President Obama hosted a half-hour conference call with college-level student journalists yesterday to discuss his administration's plans to aid the nation's education system.
Images
President Barack Obama participates in a conference call with college and university student-journalists in the Oval Office, Sept. 27, 2010.
Topics
The first half of the call was allotted to the president, who emphasized the importance of re-establishing the nation's standing in higher education.
"In a single generation we've fallen from first to 12th in college graduation rates for young adults," Obama said. "And if we're serious about building a stronger economy and making sure we succeed in the 21st century, then the single most important step we can take is to make sure that every young person gets the best education possible, because countries that out-educate us today are going to out-compete us tomorrow."
Obama went on to say how he believes his administration is tackling the issue.
"First of all, we're making college more affordable," he said. "We're tripling the investment in college tax credits for middle-class families. We're raising the value of Pell Grants and we're going to make sure that they keep up with inflation ... Our second priority is making sure that higher education creates a workforce that's ready for the new jobs of the future ... A third part of our higher education strategy is where all of you have an important role, and that's making sure that more students complete college."
After his introduction, student journalists were allowed to ask questions. The first question came from Colin Daileda, a student from Radford University, who asked about student debt.
"I've heard some of my professors call our generation the 'lost generation' because we're going to get out of school with a ton of debt due to student loans and not being able to pay them off," Daileda said. "Do you think there's some truth to that? And do you think it will take a longer time than usual for our generation to get on our feet?"
Obama said he believed the generation "is going to be just fine."
"I mean, we've gone through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and so things are real tough for young people right now," he said. "But having said that, if you are getting a college degree, if you've got skills in math and science or good, sound communication skills, there are still jobs out there even in a tough environment."
The question-and-answer session ended after three questions were asked, following which Obama gave a brief, but optimistic closing statement.
"If you are able to work together as a generation to tackle long-standing problems that you inherited but that are solvable, then there's no reason why the 21st century is not going to be the American Century just like the 20th century was. And there's still billions of people around the world who want to come here, and they want to come here because they know that this is, for all our problems, still the land of opportunity."
