The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. August 23, 2013 Obama Takes Up Student Debt, Calls for New Ranking of Schools -------------------------------------------------------------- President Obama has unveiled a new plan to address the high costs of college in the United States. Speaking in Buffalo, Obama said an estimated $1 trillion in student debt is hurting the economy and threatening the futures of millions of young Americans. Obama's proposal centers around a new official ranking system that would rate colleges on their value to student dollars. President Obama: "What we want to do is rate them on who's offering the best value so students and taxpayers get a bigger bang for their buck. Number two, we're going to jumpstart new competition between colleges — not just on the field or on the court, but in terms of innovation that encourages affordability, and encourages student success, and doesn't sacrifice educational quality. That's going to be the second component of it. And the third is, we're going to make sure that if you have to take on debt to earn your college degree, that you have ways to manage and afford it." .