As numbers go, $170,000 is not a big one in Washington, where real battles are fought over billions, and millions can get lost in rounding errors.

But it caused a stir Wednesday when Mecheline Farhat Roldan, a 33-year-old criminal justice professor at Bergen Community College, told a roundtable on college costs attended by more than a dozen Senate Democrats that she and her husband owe $170,000 for their degrees, and pay more each month for student loans than their mortgage in Bridgewater....

...New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez introduced Farhat Roldan by citing his own upbringing as the son of Cuban immigrants in Union City who would not have been able to attend St. Peter’s College or Rutgers Law School without help from the government.

“We want that opportunity to be a birthright for every American who has the ability, is willing to work hard, and is able to achieve,” he said.

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