Higher education should be accessible to all students looking to better themselves and give back to their communities.

Marylanders will see a long list of referenda items in this year’s ballot when they head to the polls tomorrow. For me, the most important one is the Maryland Dream Act, a bill that would allow the state’s undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at its public colleges and universities if they meet certain eligibility criteria and would give all students an equal shot at higher education. I am a living, breathing example of the type of student who would be helped by this bill – someone simply trying to better himself and give back to his community who met obstacle after obstacle in trying to attain higher education. The whole state stands to benefit when students like me can afford to attend the school of their dreams.

I grew up in an immigrant household. My family and I moved to the United States in 2005 and I entered 8th grade as an ESOL student shortly afterwards. The only guidance I was given in regards to school was “go to school and do well.” So I focused on academics like my parents suggested. I started high school taking all ESOL classes, but managed, with a lot of hard work, to move to honors courses, then AP courses, and even participated in a dual-enrollment program at my local community college.

But in my high school years, something else happened: I became a Marylander. I was so impressed by the dedication of the teachers and adults around me, and felt so fortunate to live in a state where education is valued and made accessible to everyone, that I had to give back. I started volunteering in my church, became part of mentoring groups, organized community service projects, and even became my senior class vice president. I was so involved at the end of my high school career that I racked up over 1,000 community service learning hours, far above the 50 that were required for graduation.

Throughout all of my work, I had thought I was like every other student in my high school. But during my senior year I realized that my parents’ legal troubles would have a significant impact on my road to higher education. Even though my weighted GPA at the end of my high school career was over a 4.0 and I had been involved in several leadership and community service activities, I couldn't attend the college of my dreams because my undocumented status meant I couldn't receive financial aid. Luckily I was able to gain admission into my community college’s highly selective honors program and received a private scholarship to fund my education for two years. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to attend college at all.

At the end of my two years at community college, my dream was to transfer to the University of Maryland, College Park to study public policy or sociology. It seemed like the obvious choice since their programs for both disciplines are among the best in the nation and the school is located about 15 minutes away from my house. Despite gaining admission to the school, I could not attend because, as an undocumented immigrant, I wasn’t considered an in-state student. Instead of paying the more reasonable in-state price tag of $8,500, my legal status meant that I’d have to come up with $24,000 a year without any financial aid. That difference was more than my family could afford.

Again, I was fortunate. Goucher, a private college in the state of Maryland, was able to offer me some aid, which had made it a little more affordable than the public school of my dreams.

I have been lucky. But it is unacceptable that it is more affordable for me to attend a private school and live on campus than to attend the public school around the corner. Tomorrow, Maryland voters will consider Question 4, known as the Maryland Dream Act. It would give Maryland’s undocumented students the opportunity to pay in-state tuition if they meet certain eligibility criteria: attending and graduating from a Maryland high school or its equivalent, filing income taxes, attending a community college for the first two years, and others.

This bill is financially profitable for the state. Its passage will generate $66 million in revenue per graduating class for the state, according to an independent University of Maryland, Baltimore County study. The revenue comes from the fact that the more educated our workforce is, the more workers earn and thus pay in taxes back to the state. According to the study’s calculations, only about 435 students will take advantage of the Dream Act, or about 0.1 percent of the students enrolled in public higher education institutions in Maryland.

The Maryland Dream Act gives young Marylanders like me who come from tax-paying families a shot at higher education. Had it not been for Goucher, I would not have been able to continue my education and had the chance to improve my situation. There are hundreds of Maryland students like me hoping for a chance to succeed in life and give back to their home state of Maryland.

Jonathan Jayes-Green is the Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network's education policy center director at Goucher College and is a junior.

"Let us not be afraid to help each other -- let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us." FDR said those words in Marietta, Ohio in July 1938, but it's just as relevant today. As conservatives continue to deride every attempt to create progressive change through government as an oppressive socialist takeover, we need to remember that government is nothing more or less than an expression of common initative -- a forum through which we come together to build the things we need to make our country stronger. In the video below, the Roosevelt Institute's Rediscovering Government Initiative looks at the government's vital role in every facet of society, from encouraging innovation to defending our shores, and at what we can still achieve if we're willing to dream big.

