PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Rep. David Cicilline talked with us about the rising costs of higher education, gun control and gun violence.
Undergraduates are paying $26,000 more each year for a private university, and $11,350 more each year for public universities than they did 35 years ago.
“From the day I began my college work, costs have increased 250% and wages along that same period of time have remained stagnant,” Rep. Cicilline said on Eyewitness News This Morning at 8 a.m. on Fox Providence.
Rhode Islanders also have the fourth-highest average student loan debt for a four-year college education in the country at $31,561
Gun violence and gun control has also been a hot-button issue throughout the state and nation.
“We have a gun epidemic in America,” he said. “We can do a lot more to make sure guns are out of the hands of people who should not have them, and make sure that people who are on the terrorist watch list can not get a gun.”
A 2014 study conducted by Indiana State University found that since 2001, lone wolf terrorists have increasingly turned to high-powered guns, rather than explosives, as their weapon of choice.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 59% of domestic terrorist attacks carried out between April 1, 2009, and February 1, 2015, were also perpetrated with a gun.Watch the rest of the interview with Rep. Cicilline in the video above.Eyewitness News This Morning on Fox Providence is the only local news on every morning from 7 a.m. – 9 a.m.
