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It's a good idea to revitalize community colleges, to cut back, to modify the student loan program so it doesn't go through banks.

We need to make college affordable in price, and also have lower-cost student loans and more available grants for students.

I strongly support tax relief for the middle class.

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.

I would also certainly continue to keep loan repayment interest rates as low as possible. And I would spread the financial aid a little less thinly across all income brackets.

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.

Given the best of all possible worlds, I would make a few changes. I would place emphasis on increasing the amount of funding that goes into programs like Pell Grants, that purely and simply award funds to students who really cannot afford full tuition.

The whole student loan thing drives me completely nuts. If it wasn't possible for 18-year-olds to sign themselves up for tens of thousands of dollars in debt in order to pay their college bills, the state governments wouldn't have found it so politically easy to cut taxpayer support for public colleges and universities.

On the other hand, it is not fair to say that changes in federal policy have caused our tuition to rise faster. Every economic argument imaginable would indicate that we should raise tuition at a faster rate than we do.

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.