Before a mostly adoring crowd of about 3500 at the University of Texas at Austin, President Barack Obama gave a short, spirited address that touted his administration’s commitment to education and to addressing the most common travails faced by college students. Burnt orange festooned the auditorium at Gregory Gym as the President took the opportunity to show off his unique touch with one of his core constituencies—young people.
“When I look at the faces of America’s young men and women, I see America’s future,” the President said at one point during the speech. “And it reaffirms my sense my hope, it reaffirms my sense of possibility, it reaffirms my belief that we will emerge from this storm, and we will find brighter days ahead.”
The President opened with a friendly anecdote about a stop in Austin during the ’08 Presidential campaign, then dropped the names of a number of local luminaries, including Congressman Lloyd Doggett, state senator Kirk Watson, and Mayor Lee Leffingwell, who were among the attendees.
One notable Democratic absence was gubernatorial candidate Bill White, the former mayor of Houston. Some speculate that his absence was a conscious choice to distance himself from the President (and the President’s sagging poll numbers) for the sake of his own election battle with incumbent Gov. Rick Perry.
The speech was laden with bon mots to the mostly student audience, and largely focused on the bread-and-butter concerns of a cohort of young people entering the job market during a period of stark economic trouble.
“We’re going to build an America where no matter what you look like or where you come from, you can reach for your dreams,” the President exhorted.
Obama’s address comes at a perilous time for him and his party. With mid-term elections just a few months away and worries about a possible groundswell of anti-incumbent sentiment largely linked to the stagnant economy, Obama managed to give a gung-ho speech restating his commitment to the idea of the ability of government to positively impact people’s lives.
“As a nation, we’ve got to pull together and do some fundamental shifts in how we’ve been operating as a nation, to make sure America remains Number One,” the President intoned before going on to list several administration goals, including increasing U.S. exports and doubling the nation’s capacity to generate renewable energy by 2012.
An early high point of the speech was the President’s pledge “to produce 8 million more college graduates by 2020,” which received a loud ovation.
Among the primary obstacles to realizing such lofty ambitions is the cost of higher education, a central focus of the speech. The crisis has been a long time in emerging, but tough economic times have brought it into sharper focus. Over the past few decades, the cost of higher education has climbed at an astounding pace – faster than the Consumer Price Index, faster even than the cost of health care.
True to form, Obama voiced his concern over the issue. “I am absolutely committed to making sure that, here in America, nobody is denied a college education, nobody is denied a chance to pursue their dreams, nobody is denied a chance to make the most of their life, just because they can’t afford it. We’re a better country than that,” he said to his loudest ovation of the day.
The raw numbers seem to back up Obama. The average cost of college tuition, fees, and room and board has increased nearly 100% over the past 30 years, from $7,857 in 1977-1978 to $15,665 in 2007-2008, adjusted for inflation. Median household income, by contrast, has risen a mere 18% over the same period, from about $42,500 to roughly $50,000. College costs, in other words, have gone up at more than five times the rate of incomes.
For the poorest families, the situation is bleaker still. According to Measuring Up 2008: The National Report Card on Higher Education by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a family in the nation’s lowest income quintile can expect to spend 55% of their family income simply to ensure that a child can attend a four-year public university.
As a result of the spiraling cost of higher education, levels of student indebtedness are the highest they have ever been. According to the Measuring Up study, student borrowing has doubled just in the last decade, and risen 25% just over the last five years.
“This isn’t just an abstract policy for me; I understand this personally,” said the President on the matter of student debt, striking an empathetic chord. “Michelle and I had big loans to pay off after we graduated. I remember what that felt like....I want to challenge every college president to get a handle on spiraling costs, so university administrators need to make college more affordable, but we as a nation need to do more as well.”
It was at this point that Obama proudly recounted one of his most significant legislative victories: his administration’s radical overhaul of the federal student loan program. As part of the reform package, commercial banks such as Sallie Mae and Nelnet—often derided by Democrats as profiteering middle men—were pushed out of the federal loan market. Though completely overshadowed by the health care fight at the time of its passage in March of this year, it was an idea decades in the making.
Most of the estimated $6.1 billion in annual savings resulting from the change will be put toward educational initiatives, such as a large infusion of cash into the Pell grant program and making student loan repayment less onerous.
“I thought it was great. He touched on a lot of things about education I wanted to hear,” said one UT student about the President’s speech, reflecting the general consensus.
Another appreciative audience member, a Ugandan masters student named Rehema Apio, used the occasion of the speech to lament her own country’s education woes.
“There’s a lot of brain drain. Most of our elite go to the other countries, and we remain backward. If there was a way our government could give them better employment, and retain them in the country, we would also develop. We have very good doctors, engineers, but they are not in the country,” said Apio.
Near the end of the speech, Obama quoted first UT president George Tayloe Winston’s dedication of the original Main Building, a recitation of a command God gave to Moses in the book of Exodus:
“Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth.”
© Dallas Examiner. All rights reserved.
© Dallas Examiner. All rights reserved.
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