Obama addresses higher education issues in State of the Union

In his State of the Union address on Jan. 24, President Barack Obama proposed a radical higher education plan that would dramatically aid college students with financial struggles.

At various points during his speech, Obama hit on topics such as increasing benefits and salaries for professors based on performance, expanding tuition tax credits to families in need, increasing the amount of available work-study positions by double and penalizing universities that keep raising tuition costs in the form of lesser funds from taxpayers.

His main aim is to increase the aid to students that comes from university administrators. This figure currently stands at $3 billion, and his goal is to see it rise to $10 billion within five years. He also strives to ensure that these new funds get distributed properly and fairly, and are especially used to help students in financial need complete their college degrees.

The biggest problem Obama is looking to combat is that of tuition cost. Fees for tuition this year rose over eight percent at public colleges, and the average cost of tuition with room and board added is over $17,000 on an annual level. Obama’s proposed education plan would greatly lower these costs, or at least institute a system that would force universities to find a way to lower them.

These numerous platforms would help more students find the means to pay for college, thus expanding the availability of higher education to a greater number of people. The only question that remains, however, is if these proposed changes are realistic.

“He will need Congress for most of them, and as with health-care reform, there are many vested interests that will resist efforts at reform unless they get their cut,” said David Johns, assistant professor of political science at Portland State.

“Obama, like all presidents, has several goals on his agenda. Which will he prioritize? How much political capital will he spend on education as opposed to other goals? What is his estimate of what can be accomplished? What opportunities may arise to advance reforms? Getting re-elected will also inform many decisions,” Johns said.

Therefore, it would be unrealistic to expect these sorts of radical, immediate changes. It is believed that Obama’s plan comes from the right perspective, but that his hopes for these sorts of radical changes may be too high.

“Neither President Obama (nor any president) has enough unilateral power to create these outcomes, without a lot of cooperation from other actors,” said Ian McDonald, a PSU assistant professor of U.S. government and U.S. politics. “These were good positions for the State of the Union speech; college affordability is an important problem to most people, and he has made some arguments that will be difficult for Republicans to counter.”

Moreover, McDonald and Johns both believe that current education financial problems may be as a result of state, and not federal, inadequacies. Specifically, both professors touched on state government’s inability to provide proper funds for their universities.

McDonald pointed to the fact that state support for higher education has dropped from 46 percent into the low 20s since 1980, and that the state of Oregon’s spending per pupil has plummeted by 60 percent in the same time span. Likewise, Johns noted the continued decline of state funding, and the trend of state legislatures and governors to praise the benefits of their higher education systems rather than address their faults.

Still, both experts remain adamant that the nation’s higher education system does need help, and that certain trends need to shift in order to provide this aid. Instituting aspects of Obama’s higher education plan could go a long way toward meeting these goals.

“Keep in mind, above all else, that these problems have been unfolding for a very long time,” McDonald said. “State funding of universities is already dropping rapidly in most places. The emphasis in this idea is accountability; as is the case with accountability in K-12 education, it’s an idea that everyone accepts in principle.”

“There is no question that tuition costs have outstripped inflation and cost increases in many other sectors, health care excluded,” Johns said. “If the U.S. is serious about an educated citizenry, then stopping high interest rates on student loans needs to happen.”