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.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Middle class families are struggling to send their sons and daughters to school. For many Americans, a college education is essential to future success.
When we make college more affordable, we make the American dream more achievable.
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.
The key to a vibrant middle class is an abundance of jobs that pay enough so that workers can provide for themselves and their families, enjoy leisure time, save for retirement and pay for their children's education so they can grow up and earn even more than their parents.
One of the strengths of our nation has always been a strong middle class who could afford their own homes and send their children to school.
We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.
For me, the labor movement and public education are linked as the essential building blocks to a strong middle class and a path to the American dream. It's why I went to Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations as an undergrad and then to law school.
Everything depends on a good job - strong families, strong communities, the pursuit of the American dream, and a tax base to support schools for our kids and services for our seniors.
A thriving middle class is a necessary precondition for a free representative government.
There's no conscious plan here; my whole life in politics as a state legislator and in Congress has been about strengthening the middle class.