President Barack Obama said Tuesday higher education funding will remain a priority in the budget process, which education experts say bodes well for the future of financial accessibility to college for students.
Tuesday morning, President Obama appeared at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Vir. to elaborate on his current plans to restore the country’s deficit – claiming a crucial step was creating greater funding for higher education.
“Last week, I laid out a plan to get America’s finances in order,” Obama said in a statement at the event. “It was a plan for shared prosperity through shared sacrifice and shared responsibility.”
In his remarks, Obama focused heavily on where educational spending fits into his plans, arguing the government is not going to reduce the deficit by cutting education and eliminating college scholarships. He also said funding for Pell Grants – grants sponsored by the United States Department of Education based on financial need – would remain in the government’s budget.
Obama said the Pell Grants were a way to invest in the future, strengthening the middle class while boosting the economy. He said financial aid such as the Pell Grant program made it possible for him to attend college, adding it was a fair argument to say he would not be president today if it weren’t for such programs.
“We have actually said that even as we are making all these spending cuts, we actually think that education spending should go up a little bit,” Obama said in the statement. “The reason is not that money solves all the problems in education – it doesn’t. But whether it’s K-12 or higher education, money does make a difference if it’s used intelligently.”
Director of UW Student Financial Services Susan Fischer said in the 2010-11 school year, there were around 5,000 Pell Grant recipients at the flagship campus alone, amounting to a little more than $18 million in aid for students.
“The Pell Grant program has been around since 1965, so it’s not a very old system,” Fischer said. “It is supposed to be the base of financial aid. It’s a big deal grant.”
Fischer said during their implementation, the grants were designed to cover 60 percent of the cost of education for students, but they haven’t covered nearly that amount since the late 1970s. In 2011, students with the highest grant received $5,560.
Former University of Wisconsin chancellor and educational policy expert John Wiley said the president’s statement bears extreme significance both for the country and UW specifically.
“I can’t think of anything more important than enabling students to go to college,” Wiley said. “I think this will enable us to diversify the freshman class.”
Wiley said when he was chancellor between 2001 and 2008, the average family income of UW students was around $92,000 a year. He said the university is missing out on a lot of talent by making it unavailable to lower income students.
“There’s no way every brilliant, creative student falls in the upper-middle class,” Wiley said. “Many income groups aren’t even eligible to get loans. We need more flat out grants and scholarships.”
Wiley said although he believes increasing funding in the current economic environment is going to prove very difficult, he hopes Obama “fights like hell” for it.
