I teach 140 auto shop students every day at Lower Lake High School. Each year I reluctantly schedule a classroom visit for a representative from Universal Technical Institute and he comes out to recruit my students to go to his beautiful high-tech automotive trade school in Sacramento.

I say reluctantly because, as good as this man is at selling the benefits of attending his beautiful, high-tech institution, there is very little chance that any of these students will be attending. The tuition for the 18-month course is $45,000.

If Bernie Sanders is elected president, he’s promised to make this type of trade school education free and fully available to any of my students with the drive and determination to take it. LLHS could easily send seven to ten students to UTI each year if this were the case, and what a difference that would make to our community.

A Sanders presidency would make traditional college tuition-free to all of our students here in Lake County who are overwhelmingly poor and would benefit the most from this type of program.

Bernie would also guarantee that our kids are not saddled with the crushing student debt currently burdening many of their parents and teachers. He will cancel the student debt and high-cost student loan programs burying millions of families across America and limit student loan interest to 1.88 percent. This is huge.

As an example: Together, my wife, who is also a teacher, and I pay $6,600 per year in an interest-only, student loan repayment program to the government so that we can have the credentials to teach children. And only a fraction of that is tax-deductible. We have to pay to teach.

Our students have to pay for college. Our individual citizens have to pay property tax and income tax and payroll tax to pay for schools.

Meanwhile, Amazon pays nothing. Goldman-Sachs pays nothing. Fed-Ex pays nothing … and they all want well-educated employees. This is just one example of the high cost of education.

It can all change with a Bernie Sanders presidency.

John Tyler lives in Kelseyville, California.