There's a legitimate concern about economic debt. All parties have addressed this in one way or another and debated the question among themselves.
There's been insufficient attention to what I would call social debt. As we deny access to post-secondary education, which is necessary in order to advance, we're creating a different kind of debt. Our message, which I suspect other witnesses would share, is that investment in post-secondary education—and I'm talking about the whole range, not just universities but also colleges, literacy training, apprenticeship programs—is an investment that will pay off.
You don't make money in the future, you don't have a stable economic arrangement as an individual, family, or a country, unless you make investments for the future. There hasn't been sufficient attention to the investment value of supporting post-secondary education for students who have the ability and can participate, whether in apprenticeship programs, colleges, or universities. The mania of focusing only on the economic debt pits those two against each other. I think there's another way of viewing this. Those who are concerned about the economic debt can also realize their objectives by recognizing the investment in post-secondary education.