Issue Position: ACCESS TO A QUALITY EDUCATION

Issue Position

I believe the fundamental building block of a strong economy and a vibrant democracy is our public education system. However, Colorado ranks right near the bottom in terms of level of investment in k-12 and higher education. Although there are always going to be many areas for improvement in terms of evaluating outcomes, curriculum standards, etc., I think the absolute most pressing issue is increasing funding for our public schools so we can begin investing in more modern classrooms, paying our teachers competitive wages, and adequately funding not just the core, but also programs such as art, music, physical education, etc.
Further, higher education needs to not only be taken off the chopping block for budget cuts, but we need to double-down on the amount of public dollars available for further investment. If we continue to rely on only private dollars and repeated tuition increases, we're only going to make higher education further and further out of reach from the average Coloradan. Runaway student loans with double-digit interest rates are not the answer and we need to make college more attainable for everyone.

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