Keeping education affordable

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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University of Iowa students turned out in droves Wednesday to hear President Barack Obama's message: That we've simply got to do more to make college accessible and affordable for more Americans.

Students filled the risers behind the president and packed the floor. They lined the track above, making the Fieldhouse a sea of black and gold.

The UI pep band kept spirits high as hours passed and the thermostat rose. The Hawkeye fight song rang out in regular rotation between the kind of upbeat rock arrangements you'd expect to hear at a basketball game.

But this is no game. It's the future we're talking about. A future that, as more and more Americans are in danger of being priced out of higher education, can at times seem increasingly dim.

Higher education costs and student debt have been climbing for years, but now it seems we're nearing a breaking point. Americans owe more on student loans than they do on credit cards.

Wednesday's event was part of a three-state tour during which the president outlined ideas for making college more affordable, and urged Congress not to let the interest rate double on federally subsidized Stafford student loans.

The rate, now at 3.4 percent, will jump to 6.8 percent on July 1 unless legislators intervene. Some of Obama's other ideas deserve consideration, too, such as increasing the number of work-study opportunities for students.

It's a federal issue that stands to have a direct and potentially significant impact on student pocketbooks. So we're glad many students turned out to listen.

As Obama said Wednesday to an audience whose applause was generous, higher education is the “single, clearest path” to a middle-class existence.

There certainly were examples at the Fieldhouse of the importance of affordable, accessible higher education. Take UI President Sally Mason, a first-generation college student who pointed to her own personal experience as evidence that education can breed success.

Then there was Obama and wife, Michelle. Neither would have gone to college without scholarships and loans, he told the crowd of 5,500 on Wednesday. To the students' amusement, he added that he and Michelle paid off those student loans only eight years ago.

“This is personal,” he said.

But it's more than that. As the president said Wednesday: “Making sure our next generation earns the best education possible is exactly the American dream.”

But as states across the country continue to make deep cuts in their funding for higher education, it's a dream that's eluding too many. That needs to change. How do we get that done?

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