Michelle Obama Quotes

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

It makes no difference how low tuition is if the student has no source of funds to pay that tuition.

I couldn't afford to go to an out-of-state school.

College is expensive; I always knew that, and I wanted to make money, partially to spend a little of it here and there, but primarily for a college savings fund.

I wouldn't be here if it were not for the grant system that paid for me to go to art school - because my parents couldn't have afforded it.

I was on a couple of scholarships. I had a job in the school administrative office. I had a job as a hat-check boy in a restaurant. I had another job as an assistant to a casting director. It took a lot to get myself enough money to put myself through Juilliard.

There's no constitutional right for your parents to pay for college.

When I was a sophomore in college, my father called me at the fraternity. He told me he no longer had the funds to pay for college. If I wanted to continue, I would have to do it on my own.

It seems everyone knows a college degree is important, but few have a plan to keep it affordable.

If you're smart enough to go to college, you should be smart and creative enough to pay for it.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.

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

We should be encouraging - not penalizing - folks who want to pursue higher education.

I didn't know Penn was an Ivy League school - I didn't know what the Ivy League was. When I got in, they sent me the package, and the tuition was my mother's salary for a year. My mom said, 'We can't afford it.' So I went to the library and found several scholarships and grants and was able to cover 90 percent of my education that way.

While there are many obstacles that deter students from going to college, finances by no means should be the deciding factor.

My undergraduate education, at the City College in New York, was made possible only by the existence of that excellent free institution and the financial sacrifices of my parents.

I don't come from a lot of money and wasn't going to get an academic scholarship, so the only way to afford an education was to allow the military to supplement it.

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

I came from a working-class family, but I was supported by a grant system and had my fees paid, so I came out of Oxford with a debt of something like £200.

College today is an expensive option without a lot of economies of scale, right, when you go and live at a college. So you have a system that's increasing its cost base by probably five percent a year.

We build schools and give government loans and grants to college kids; for those of us who are parents, tuition will often be the last big subsidy we give the children we've raised.

In my family, there was one cardinal priority - education. College was not an option; it was mandatory. So even though we didn't have a lot of money, we made it work. I signed up for financial aid, Pell Grants, work study, anything I could.

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.

Middle class families are struggling to send their sons and daughters to school. For many Americans, a college education is essential to future success.

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