are today only because scholarships and student loans gave us a shot at a great education.

I believe that a university education should be free as it is unfair on people who cannot afford to pay for it.

The Millennial Generation is being crushed by soaring college costs and student loan debt, and as lawmakers, we must find solutions to address affordability and flexibility in higher education.

Education should be a right, not a privilege. We need a revolution in the way that the United States funds higher education.

We all have a role to play - the President, Congress, parents, students and schools - in making college affordable and keeping the middle class dream alive.

We should be trying to make education less expensive, not more.

People of my age who went to college, go into college, you know what it cost back then? Nothing or next to nothing. At the most, you had to work at Dairy Queen during the summer and that would pay for your college education.

I now have two kids of my own in college, so I know how important it is that we keep the dream alive for every family and I share the concern about rising tuition costs.

Further Education should be about the ability to learn, not the ability to pay - everyone who is able should have the opportunity, regardless of their family background. I don't want to see students struggling with huge debts or frightened off even going to university in the first place.

Back in the 1960s, I got a superb education for very little money. The bill for my first year at Harpur College in New York was a few hundred dollars.

One of the greatest obstacles to escaping poverty is the staggering cost of higher education.

It is unconscionable that a rich country like the United States has made access to higher education so difficult for those at the bottom and middle.