Our Students Deserve No Less
(Official Department of Education Photo by Joshua Hoover)
“My chief message today is a sobering one,” said Secretary Duncan yesterday at the annual Federal Student Aid conference in Las Vegas, Nev. “I want to ask you, and the entire higher education community, to look ahead and start thinking more creatively—and with much greater urgency—about how to contain the spiraling costs of college and reduce the burden of student debt on our nation’s students.”
Duncan called for a national conversation on the issue, and noted that containing the cost of college and student debt will always be some of the most controversial and thankless work in all of higher education. He went on to explain that:
With higher productivity and better accountability, institutions of higher education can boost both quality and access and constrain costs, all at the same time. In the era of the knowledge economy, the urgency of controlling college costs is not at odds with the urgency of increasing college attainment. Both goals are necessary if society is to do all it can to help more Americans succeed and thrive in the global job market.
Duncan acknowledged that for too many students and families that the cost of college is a serious and growing problem. He pointed out the Obama Administration’s unprecedented commitment to helping students pay off their student debt, including the recently announced Pay As You Earn proposal to help make student loan debt more manageable. “All told, federal support for increased college access has expanded more in the last three years than at any period since the years following the passage of the GI bill,” the Secretary said.
To those in attendance at the conference, Secretary Duncan called for creativity and a commitment to help contain the growth of college costs and student debt. “Our students deserve no less,” he said.
Click here to read the entire speech.