In the State of the Union last week on Tuesday, Jan. 20, President Obama focused the nation’s attention on higher education, a topic that is extremely important to all students, professors and everyone who works at Cabrini.
President Obama looked back in our nation’s history, how we became a great nation, first by instituting free universal primary education and then free universal secondary education. That level of educational access was what the nation needed to become the world’s leading country.
“We believed we could prepare our kids for a more competitive world. And today, our younger students have earned the highest math and reading scores on record,” Obama said. “Our high school graduation rate has hit an all-time high. More Americans finish college than ever before.”
However, as a nation, we are falling behind in higher education. Across the nation, states have cut back on funding for higher education. According to Inside Higher Ed, “A new report from the Center for American Progress details on a state-by-state basis the extent to which recession-driven reductions in public college financing since 2008 have sent tuitions soaring, and how disproportionately low- and middle-income students and the institutions that serve them have been affected.”
President Obama laid out a bold proposal to help all students have access to universal free higher education. President Obama is proposing to make community college free. He believes that making this move would be so beneficial.
According to Solutions for our Future, a high-skills economy demands an educated workforce. Educating a workforce for the future will produce economic growth and increase our global competitiveness. These are the key benefits of Obama’s plan.
“Americans thrived in the 20th century because we made high school free. … We were ahead of the curve, but other countries caught on,” Obama said. “In a 21st-century economy that rewards knowledge more than ever before, we need to up our game.”
