Marco Rubio
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio says it’s time to end the higher education ‘cartel’ in America.
“We still need welders and electricians and pipefitters and people that can work in manufacturing and skilled labor and we don’t produce it anymore,” Rubio said during a campaign stop in Urbandale on Wednesday morning. “What we tell young Americans is: ‘Unless you go to college, you’re not a smart kid,’ and that is a lie.”
Rubio suggested “millions” of young Americans cannot get on the path to the middle class because they’re trapped in a low-wage job and saddled with student debt.
“All their lives they were told: ‘Go to college and get a degree,’ and so they did,” Rubio said. “In fact, many of them borrowed money to go to college and get a degree and today they have a job that they could have had without going to college and without the student loan.”
According to Rubio, his party “has too often stopped” at calling for tax cuts and hasn’t addressed the changes required to retool the country’s workforce. Rubio said some of the “best paying jobs of the 21st century” are for people with vocational skills.
“A 21st century welder makes more than a 21st century psychologist and yet somehow we stopped producing welders and we stopped producing people that work with their hands and we have to get back to doing that in America,” Rubio said. “And when I’m president, we will.”
Rubio wrapped up a two-day campaign swing through Iowa with a stop in Davenport early this morning.