“Secretary Spellings raised some ideas that have been raised before and some ideas that are worth debating. More importantly, however, is what the Secretary did not discuss in her speech today. For example, while she did acknowledge that college costs have been skyrocketing for years, none of the five action items she announced today addressed how to make college loans more affordable – a key concern for students and parents across our country.

“As the Secretary said, college costs have risen by more than 40 percent since 2001. As a result, millions of American families are struggling to pay for college. Hundreds of thousands of students either hold off on going to college or skip it altogether each year because they can’t afford it. And college loan debt is growing among students who do go to college. Today, the typical undergraduate leaves college with a record $17,500 in debt. This is the first time in history that an entire generation has had to go deeply into debt to pay for college.

“The Bush administration and Republican-controlled Congress, far from addressing the college cost crisis, have actually made it worse. Earlier this year they cut $12 billion out of the federal student aid programs, pushing college further out of reach for American families.

“Nor have they done anything to boost need-based scholarships for low- and moderate-income students. The Pell Grant scholarship has been frozen for four years, and it is worth over $900 less, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it was 30 years ago.

“For these reasons, it is hard to take the Bush administration’s sudden commitment to college access and affordability seriously.

“I find it ironic that the Secretary is discussing higher education challenges in the same week that the House is set to pass yet another temporary extension of the Higher Education Act. The Bush administration has had five years to act; why did it wait until now to start this debate, months after the House passed a higher education bill that missed an important opportunity to deal with the problems in our system of higher education?

“We owe it to students and working families to go in a new direction in this country. They deserve real solutions that will help them pay for college.

“Democrats believe that we must act immediately to put college back within reach of all Americans. We have introduced legislation to lower college costs by cutting interest rates in half on college loans for students and parents in the most need.

“We have also proposed ways to boost scholarships for low- and moderate-income students – and, in many cases, to do it without costing taxpayers another dime and without increasing the federal deficit.

“We want to make college more affordable and accessible, and we have a bold agenda to keep our workforce innovative and competitive. It is time for a new direction for America so that every qualified student who wants a good college education can afford to get one.”

For more on the Democrats’ New Direction for higher education, click here. To find out more about the Democrats’ Innovation Agenda, click here.