As I turned off my television last Tuesday night after the 2014 State of the Union Address, I was torn. I felt both emotional after a touching and dramatic end of the speech, and disappointed that college education was by and large ignored in the address.
As with any political speech, there were both positives and negatives, although the amount of each probably differs between Republicans and Democrats. To keep from sounding too political and argumentative, it is best to begin with the good and then offer criticism.
The high note of the address came at the very end, when President Barack Obama honored a wounded soldier who served in Afghanistan. That soldier was U.S. Army Ranger Sgt. First Class Cory Remsburg, who was badly injured by a car bombing. The Commander in Chief talked of Sgt. Remsburg’s injuries and sacrifices, although he did not take the responsibility for his being in that situation.
These remarks from President Obama were met with the greatest applause of the night. Everyone in the chamber, including the Supreme Court Justices who had been still throughout the speech, stood up and applauded Sgt. Remsburg for his sacrifices for the country.
While some question the morality of using wounded soldiers for applause in a speech, the effect was astounding. The response of everyone in the chamber to Sgt. Remsburg shows that there is still hope that there can be unity in the country, and that no matter a person’s position on the war, our soldier’s are still honored and respected for their sacrifice, something that cannot be said about other times in America’s history. The sight of both Democrats and Republicans standing together to honor this man inspired great hope.
Now, while the end of the speech was inspiring, the same cannot be said about the rest of it. Being a college student, the most important thing, in my mind, to hear the president speak about was college education and tuition. I was sadly underwhelmed.
While President Obama did spend some time speaking on the subject of education, only a small fraction of that time was about college education. The most important point that he wanted to get across on education was for a reform of early childhood education. He spent a good chunk of time talking about mandatory pre-kindergarten throughout the country, reasoning that a strong start will help the country’s students. Is this really where the focus should be?
Yes, it is important to get a strong start, but the majority of real world application learning that students do is in universities. This subject was almost entirely neglected in the address. The only mention of college education was that it needed to be more “accessible” to all students. This is not the same as it being “affordable.” Students may have access to college, but paying for it is a different story. As any good politician knows, word choice is important, and Obama made full use of it.
College tuition keeps getting higher and higher, and while more high school students may have access to colleges (I have not seen any numbers to support that and I am not sure how you could prove it), everyone in college pays ever growing tuition rates. More and more college students are entering the work force in debt due to their student loans. If we are going to make college easier to access for all students, we first need to make it affordable. There is no point in helping students get into college when they will leave with more debt than they know how to handle. It just does not follow reason to go in that order. College affordability is something that plagues college students, no matter where in the country they are.
Yes, it is important to give more students access to higher education, what with online programs and the like, but being able to afford the education is more important and should be the primary focus.
As a college student, it is not uncommon to walk through campus and hear multiple students complain about their finances and wonder about how they will be able to afford to pay their tuition and eat that month. It is sad to hear, but with tuition going up throughout the nation, and college accessibility the main focus now, the problem is not likely to go away anytime soon.
