After President Barack Obama called the cost of college “the most daunting challenge” high school graduates currently face during Tuesday’s State of the Union address, he issued a challenge Friday to American universities: keep tuition down or risk losing funding.
In a speech delivered at the University of Michigan Friday, Obama outlined proposals to increase campus-based aid to colleges to $10 billion annually and increase or decrease funding to schools based on their affordability and value to students.
Obama’s “Blueprint for Keeping College Affordable and Within Reach for All Americans” — originally mentioned in Tuesday’s address and posted as an online fact sheet Friday — proposes to shift federal aid away from schools with rising tuition and move it toward “those acting responsibly.” The plan defines “responsible” colleges as those that restrain tuition increases, offer a “good value to students” and serve low-income students.
“We are putting colleges on notice… you can’t assume that you’ll just jack up tuition every single year,” Obama said in the speech. “If you can’t stop tuition from going up, then the funding you get from taxpayers each year will go down.”
The UC Office of the President released a statement Friday supporting the proposal to reward colleges that graduate more low-income students.
“The (UC) already has tuition that is highly redistributive: One third of every tuition dollar goes to financial aid, and more than half of our students pay no tuition,” the statement reads.
But if California voters do not approve Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed tax increases in November, the UC will receive a $200 million cut, which could spur tuition hikes.
Dr. Muriel Howard, president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, expressed concern over Obama’s proposal in a statement.
“Public institutions in 40 states do not have complete control of their pricing,” she said in the statement. “Harming students at these institutions because of decisions made beyond the control of their college or university is an obstacle to keeping the American promise.”
Obama also proposed a “Race to the Top” program which would reward states that engage in higher education reform and a “First in the World” competition which would support public and private colleges and nonprofit organizations working on reform.
Additional proposals included increasing work-study jobs, creating a “college scorecard” which would provide families with college information and extending the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which provides $2,500 maximum per year to low-income college students.
Obama also opposed the planned increase of interest rates for subsidized federal Stafford student loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent this summer.
Rich Williams, higher education advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said preventing increased interest rates on student loans, extending the tax credit and increasing work-study jobs could play a central role in helping students reduce debt.
“Student debt has been skyrocketing,” he said. “More students are borrowing more, and that comes with serious consequences. Hopefully with President Obama drawing the line in the sand on this, it will help build momentum in Congress to see it passed.”
Jamie Applegate covers higher education.
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President Obama’s speeches (State of the Union and Ann Arbor, Michigan) were basically composed of midwestern corn. Both were non-descript, promised everything, and will deliver nothing. It was an attempt to recoup votes among the chronically unemployed and college students, both of whom believed his promises in 2008. And don’t worry, when Cal and Michigan students see their Fall Semester tuition increase this year, and the Fall Semester after that, and the Fall Semester after that, they will belatedly realize what corn pone tastes like.
obama’s blueprint is to create a nation of people so dependent on the federal government that they refuse to stand up for their rights.
Aka sheeple
Obama is good at spreading taxpayer money around to keep his sheeple on his plantation. Now, many Cal Kiddies will swoon and go baaa baa baaa.
Obama the Fraud said in his State of the Union address that one of the American values that must be reclaimed is “an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” For three years, he and his political allies have been undermining this vision. They see government as a means of rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies. For the Obama circle, rules apply only to other people.
Example: Obamacare Waivers….
The vast majority of recipients were labor-union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments with strong Democratic connections. One in 5 waivers issued in April 2011 went to upscale nightclubs, bars and hotels in Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district. Mr. Obama is not even covered by his own law.
Example: Crony capitalism….
A CBS News investigation found that 80 percent of the $20.5 billion in Energy Department loans for “green” energy went to Mr. Obama’s top donors. The half-billion-dollar government loan guarantee to the bankrupt solar-panel company Solyndra is a model ofObama-style crony capitalism.
Example: Fair Shot….
During the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama promised to “end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all.” Don’t tell that to his friends. In May 2011, the pharmaceutical firm Siga Technologies, headed by Obama intimate Ronald Perelman, received a $443 million sole-source, no-bid, no-questions-asked government contract for an unnecessary anti-smallpox pill. Siga previously had been awarded a $3 billion contract after placing former Service Employees International Union boss and frequent White House visitor Andy Stern on its board.
Never in modern history has the U.S. government been used so extensively as a vehicle for benefiting political cronies at the expense of the rest of us. In his speech, Obama said America shouldn’t “settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by.” Given this administration’s rampant favoritism, special treatment and backroom deals, restoring fairness is a major argument against Obama’s re-election.
Now that he has a record, we see Obama is a Fraud plain and simple. Only leftist sheeple and media believe otherwise