Click here to find out how you can get involved in the Rediscovering Government Roadshow.

After the first presidential debate last night, which focused entirely on domestic policy, Fellows and staff from the Four Freedoms Center, Campus Network, and Pipeline weigh in with what was said, what was left out, and what was just an outright fib.

Thomas Ferguson, Senior Fellow, Roosevelt Institute; Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Boston; Contributing Editor, AlterNet:

My first reaction is simple: These guys have some nerve talking so cavalierly about teachers. Virtually from their first words, both the president and Governor Romney got lost in a fog of details. They begged questions, frequently argued from different premises, tossed off too many details without context, and rarely held a focus long enough for many in the audience to discern what they were talking about. The effort was a case study in how not to illuminate very much.

So what? I’d guess that Romney’s endless talk about “jobs” may persuade a few of his listeners that somehow his arithmetic actually does add up, but that number probably will not be large. I suspect, too, that the president’s highlighting how Romney’s voucher plans might change Medicare even for Americans now in their fifties probably was widely understood, too, and will work in the opposite direction. Possibly Romney, by not looking wooden, might pick up some tiny increment of public support. But my guess is that this debate changed few minds for all the talk of a Romney “victory.” My own takeaway is that both candidates’ harping on the genius of the American people and the virtues of the market system made it easy to lose sight of virtually all the important points at issue. I’d say the candidates battled to close to a draw, while America lost.

Dorian Warren, Fellow, Roosevelt Institute; Associate Professor of Political Science & School of International & Public Affairs, Columbia University:

Debates are rarely game-changers in presidential elections, and last night's debate was no different. The quick assessments of Romney's more aggressive performance compared to President Obama's weak and sleepy responses are correct, as far as they go. But we should remember that incumbents always do poorly in the first debate. As political scientist Sam Popkin argues, sitting presidents don't have time for debate prep, and they aren't used to being challenged the way Romney challenged Obama last night. Clearly, the Obama team's strategy was for the president to play it safe and not come across as an angry black man. We also know that Obama has never been a good debater -- recall the 2007 Democratic Primary debates where both Hilary Clinton and John Edwards put in consistently better performances. Obviously, we know who won the nomination despite his weak performance relative to his adversaries. What will happen now through the next debate will be fact-checking the claims made by both candidates followed by obsessive poll watching to see if and how the numbers move. In the end, of the small number of voters uncommitted, last night's debate wasn't decisive nor did it sway potential voters one way or the other. 

Joelle Gamble, Deputy National Field Director, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network:

What was noticeably absent in last night’s debate was the mention of the role of everyday Americans in the economy, health care, and governance. Candidates talked about making strong investments in the future, but they did not elaborate on the role future Americans play in making their promises a reality. The bottom line for both campaigns was essentially this: “Vote for me and everything will be (or continue to be) better. Nothing bad will happen to people who are comfortable with their lives. Those who are unhappy with things will only see immediate benefits because of my policies.”

But this is a quintessential flaw in our current electoral political system. Citizens are simply voters and nothing more. We show up to the polls and mark our calendars for the next major election. For this reasons, political candidates have resigned themselves to only telling us what we want to hear before an election instead of what we need to hear to be invested in their policies afterwards. For either candidate to execute their plan well, a fully engaged citizenry is needed throughout their entire four years in office. Their success is dependent upon our continued participation on November 7th.

This participation requires a shared responsibility for the efficacy of our economic recovery. Some people will have to waste less gas or change their habits if we want to be more energy-efficient in the future. Others will have to adjust to a new system of health care if we want to be healthy as a country in the future and lower costs. The fact of the matter is, in order to keep moving in a positive direction, things will change for everyday Americans. The presidential candidates need to make it clear that we will have to be participants in that change if we want to be a better nation.

Lydia Austin, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network Senior Fellow for Economic Development; Senior, University of Michigan:

It seems that the hype surrounding this debate -- the numerous news articles and coverage dedicated to it -- was greater than the actual event. Both candidates held their own, both threw out a lot of facts related to tax policy and Medicare, and both were on the defensive for some amount of time. Romney had the most at stake coming into tonight: he desperately needed to rebrand himself as someone who understands the middle class and is responsive to Americans' frustrations. I think he effectively did that. Not an outstanding performance by either candidate, but in terms of who shifted the public discourse, it was definitely Romney (though now the Internet is blowing up with Big Bird photos).

