The Class of 2012 will proudly walk the stage this weekend. I remember talking with some of these young people when they started college in September 2008, in the midst of a financial crisis. A common refrain I heard during those dark times was, "Thank goodness I'm not graduating this year."

Four years later, many of those same students are graduating into a stagnant economy that is still not creating enough opportunities for them and still threatening to leave much of their remarkable potential untapped. Worse, after years of startling increases in college tuition, they are graduating with unprecedented personal debt burdens. And to top it off, decades of bad policies supported by both political parties have racked up dan gerous levels of national debt, leaving the next generation with an unconscionable mess to clean up.

The good news is this: It's not too late to get America back on track, lift the debt, and ensure a brighter future for today's graduates. The budget passed by the House of Representatives in March offers a sensible path forward to expand opportunity for all by advancing real reforms and principled policy solutions.