Back by not so popular demand (as in mainly just Odin's) more Cynical Report! Let's skip all the "sorry about the hiatus" shit because let's be honest, no one really missed it. TO THE POST!
In “Mixed Reviews for Obama Plan to Keep Down College Costs” Tamar Lewin tells us about the enthusiasm of college students regarding President Obama’s rhetoric about keeping college tuition down. Tamar also details the tempered reactions of the President’s peers, and talks about the chances of something actually getting done considering the tumultuous times our current political system are facing. The article does a good job at drawing the divide between idealistic academia and the more cautious crowd that is President Obama’s peers.
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One quote from the article that caught my eye was one from North Carolina’s Republican Representative, Virginia Foxx, in which she states “The president is saying that people can’t afford to go to college anymore, and that just simply is not true…”. I am not big on partisan politics, but leave it to a Republican to make such a ludicrously out of touch statement. Representative Foxx is clearly not familiar with the typical middle class family’s finances. But I will be sure to send her my student loan notifications so that she can pay them, since they are so affordable.
However, I am not blindly optimistic about President Obama’s plan to keep tuition low. He said in the State of the Union Address that he would take federal help away from schools who cannot manage to keep tuition “affordable”. The only problem with this is, at least in the case of community colleges like ours, one of the reasons tuition is going up is because the cutting of state budgets, and a further decrease in funding would not help those schools.
I know this was short, but there IS more to come, I promise. Also, a start of something new. More details as I flesh it out.
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Insightful and well done.
ReplyDeleteYou can expect Obama to trim college tuition about the same time he trims salaries to public sector unions.
ReplyDeleteThink for a moment. Minorities and idealistic youth aside, Obama has only two main constituencies that can both generate campaign donations and votes in large volume. Unions and Academia. Both are nearly lock-step in support of Obama.
What do you think the odds are that he will really try to reform a system that benefits a significant portion of his base? Universities not only employ staff with inflated salaries and benefits, but are also in a position to indoctrinate students (see also public sector unions, ie. public school teachers).
If you think Obama is going to tackle this issue - especially in light of the wreckage that is now the vast majority of his 2008 campaign promises - you are dangerously naive.