PLATFORM : Save Our Colleges

My parents taught me about the American dream--put out enough effort, they said, and opportunity will come. As I’ve matured over the years, I’ve learned that life is a lot more difficult than that. It was on my first day back at LACC that I became politically active. I had just quit working in a motorcycle dealership. School, I thought, was the key to my long-term future. But 322 courses had been canceled that day. People who had scheduled their entire lives--work and families--around school, had had the rug pulled out from under them.

Bill Clinton’s concern about post-secondary education has really caught my ear. He believes in developing a program for high school graduates who are not going on to four-year schools. He talks about creating an educational trust so that everyone can go to college. To me, that’s inspiring. The American dream has been dismantled, but maybe this could be the chance to bring it back.