Brighter future with affordable access to quality education

It’s past time for us to take the Federal Student Aid program back to its initial purpose — to make college affordable for lower- and middle-class Americans. Thanks to the lobbying influence of the same corporate lending industry that finances my opponent’s career in Washington, the very students that the legislation is supposed to help now pay substantially more for the same college education as their wealthy classmates.

Student loan debt has risen to over $1.2 trillion, outpacing both car loans and credit card debt, and second only to accumulated mortgage debt. While our economy is struggling to bounce back from the recession, the cost of higher education should be one of our top priorities. The inaccessibility of higher education is compromising the futures of both our children and our entire economy.

Not only do we need to lower interest rates on student loans, but we can offer more opportunities for graduates to reduce or even relieve their student loan debts by using their new skills to benefit society.

It’s also important for us to recognize and support the value that vocational and technical training provides for our working population and our economy. A well-trained and skilled workforce is a vital piece of the economic development puzzle.

It’s much easier to recruit new businesses and industries to the Bluegrass region if they can count on hiring reliable employees. Investments in workforce training don’t take very long to start returning significant dividends for local and regional economies.

I’m not convinced that we can yet afford to offer free higher education in public colleges and universities, but I’m happy to consider the idea if it’s fiscally feasible. I think it would be reasonable and provide a significant long-term economic impact to start small by offering free tuition to community colleges.

On the other end of the education spectrum, we see the best results over the long run by emphasizing early-childhood development. I support free public preschools as well as more reliable funding for early-childhood development within our public schools.

Neuroscientists have proved that brains are developing most rapidly between the ages of three and four, and that stimulation and nurturing in the basics of language, counting and social interaction yields long-term benefits in terms of their readiness to learn once they begin kindergarten.

I also believe that music education beginning in the earliest grades has equivalent long-term benefits for brain development. Arts education, daily, is not enrichment: it is foundational for teaching children to think, to use all of their brains, and to expand their curiosity and imagination. It enhances the joy of learning, which has life-long rewards.

Republican efforts to slash education budgets are objectionable for a number of reasons. Not only do those budget cuts disproportionately affect low-income households, but they make it even harder for us to build our economy in the long run. We need representatives who will work to put the lives of real Kentuckians above the profit margins of wealthy corporations.

I’m running to build a brighter future for my grandchildren and future generations, and that future looks pretty dim if we fail to support affordable access to quality education across the board.

This story was originally published October 28, 2016 at 7:23 PM with the headline "Brighter future with affordable access to quality education."