My name is Ashley Stork, today I'm joined by my partner Sam Leary, both a partner in business
and in life.
We're born and raised Wisconsinites, hailing from Burlington and Kimberly, Wisconsin.
We're first generation college students, business owners, and proud Main Street Alliance members.
We met during undergrad at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Coming from a family of farmers in rural Wisconsin, I had to take out student loans to afford
my tuition.
Together, we have over $75,000 in student loans.
While still in school, I remember I'd saved enough money to make my biggest payment to
date.
Feeling like I was getting ahead, I was heartbroken to discover that the $1,000 I saved
couldn't even cover the interest that had piled up.
After graduating, I discovered my passion for digital marketing.
Two years ago, Sam and I pursued our dream of becoming entrepreneurs and founded Marketini
Media, a marketing firm based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Shortly after becoming business owners, the President's forgiveness program was struck
down, devastating us along with millions of Americans.
Fortunately, President Biden announced that he would not back down, and announced his
save plan.
Sam and I enrolled as soon as possible.
Prior to the save plan, we were making monthly payments totaling $700.
Now, after the save plan, our monthly payments have dropped to $0.
And we no longer have the fear of our balances increasing because of runaway interest.
Because of President Biden's commitment to hardworking Americans, the save plan empowered
us to reinvest in our business, hire our first employee, and help promote economic growth
throughout the state of Wisconsin.
For Sam and me, it has truly made all the difference to have a President who believes
in our dreams and has our backs.
Now is with immense honor and gratitude that I introduce to you our President, Joe Biden.
Hello, Wisconsin!
Hello, hello, hello, hello, please have a seat at the third, if you have one.
Gov, thank you, thank you for that nice introduction.
Thank you, Ashley, for introducing me and sharing your story.
I like an awful lot of people in this audience that was the first in my family to go to college
and watch my dad struggle to help me get there and get all the kids there, and it wasn't
easy.
But, you know, I asked the rhetorical question, how can we be the leading country in the world
without the best education system in the world and access to it?
You and Sam are from rural Wisconsin, the first of your families to go to college.
Life partners, business partners, hardworking, paying off your loans, only to see your dreams
being crushed by student debt.
But now, thanks to what we're doing, that student debt is no longer holding you back.
With this new freedom, you started your own business.
It helps women and minority-owned businesses right here in Wisconsin.
That's what this is all about.
I think we're all in this room to share one goal, give everybody a fair shot, just a shot.
Freedom to chase their dreams.
You know, you've got some of the great leaders in Wisconsin here as well, and I mean that
sincerely.
I think Tony knows this.
You're a governor.
I think he's one of the best governors in the United States.
I'm not just, I really are, Tony.
And the progress we've made, and we made a lot, is no small part because of Tony.
And the bad news for Tony is, we become friends.
And Mark, thank you, Representative.
Thanks for the passport to get into the district.
I appreciate it.
You're doing a hell of a job.
And Madison Mayor, thank you, where is she?
There you are.
Stand up.
I get instructions from my wife who's a schoolteacher.
She said, make sure you say hello to the mayor.
I really like being with her.
Thank you, Mayor, for taking care of her.
And the state and local tribal leaders here today, thanks for making it available.
Where are you?
There you go.
Stand up.
Thank you.
And by the way, it's Indian Nations.
And while she couldn't be here, I'm always grateful for one of the best senators in the
United States Senate, Tammy Baldwin.
She really is.
And she's a great partner in education, infrastructure of bi-American so much more.
She's done so much.
And when Kamala and I ran this lead in this lead county, we made a commitment to fix our
broken student loan system.
Because while college degree still is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket's becoming
much too expensive, much too expensive.
In fact, things are a lot different from what college tuition was more affordable and
boring for colleges repaying those loans was more reasonable.
Today, too many Americans, especially young people with several guns of sustainable debts
in exchange for college degree.
The ability for working in middle class folks to repay their student loans has become so
burdensome that a lot can't repay it for even decades after being in school.
And I mean, that's necessarily, many of you know that, sit in the front of me.
Even when they have worked hard and paid their student loans, their debt increases not diminishes.
Too many people feel the strain and stress, wondering if they're going to get married,
have their first child, start a family, because even if they get by, they still have this
crushing, crushing debt.
That's not just a drag on them.
It's a drag on our local economies.
It's a drag on, no, it really is.
It's a drag on the economies.
When you can't afford to buy a home, start that small business, chase that career that
you've been dreaming about for a long time.
That's why early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide more than 40 million
working in middle class American student debt relief.
Tens of millions of people's debt was literally about to get canceled.
But then some of my Republican friends and elected officials and special interests sued us
in the Supreme Court blocked us.
That didn't stop us.
No, I mean, sincerely, we continue to find alternatives past reduced student debt payments.
That are not challenging.
And all together, my administration has taken the most significant action to provide student debt
relief ever in the history of this country.
We started by fixing two existing programs to get more people's student debt relief than
they were entitled to.
First, we fixed what was called the public service loan forgiveness program, which was
designed to make sure those in public service school teachers, police officers, firefighters,
social workers, faith leaders, public servants, you get the student loan forgiven in 10 years
if they've made their payments for those first 10 years, and after 10 years in the student
in public service, they would have their loan forgiven.
When I took off as 7,000 public service, 7,000 had their debt forgiven.
The program wasn't working very well.
So I called in the Department of Education and other departments, and we got to fix this and fix it now.
Thanks to our reform, nearly 900,000 have had their debts forgiven,
including 16,400 right here in Wisconsin.
Second, in turn, what's called income-driven repayment program, which I renamed the SAVE program,
the most affordable repayment plan ever.
