I haven’t always agreed with Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Secretary of Education, particularly with the “No Student Left Behind” program, but she made two points on “The Daily Show” that I completely agree with. She agrees there are problems with the financial system, but she thinks the real question is why we need so much financial aid. I couldn’t agree more! What Congress should be spending their time investigating is why college is so expensive. Instead they are spending their time, which is our time, trying to sabotage programs that work while making meaningless promises about student loan interest rates – promises that will just make college harder to afford.

I also agree with Secretary Spellings that part of the problem with the education system is with the general lowering of American expectations. She was referring specifically to the K-12 grades, but I think what she said can be applied to higher education as well. It can even be applied to our political system. We don’t expect a lot out of our politicians. Well, we don’t expect anything good out of them. Maybe the reason the politicians drafted the Sunshine Act is because they have low expectations, as well. They see the FFELP is working and immediately assume there must be some level of corruption or mistake in the numbers. They aren’t used to seeing a federal program that works and doesn’t cost taxpayers a fortune!

We’ve lowered our expectations to the point that we only try to tell our elected officials what we think when it’s time to vote for them. By the same token, they’ve lowered their expectations of us and assume we won’t call, email, or even sign a petition. Maybe all these lower expectations are creating a society of apathy. Maybe today you start changing that by signing this petition and telling your Congressmen we expect more of them.

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.