My parents didn’t go to college, but they lived a middle-class life in southwest Iowa where they raised my brother, sister and me. But by the time I graduated high school, the middle-class was much harder to attain without some higher education. So, I was the first in my family to graduate with a four-year degree, earning a bachelor’s from Iowa State in 1992. I’m proud to be a Cyclone and thankful for all the doors that higher education opened in my life.

Now I’m the mom of a teenage daughter graduating high school in a few short years. For her generation, some form of higher education isn’t just helpful for reaching the middle class – it’s virtually required.

That doesn’t mean every American needs to go to a 4-year college like Iowa State. I’m a strong supporter of community colleges, vocational training and other alternatives to the traditional 4-year college, and online degrees that people can earn on their timelines at a fraction of the cost of an on-campus education. But we also need reforms to ensure that the thousands of Iowans who attend 4-year colleges (like you!) can graduate without unmanageable amounts of student debt.

It starts with keeping a lid on tuition increases. For the last two years, Iowa residents did not see any increase in undergraduate tuition. We’ve also implemented policies that have helped create 150,000 new good-paying jobs. I’m proud that Forbes now ranks Iowa as the 5^th best state in the nation for recent graduates.

The Federal government also has an important role to play in making college affordable. For decades, Congress has increased the amount of funding available for higher education only to see skyrocketing tuitions across the country with little improvement in the quality or accessibility of higher education. There is now $1.2 trillion in outstanding student loan debt — the second highest form of debt in the nation after mortgages. And the numbers keep growing: There was over $100 billion in new student loans made last year, including $1 billion right here in Iowa.

I know how important Pell Grants and student loans are to thousands of Iowa students, and I will fight to protect them. This is personal for me because I had help for school from federal aid and scholarships. With higher education more important than ever, we cannot do anything that might make it harder to achieve.

But it’s not acceptable that many students will graduate college with so many loans that it will take decades of hard work to become debt-free. And, to make matters worse, many graduates can’t find jobs in the fields that they studied or that pay enough to meet all their costs.

If I’m elected to the U.S. Senate, I will fight to make higher education more affordable. For starters, we should give students better information about how much it will cost to pay off their student loans after they graduate and how much graduates typically earn, so young people can do a better cost/benefit analysis before taking out loans and enrolling in programs. There are already bipartisan proposals that would provide this valuable data to students before they take out loans, but Washington gridlock is blocking it.

We should also drive down the costs of higher education by increasing competition. Right now, federal student loans can only be used for select institutions, so we should explore ways to make more institutions and companies eligible. For example, many community colleges partner with local employers to create non-degree programs that lead to certifications for open jobs, but they are not eligible for Federal financial aid to pay for them.

Finally, we should transition more students to more innovative systems for repaying student loans. Under one system, graduates’ monthly loan payments are tied to their income. If your first job after graduation doesn’t pay much, that’s okay – your loan payments would be relatively small until your salary increases. These loan payment systems already exist, and I give the Obama Administration credit for expanding them, but they should be streamlined and less cumbersome to utilize.

Of course, it’s impossible to repay student loans if you don’t have a job. That’s why Congress’s first priority must be to pass policies that will create good-paying jobs. We’ve proven how to do that here in Iowa by balancing our budget, lowering taxes, and eliminating unnecessary regulations on businesses. We need to bring that “Iowa Way” to Washington.

When I think about higher education, I think about my daughter, who is a sophomore in high school. Will higher education be more or less affordable in three years? Will there be enough good-paying jobs for new graduates when she finishes her studies? The choices we make in this election will help answer those questions.

I will fight to protect financial aid for higher education for my daughter’s generation and generations to come. By giving more Iowans access to higher education, we will grow the middle class and help more people achieve the American Dream.