President Obama met with a small group of students for a roundtable on his proposal to keep student loans rates low.

The President spoke on the sidelines of a three-city, election-year tour on the issue.

On Wednesday, he was in Iowa City, Iowa, where he met with five students from the University of Iowa, discussing their career aspirations and the tens-of-thousands of dollars in student loan debt they expect to assume.

The President explained he had some experience on the issue, saying his first job out of college paid him just $10,000 a year.

"Your first job every dollar counts so wanting to make sure you don't have that extra burden when it's the only way to finance your education is a huge priority," he said.

"Part of what we're talking about is if those Stafford loans doubnle, that's an extra thousand dollars for every year that Congress doesn't act. And I have confidence everyone here you will do well but let me put it this way the first job I got out of college paid 10 thousand dollars a year. Granted this was back in 1984 so yeah if you adjust for inflation it was probably 18, something like that. But your first job every dollar counts so wanting to make sure you don't have that extra burden when it's the only way to finance your education is a huge priority."