While touring Piedmont Virginia Community College on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner pitched a bill aimed at making the total cost of higher education more transparent.

In front of a class in the college’s health and life sciences program, Warner touted the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act, which would increase public access to such data as the cost of attendance, graduate earnings and average debt. That information already is gathered by the government, he said.

“Bureaucracies are great at gathering data but it’s not very good at presenting it in a user-friendly form,” said the Alexandria Democrat and former governor. He is a co-sponsor of Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden’s transparency bill. “This just seems so logical.”

Last year, federal student loan debt reached $1.2 trillion. It’s the nation’s second-highest source of debt, just behind mortgages, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Warner said he believes student debt has the potential to emerge as America’s next great credit crisis.

The Obama administration has been pushing to tighten regulations on federal student aid — especially at for-profit colleges — and is now talking about a national rating system for universities. Warner said the ideas could complement each other, but he cautioned that a ratings system should not stigmatize institutions that try to serve students coming in with average grades and test scores.

“There’s got to be a place in our system for that first generation of students to get a chance to go to college,” Warner said. “It may take them until college to blossom.”

During Warner’s tour, he and Piedmont President Frank Friedman talked about some of the school’s health science job training programs, which include career certificates for surgical technologists, X-ray technicians and paramedics.

Warner said he hoped exposure to cost, debt and earning information would help students make the right decisions for themselves. Certification programs might be a better fit for many students than four-year degrees, he said.

“I think a lot of folks may decide a four-year college route is not for them,” he said.

Several students brought up holes in the current financial aid system. One asked about support for students who technically still are dependent upon parents, but whose parents can’t or won’t help pay the costs.

Friedman said many of those students receive less aid from the federal government, which assumes parents will help pick up the tab.

“We don’t have a way to handle that in the financial aid system right now,” Friedman said.

Friedman said there is no financial aid for the college’s popular dual enrollment program, which allows high school students to earn credits from the college before graduation. The lack of aid keeps many low-income students out of the program, he said.

The conversation shifted to the national budget when adjunct biology instructor Anna Castle asked if federal funding for scientific research would return to previous levels.

Research took a big hit with sequestration last year, forcing layoffs and lab closures. The National Institutes of Health, for example, lost $1.6 billion. Warner said the trend likely would continue until Congress reins in the national debt, which sits at $17 trillion.

“When you’ve got budget constraints, the first thing that gets cut is research,” he said.

Warner is seeking re-election this fall. His expected opponent is Ed Gillespie, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and adviser to Mitt Romney during his 2012 presidential campaign.

“Every major piece of legislation I work on, I’ve got a Republican co-sponsor,” Warner said. “I think the only way you’re going to get anything done in Washington is to keep reaching across the aisle and trying to get bipartisan support.”