Bernie Sanders joined U.S. Senate hopeful Katie McGinty at rally at  Carnegie Mellon University ahead of her election, speaking to an audience of mostly students about college debt, minimum wage, climate change, infrastructure and more.

“We are saying to the billionaire class, ‘your greed is destroying this country. You cannot have it all. We want a government that represents the middle class not just the people on top,” Sanders said.

Sanders, a former Democratic candidate for president and Vermont Sen., has endorsed Democrat McGinty over the incumbent, Republican Pat Toomey. The two rallied on Sept. 16 at the university to several hundred people.

Both Sanders and McGinty discussed how the American dream has become unrealistic and that common goals are unreachable to the middle and working class.

According to McGinty, modern day families are not asking for much, just basic wants and needs including a house, a week vacation once a year, security after retirement and for parents to be able to send their kids to college.

The rally gathered both older generations and millennials, but students especially.

Freshman SAEM major Benjamin Baklarz could not contain his excitement to hear and see Sanders for the first time.

“He is probably the only honest politician that I have ever known. When I first heard one of his speeches, I actually cried,” Baklarz said.

In the upcoming presidential election, Baklarz is supporting Hillary Clinton, though he supported Sanders during the Democratic primary.

“I don’t like the ‘Bernie or Bust’ movement because Bernie even came out supporting Hillary, and if people consider themselves a Bernie supporter, then they kind of have to support Hillary,” Baklarz said.

Although many people who wanted Sanders to be president are now siding with Hillary, freshman cinema production major Michael Johnson is unsure about having her run the country.

“At first, and still, I’m not a huge fan of Sanders siding with Hillary, because even though it was probably the best option, I believe that between the both of them, Bernie would have been able to do a lot more than what Hillary is willing to do,” Johnson said.

Johnson is open to new ideas and thinks that people should give third party candidates more of a chance.

Other issues discussed during the rally included raising minimum wage, paid medical and family leave, pro-choice rights, making college more affordable, raising more awareness for the LGBT community and improving the well-being of the middle and lower classes were emphasized.

“When you work hard you are supposed to get ahead. Beautiful people in every part of this commonwealth are giving it their all, every single day. But the part about getting ahead is not looking too good,” McGinty said.

McGinty said she has working class parents and relayed that to the audience to empathize that they are not alone in their struggles as middle class workers.

Sanders explained that the majority of Republicans, including Pat Toomey and Trump, believe there should be huge tax breaks to billionaires.

“In the last 16 years since the year 2000, we have seen a ten times increase in the number of billionaires in America,” Sanders said. “Sixteen years ago, there were 51 billionaires, today there are over 500. The very rich get richer, the middle class continues to shrink and a lot of people are living in poverty.”

Sanders went on to say that the current minimum wage needs to be raised to a living wage of 15 dollars an hour, along with pay equity for women.

“Women are sick and tired of making seventy-nine cents on the dollar, they want the whole damn dollar. We know that while the economy is better today than it was eight years ago, we also know that unemployment is much too hard,” Sanders said.

He also instilled in the audience that infrastructure in America desperately needs repaired, climate and that college cannot continue to be overpriced. Sanders believes education, particularly public college tuition, should be free.

“We need radical changes in the way we deal with student debt,” Sanders said. “People in this room are paying 7 or 8 percent interest rates on their student debt. They’re paying it off year after year after year, and that is why I believe we got to make sure that people can refinance their student debt and get the lowest interest rates they can.”

Sanders also indirectly referenced republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who rejects the subject of climate change.

“You cannot run for president when you reject science,” Sanders said. “Climate change is real.”

This was a first political rally for freshman screenwriting major Gwen Norsic, who wanted to hear the politicians’ ideas and reinforce what she already believes in. Norsic believes that millennials are an important part of the 2016 presidential election.

“We’re about to adopt the world that everyone else created for us so I think we should have a say in how to change it and keep it moving forward,” Norsic said.

Although Sanders is no longer a presidential candidate for the 2016 election, he still plays an important role in politics according to Baklarz.

“I think that, by doing this rally and helping other democrats become senators, he can maybe inspire more younger people to actually to get into offices like a senator or even become the president,” Baklarz said.