The day after President Obama said he’d be using executive authority to enable some students to refinance their loans, Herman Cain suggested to a forum on education that the federal government shouldn’t be involved at all.

“I believe that if a state wants to help with college education, that they should do that,” Cain said. “Secondly, you have people living within communities within states that are willing to help fund those kinds of programs. So I do not believe that it is the responsibility of the federal government to help fund a college education because herein, our resources are limited and I believe that the best solution is the one closest to the problem. The people within the state, the people within the communities, ultimately, I believe, are the ones who have that responsibility.”

Something on the order of 36 million Americans have federal student loan debt.  Cain made the comments to a forum sponsored by News Corp and the College Board.

Cain said he worked his way through college and said American students might have to work harder to get through themselves. Others, he said, might have to make different choices that are a better investment.

“I happen to know that there are a lot of young people who don’t come from high economic income families and they made different choices as to the schools that they go to, secondly, like I did, found a way to work my way through school because my parents were not able to do that,” he said. “If you want an education, a college education in America, I believe that people can get it if they are determined to get it. They might have to work a little harder. They might have to work a little longer, but the fact that we have so many options for people to get an advanced education in this nation, I think it is one of the big pluses that we have, that we offer our young people, that a lot of other countries do not offer.”

Watch it here: