President Barack Obama – who increased the national debt by $5 trillion, leaving each American liable for $50,859 – on Tuesday decried the average student loan debt,, which he estimated at $26,000 per college student.

The president spoke Tuesday at a campaign rally on Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio is a key battleground state in the presidential race where both Obama and his Republican opponent Mitt Romney are spending a lot of time.

“Higher education has gotten a lot harder to afford. It has gotten more expensive,” Obama told the crowd of college students. “Over the past two years – excuse me – over the past two decades, tuition and fees at America’s colleges have more than doubled. The average student who borrows to pay for college now graduates with about $26,000 worth of student loan debt.”