Ken Lefebvre, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network member; Senior, University of Massachusetts:

Last night we witnessed two opposing narratives clash, unmitigated in their stances, and mostly unmoderated in their discourse. We saw a president tired from four years of entrenchment in the daily minutiae of national politics, and we saw an ever-eager opponent going into this fight with the gloves off. It could be said that Mitt Romney won this debate through his writers and an ability to look presidential. At the same time, Obama did what he had to to maintain his steady ground and consistent policies. Little was accomplished in this debate, and both candidates made the same talking points together that they had for months before. No new details were offered. You really could take segments of their commercials and edit them as if they were the debate. Emotional responses may tip the polls toward Romney for the time, but voters learned little from either candidate in this display.

Jean-Ann Kubler, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network member; Senior, Skidmore College:

After sifting through the talking points and empty rhetoric of last night’s debate (we get it, 5 trillion is a big number), the American public is left with very little substance on which to compare the incumbent Obama and challenger Romney. The two candidates made bold attempts, particularly during the economic segment of the debate, to appear as if they were presenting facts and specifics about tax plans, the deficit, and creating jobs. But in the end, what did viewers learn other than that Romney and Obama have starkly different opinions on how theoretical math works? Can Obama decrease the deficit by spending more and taxing more? Romney said no, but demonstrated no evidence other than his lack of faith. Can Romney spend $2 trillion extra on defense without raising taxes on the middle class to pay for it? Obama said no, and the math seems to back him up, but he was unable to present his argument in a manner that would be digestible by a common viewer. What the common viewer could easily discern, however, was that two presidential candidates with four Ivy League degrees between them, who both claim that the key to their governing style is bipartisan leadership, were unable to put aside polarizing, partisan rhetoric long enough to provide the American people enough information to make an educated decision about the future of our country.

Michelle Tham, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network member; Sophomore, American University:

The presidential debate had a lot more number-crunching than I expected. However, this didn't mean that all the numbers were correct. One ironic rhetorical point Romney has been using throughout his campaign (and continued at the debate) was "disregard the fact-checker and studies." Yet Romney's tax plan is defended by the Heritage Foundation. Furthermore, Romney mentioned clean coal. Since 2009, clean coal has already been identified as more of a misleading political frame than actual clean energy. Currently, there's no economical way to capture and eliminate carbon emissions from coal itself -- dirty or clean. On the same note, as Romney praises the idea of clean coal, he also misunderstands the collapse of the solar company Solyndra. There is no Solyndra scandal. Solyndra was simply a startup solar-power equipment manufacturer that was funded under the Bush administration. Solyndra fell because of the lack of demand and overseas competition. It has nothing to do with Obama's initiative for higher clean energy funds. Finally, the idea of investing in Solyndra itself adheres to Romney's idea of economic growth. 

Mawish Raza, Roosevelt | Institute Campus Network member:

The start of the presidential debates last night had stirred up much more excitement than the debate itself was able to offer. Governor Romney presented an aggressive side that clamored over President Obama’s passiveness, but aside from the candidates' demeanor, the debates didn’t touch on many key issues, including women’s rights or immigration reform. Even during the dialogue on education and health care, neither candidate even mentioned the right for a woman to make her own decisions with her body or education being a right for all individuals. 

Governor Romney repeated his commitment to education several times, along with his plan to allow parents to choose where to send their children. That’s great, but what about kids coming from broken families and being raised in poverty? What about human trafficking victims who are sold to the streets until disposed of? What about the failing education systems in inner cities? Because commitment to the education system doesn’t provide kids in these communities with instantaneous financial support, education often isn’t an answer for them. In these environments, the only plausible option for them may be to turn to drugs or crime. And when we focus on the family, where the emphasis on education will be placed on the parent’s engagement with their child, we are neglecting entire populations of youth around the country. This creates a cyclic culture of poverty for young people.

The expansion of the American education system produced 100 years of economic growth, but we need a new model to achieve a sustainable, equitable future.

