North Carolina has long prided itself on keeping tuition and student debt low at our state universities — in fact, the state constitution requires the legislature to keep tuition as close to free as “practicable.”

But as student debt at North Carolina’s public universities approaches the national average – and the percentage of students who graduate with debt increases as well – Bandwidth CEO David Morken asserts in the accompanying video that debt stifles creativity and risk-taking among graduates. As a result, it affects the formation of start-up companies.

“What I see today are young people who – in their most creative, dynamic years – have this huge albatross around their neck preventing them from taking risk,” Morken says.

“You are incented to risk nothing — and I hate that.”