In his view, the matter boils down to whether older Americans - political giants in Washington - will accept losing some of their federal retirement benefits to help a new generation attend college without swamping themselves in debt.
The key element pushing that question is a proposal before the administration and Congress for a slight reduction in the Consumer Price Index, or CPI.
"We've got to say to people over 65 this adjustment is critical if we are going to be able to continue to say our middle class is growing," Kerrey (D-Neb.) said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing.
"I think we need to say to people over the age 65, that unless we make the adjustment, there are going to be American children who graduate from high school who will not be able to send kids to college."
The hearing was focused on the Clinton budget proposal's tax incentives for education and ways to reduce the crushing debts of college students, which can reach $90,000 or more upon graduation.
Kerrey said these debt levels are destructive to society. He proposed financing additional college grants and other aid with savings generated by reducing the CPI.
Posing the issue as a choice between the generations puts a novel and dramatic spin on the long-running debate over the Consumer Price Index. The index is used to make annual cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other retirement programs and to adjust the income tax to remove the impact of inflation.
In December, a panel of prominent economists led by Michael Boskin found the CPI overstates inflation. Panel members recommended reducing the index by 1.1 percent annually, a change that would generate an estimated $1 trillion in budget savings over 12 years. That enormous sum could be redirected toward a variety of goals, ranging from tax cuts to social programs.
A CPI reduction is a major unresolved issue in this year's budget talks, with Senate Finance Committee Chair William Roth Jr. (R-Del.) advocating using savings from a CPI reduction to finance deep tax cuts. Also favoring CPI reduction is Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D-N.Y.) the finance committee's ranking Democrat.
Talk of adopting the Boskin commission's CPI reduction has riled powerful lobbies for senior citizens and labor unions and even became a theme in last year's presidential campaign as President Clinton blasted Republicans for wanting to cut Medicare spending.
David Certner, AARP's senior economics coordinator, said the over-50s advocacy group supports an accurate Consumer Price Index but believes it should be righted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes it. To Certner, politicians like Kerrey are using the argument over CPI's accuracy for other purposes.
"It's nice to be able to argue accuracy, but clearly he has been in favor of a cut before the CPI debate," Certner said. "To say CPI should be lowered to pay for education, that does not say anything about the accuracy of CPI."
In 1994, Kerrey and former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) headed a bipartisan entitlement and tax reform panel that in 1994 recommended a number of long range changes, including a CPI cut.
Certner's American Association of Retired Persons has calculated that trimming the CPI, as Boskin proposed, would lead to a $5,000 reduction in benefits for the average Social Security recipient over a decade.
Without the change, Kerrey contends, the federal budget rapidly will become consumed with mandated spending for seniors and other benefits programs.
Currently, 66 percent of the budget goes to mandated spending. In five years, that will be 70 percent. Seen that way, Kerrey regards the CPI change as critical to the long-term health of the budget and the economy's future expansion.