The Next American Economy breakfast seminars resumed last week with a discussion with Professor Larry Katz focusing on his and Professor Claudia Goldin's book, The Race Between Education and Technology. If you haven't read this book, there is a great deal about our economy you won't understand. If you don't read at least the introduction now that you've been told, shame on you.

Larry has several fundamental insights. (These are the ones I picked out; he might prefer to highlight others.)

First, at a minimum, 25 percent of our productivity growth -- and therefore our economic growth -- over the 100 years between 1870 and 1970 is due directly to increases in the average number of years of education of the American people. It is highly likely that the actual contribution of education is significantly greater; 25 percent is a minimum.

Second, during this period, economic growth was high and equality actually improved in America despite fundamental economic and technological change -- change every bit as great as the changes we have seen in the last 30 years. In other words, we have been here before. We dealt with the effects of technological change in the past through advances in education. There is no obvious reason we could not do so again.

Third, the fundamental educational change during this period was "the high school movement," a grassroots-driven movement that saw free, gender-neutral access to high school as critical to community success. 

Fourth, there has been no recent educational revolution similar in scope to the high school movement, and the big change that has occurred -- the growth of post-secondary education -- has not been free. Not coincidentally, the growth of educational attainment in America has slowed, economic growth has slowed, and inequality has risen. 

Finally, this slowdown in education is probably a more important factor in the stunning rise in inequality we've seen than the shift of income toward the top 1 percent, which has grabbed more of the headlines.

Based on this discussion with Larry, I conclude that the mantra of the next successful political movement in America should be sustainable, equitable growth, and that this is a plausible goal. 

I'll go further. A long period of relatively high economic growth is within our reach starting in a couple of years if we would get out of our own way. I've written a piece on this titled "An American Renaissance," which I'll send to anyone who asks.

But this is not a layup. If we are to grow more rapidly over the next 20 years than we did on the last 20, we have to have a productivity revolution. More of our growth will have to come from productivity -- about 80 percent in the next decade, as opposed to 35 percent to 50 percent in the last three decades. To keep growth constant with the last 3 decades, labor productivity will have to grow by about one-third. If none of this happens, the generation born during the last decade will experience about 60 percent of the per capita income growth as did the generation born in the '60s.

The single most important thing we could do to increase the rate of growth of productivity is to increase the level of educational attainment of Americans. But sustainable, equitable growth is not a goal either of our current parties cares much about. The current progressive movement's singular focus on income distribution is both misplaced and convenient. Misplaced because there are better, more available paths to take that would accomplish both more equity and more growth; convenient because this focus enables it to ignore all the real issues. The right's obsession with unfettered markets is even more nuts and completely ignores the economic history of how American growth actually happened.

A true next American revolution in education will not be a simple linear extension of our current system. It will involve a combination of lifelong learning and certification, a commitment to teaching students how to learn continually, an equally deep commitment to what Larry Katz calls contextual training, a renovation and invigoration of our community college system, the use of the web in unique, student-oriented, and user-friendly ways, and major long-term costs. I would guess $50 to $75 billion annually for a long time -- between one-third and one-half a percent of GDP.

 But our current plan, of course, is to do nothing meaningful. As I've said before, the two parties are on a course to gut most of the government in order to protect the entitlements and retain the worst features of our current tax system. As an example, the total of all of the non-personnel investments in the federal budget is now $310 billion, or 8 percent of the total federal budget and slightly less than 2 percent of GDP, and it will fall to $270 billion, or 5 percent of the total budget and about 1.5 percent of GDP, over the next 10 years. This is a plan to build a low-growth, unsustainable economy with growing inequality.

Not to belabor a point I've probably made too frequently, but the door is wide open for what one might call a new progressivism or a new conservative movement. The old right can then focus on its Brigadoon-like vision of a time when the market roamed free and unfettered. The old left can focus on income distribution. And the real work of building a workable society based on sustainable and equitable growth can be carried out by whoever decides to reach first for the prize.

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Bo Cutter is formerly a managing partner of Warburg Pincus, a major global private equity firm. Recently, he served as the leader of President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) transition team. He has also served in senior roles in the White Houses of two Democratic Presidents.

School classroom image via Shutterstock.com.