Enrollment in Colorado is expected to expand about 25 percent in seven years. It's very difficult to find those additional funds. Therefore, I think you're probably going to have increased pressure on tuition.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I did my undergraduate work at the University of California when it was still affordable. But tuition keeps on rising.
We need to make college affordable in price, and also have lower-cost student loans and more available grants for students.
What can we do to put more Colorado in Washington and less Washington in Colorado?
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.
We will see the increasingly rapid rate of growth we've already been seeing in Colorado continue.
I want all tuition to stop growing.
You can take a school like the University of Colorado, with a selective admission standard. It has a better caliber student going in, so you ought to have a better caliber coming out.
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.
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.
This year, we must address the Colorado Paradox. We have more college degrees per capita than any state. Yet we lag the nation in the percentage of students who go on to higher education.