Obama gets personal on student aid ‘bill of rights’

“I’m hear to tell you I’m with you,” Obama told an arena full of college students assembled for his speech at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “I believe that America is not a place where higher education is a privilege that is reserved for the few. America is a place where higher education has to be available for every single person who’s willing to strive for it.”

“I take this personally,” Obama said, noting that his grandfather was able to attend college because of the GI Bill and his mother received grants for higher education.

“I’m only standing here because of scholarships, and student loans, and work study” the president said, noting that he and first lady Michelle Obama “did not come from families of means.”

Nevertheless, “we knew that if we worked hard, there was help out there to make sure we got a great education,” he said.

“Itake it personally. When I look out at all of you I see myself,” he told the audience of students.

During the speech Obama described the four-point student bill of rights his administration introduced Tuesday morning as a “declaration of values” regarding education.

He also touted the executive actions he took earlier in the day, which feature the creation of a one-stop Department of Education website for borrowers to submit complaints about lenders, collections agencies, and schools.

The actions also include a regulatory crackdown on lenders’ treatment of borrowers. The Education Department in recent months has received criticism regarding its oversight of contractors who service federal student debt, leading them to fire some companies.

The White House and federal agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will also study the possibility of changing the way some student loans are treated in bankruptcy. Under current law, most student debt cannot be dischargeable in bankruptcy unless the borrower meets a high standard of hardship.