Legible Rambling

pantslessprogressive:

“Of course, it’s not enough for us to increase student aid.  We can’t just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we’ll run out of money.  States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets.  And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down.  Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who’ve done just that.  Some schools re-design courses to help students finish more quickly.  Some use better technology.  The point is, it’s possible.  So let me put colleges and universities on notice:  If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. 

Higher education can’t be a luxury – it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.” - President Obama

This is superfluous and simple posturing for the upcoming election. Nothing the government (federal, state, or local) does can stop the universities from charging ludicrous amounts of money. They have something that we NEED in today’s society, and they know we need it, so they charge exorbitant amounts of money for it. The President can threaten them all he wants, but we all know he won’t decrease funding to universities. Wanna know why? That difference will be picked up by us in the tuition we pay, and his reelection bid will be dead for sure. Besides, with his record of ridiculous deficit spending, lack of a budget for his whole term, illegally appointing people while Congress isn’t in session, and crony-capitalism scandals in his administration like the Solyndra failure, the last thing he needs is a headline saying “OBAMA CUTS FUNDING TO HIGHER EDUCATION.” Call me a cynic, but I realize what this represents: pandering to one of the few voter bases that is still mostly loyal to him. Believe what you want, but I felt it necessary to present the opposite side of the coin here.

(via learnin2live)