Rick Perlstein Quotes

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.

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.

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.

America shortchanges half its youth, the half that doesn't go to college.

Higher education cannot be a luxury.

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.

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

You can't continue to have higher education tuition grow at a multiple of the rate of inflation.

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.

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.

College is part of the American dream. It shouldn't be part of a financial nightmare for families.

When it comes to college education, American families are paying more and getting less.

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

The higher amount you put into higher education, at the federal level particularly, the more the price of higher education rises. It's the dog that never catches its tail. You increase student loans, you increase grants, you increase Pell grants, Stafford loans, and what happens? They raise the price.

Our record number of teenagers must become our record number of high school and college graduates and our record number of teachers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, and skilled professionals.

Mr. Obama seeks to federalize large portions of education, beginning with his attempt to nationalize college student loans.

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.

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.

... a threat to American education .... [Colleges would become] educational hobo jungles.

My parents were not at all involved in science. In fact, neither of them went to college.

College costs continue to rise, and student loan debt threatens to price many Americans out of a college education and out of the middle class.

When I grew up, I was just another kid who wasn't going to college.

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.

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.