Before I took office, student borrowers had to pay 10% of their discretionary income on a monthly basis
from what they borrowed, 10% discretionary income.
That's income after you pay necessities like housing and food.
A lot of people didn't have the means to pay 10%, so I was able to lower my authority
and have the Department cut that to 5% for undergraduate loans.
Now, that means no undergraduate loans, whether a community college or four-year college,
have to pay more than 5% of discretionary income to repay those loans starting in July,
starting in July this year.
And for millions of borrowers who make less than $32,000 a year now after they're out,
their monthly student payments will be dropped to zero as long as they're dead.
Really?
And already, close to 8 million Americans had enrolled in the SAVE plan,
including 135,000 here in Wisconsin.
Because of our reforms, 25,000 people a month nationwide have been receiving letters from me
about their debt they had for four years for all those years is finally going to be forgiven.
But I'm not stopping here.
Today, I'm proud to announce five major actions to continue to relieve student debt
from more than 30 million Americans since I started my administration.
First, my administration will propose a new rule to cancel up to $20,000
to run away interest for any borrower that owes more now than when they started paying the loan.
That's a big difference.
And for loan middle-class families enrolled in my SAVE program,
we'll cancel all of your interest, all of your interest.
And second, we plan to cancel student debt for bars that still owe student loans,
even though they started repaying them more than two decades ago.
Folks, third, we plan to cancel debt for about two million borrowers who would be eligible for debt forgiveness
through the SAVE program.
Public service loan forgiveness or other debt canceling program,
but are not enrolled in these programs.
Some of you are only finding out after the fact that you're a teacher, a firefighter, a cop,
that you qualify, but you just didn't know about it before.
And now people are, but you're eligible no matter how long it's been, you've been out of the program.
Fourth, we plan to cancel debt for bars with the Department of Education
determines we're cheated by universities that left students in unaffordable loans
and delivered little benefits to students.
And you know, you know one of those, you know one of those colleges was closed, I won't mention.
And finally, the Department of Education will propose a new rule to cancel student debt
for Americans facing financial hardships from child care to health care
to prevent them from paying back their loans.
And over the coming months, the Department of Education will propose
and then implement these plans.
And starting this fall, we plan to deliver up to $20,000 in interest relief to over 20 million borrowers
and full forgiveness for millions more.
I can tell by the looks on some of your faces, this relief is not news to you all,
because this relief can be life-changing, life-changing, just as you heard from Ashley.
Folks, I will never stop to deliver student debt relief in hardworking Americans
and it's only in the interest of America that we do it.
And again, it's for the good of our economy that's growing stronger and stronger and it is.
By freeing millions of Americans from this crushing debt of student debt,
it means they can finally get on with their lives instead of being put on hold.
That's why every American making a student loan payment should go to studenta.gov.
Studenta.gov to learn more about these plans and see if you're an enemy fit for you.
Look, that's not all.
People say to me, it's great you're helping people into college.
How about all those hardworking people who grew up and had no opportunity to go to college?
I get it. That's the neighborhood I come from.
That's why a big part of my economic agenda is investing in all Americans, whether you attend college or not.
We're expanding career and technical education at high schools.
We think how many of these shop programs have been dropped.
People not knowing whether they want to work with their hands.
They're being able to get started.
To provide pathways to good middle-class jobs without college.
My labor department is investing $200 million in grants for registered apprenticeship programs around the country.
So FERC folks can learn skill trade.
And by the way, parenthetically, you know all the money the chips program I put together, well guess what?
It's going to invest over $50 billion in new programs.
New ability to make these chips here in America.
And those fabs they call them, guess what?
You know what the average salary is? $110,000 you don't need a college degree.
But you need a skill.
Programs like the one that taught right here at Madison Technical College.
We need good paying jobs and high growth fields and clean energy healthcare technology.
These apprenticeship programs are four and five years before you qualify to have a license.
I love people saying why you're so pro-union and pro-labor.
A lot of people think you can walk up and say I want to be an electrician.
And you're an electrician.
Five years of friendship.
It's like going to college.
Five years.
I also want to make, and I've been pushing this.
And if I'm re-elected, I'm going to push it hard.
I'm going to get it done next time.
Because I want to make community college tuition free.
So you won't need loans at all.
You're cutting half the cost of going to college.
If we do this, the economic gains will far outweigh the cost.
And that's not hyperbole, that's the truth.
This is in addition to the historic investments we're making to monetize our infrastructure.
Roads, bridges, high speed, and clean water for every American.
We need more qualified people doing this work to bring back manufacturing back to America.
To build new factories in your communities.
And I'm investing in the American agenda.
We expect to create millions of jobs over the next decade.
We've already created over 15 million new jobs.
15 million new jobs.
And a significant number of these do not require college degree, including across Wisconsin.
Let me close with this.
My dad used to say, and that's not hyperbole.
My dad was a hard-working guy.
A very well-read man got into college.
They say everybody thinks it's Baltimore.
He's from Baltimore.
He got into college to go to Johns Hopkins.
I didn't know that until after he passed away.
But it was during the war, just prior to the war.
He was working in the shipyard.
And he couldn't go.
But he used to always, hey, at this phrase.
He said, Joey, a job's about a lot more than a paycheck.
It's about your dignity.
It's about respect.
It's about having a place in the community where you, in fact, feel like you belong.
It's about being able to look at your kid in the eye and say, honey, it's going to be okay.
That's what we're doing.
We're giving people a chance to make it.
Not a guarantee, just a chance to make it.
That's why I've never been more optimistic about our future.
And we just had to remember who we are.
We are the United States of America, and there's nothing beyond our capacity
if we do it together.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
And God bless you all, and may God protect our troops.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
God bless you all.