Issue Position: Improving Affordable Access to Education

Issue Position

Providing various paths to higher education

Affordable education, whether at a college or vocational school, is one of the keys to prosperity and a better quality of life, especially in a rural state like Maine. A trained, employed work force supports economic growth. Further, support for students who want to start a business should be a priority area for a variety of entrepreneurship programs.

Reforming the student loan industry

Where the federal government partners with schools to provide student loans, it should be done to benefit students, not to benefit large financial institutions and artificially inflate tuition rates. Mainers have the second highest student loan burden in the country - an average of nearly $30,000. For the first time in history, our college graduates are so burdened with student debt that they may not be able to start innovative businesses, or buy their first homes - this is slowing our economic recovery. College graduates make up a segment of our population that should be driving our economic recovery, and we need real solutions to this crisis.

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