Thread by @SenRickScott

Follow along here for LIVE updates from my higher education speech @Heritage.

Students across the country are heading back to school, so there’s no better time to talk about our education system and how important it is to keep education affordable and attainable for every American student.

Here’s why that matters to me: I grew up in a poor family. We didn’t have much. My mom and my adopted father, who was a truck driver, worked hard to put food on the table and provide for my siblings and me.

She sacrificed so we could have the opportunities in life that she didn’t have, but we also had to work for them. She taught us to take responsibility for our own lives.

Because of her sacrifice, I lived the American dream. I started working when I was 7, worked hard in school, joined the Navy at 18, and went to college on the GI Bill.

The cost of a four-year degree has increased eight times, way more than the increase in wages.

This is unsustainable and results in two drastically different but equally challenging problems.

First, a college education is becoming out of reach for more and more students. More and more students are losing out on their opportunity to live the American Dream.

Second, students who do go to a four-year college or university are becoming burdened with mountains of debt. Debt that is frankly unsustainable for people to pay off.

As Governor of Florida, I had two main goals: to keep college affordable for students and to realign the incentives in the higher education system to promote career readiness and skills training. My whole focus was to make sure students were able to get a job when they graduated.

These are simple concepts – it’s about creating incentives to make sure all of our higher education institutions were doing their most important job: preparing students for the opportunity to get a great job, build a career and become self-sufficient.

The results speak for themselves. For 3 years in a row, @usnews has rated Florida’s higher education system as the best in the nation. And we have the 2nd lowest state university tuition in the nation.

Our students are getting a world-class education at a price they can afford.

Now, I’m looking at what we can do on the federal level to drive down costs for students and their families and incentivize colleges and universities to actually prepare students for a job.

Here’s what I’m proposing:

First, if a student defaults on their federal loan, the institution where they took classes should be responsible for a portion of that default.

Second, we need to apply the same rules to Not-for-profit institutions as we do to for-profit institutions.

All institutions should be held to the same standards when it comes to preparing students for jobs, and ultimately be held accountable for their performance.

Third, if a college or university raises tuition or fees, they will be automatically cut off from ALL federal funding, including federally-guaranteed loan programs.

That’s right, ALL FEDERAL FUNDING WILL BE CUT OFF IF TUITION OR FEES ARE INCREASED.

Fourth, Pell Grants should be eligible for use at technical colleges.

Our great technical schools prepare students for work in high-demand fields, and students should be allowed to use Pell Grants to pursue the education that will put them on the path to success.

Finally, we must remove onerous Obama-era regulations that hinder private lenders from giving loans.

If a private bank wants to lend to our students, they can. And U.S. taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for every student loan in our country.

Our higher education system doesn’t serve the student, and we need to change that.

I fear that if we stay on this path, it will be harder and harder for some of our brightest minds to get the education and the opportunity they deserve.