President Obama Hits the Road to Discuss College Costs
Attention New Yorkers and citizens of the great state of Pennsylvania: The Obama Express is coming to a college town near you later this week! Thanks to an article today by NPR's Frank James, we now know that President Obama will hit the road this Thursday and Friday to visit college campuses in Buffalo, Syracuse and Binghamton, NY as well as Scranton, Pennsylvania. According to Josh Earnest, Deputy White House Press Secretary, the president is expected to discuss his views on the pressing need to rein in college tuition and fees.
"The president's going to be talking about his view that we need to rein in the skyrocketing cost of a college education; that never has a college education been more critical to the economic success of middle-class families in this country; and if we're going to make sure that middle-class families continue to have access to economic opportunity, that means that more students are going to need to have access to a high-quality college education," Earnest said.
In related news, the National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education, released a study today showing that 71 percent of all undergraduate students received some type of financial aid in the 2011-12 school year, up from 66 percent four years earlier. Furthermore, 42 percent of students received federal grants, up from 28 percent, and 40 percent received federal loans, an increase of 5 percentage points.
To read Frank James' article on NPR, click here.
To read the 2011–12 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, click here.
To access our free tools and resources to help you manage your own student debt, click here.
