Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego is sounding the horn on the significant amount of debt faced by students after they graduate from college.
"You should be able to go to a public university and graduate debt-free or as nearly debt-free as possible," Gallego said this morning at his office in Phoenix.
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Some of the more liberal members of Congress last week introduced resolutions calling for debt-free college education, and Gallego's joining in on that call.
Gallego says the amount of debt faced by college graduates right now is going to harm the economy, as these graduates have limited disposable income. He argues that a lack of government investment is responsible for levels of debt that sometimes even prevent people from graduating from college.
"It would be like investing for many years in a AAA [baseball] player and then as you're about to bring them up to the majors you basically just cut all their training and all their skills, and that's what we're doing to this generation," he says.
Members of Congress haven't laid out an exact proposal of how to achieve debt-free college education. However, there have been plenty of ideas tossed around by various politicians and think-tanks, aside from simply lowering tuition rates and increasing grants.
Meanwhile, President Obama has called for making community college free, while Gallego and others are calling for students to have no debt once graduating from public universities.
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