Rick ScottVerified account

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.