obamarama

A line across the entire Student Services building at San Francisco State University can only mean one thing: the FASFA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is due soon. But this year, more students than ever seem to be applying for financial aid as the economy gets worse and education prices sky rocket each semester.
Between budget cuts, teacher cuts, classroom size cuts and rising tuition rates, a college degree seems almost impossible for the average American student. However, with a new president in office and a recent slight “attitude change: in the American people, is it possible that we can work together to improve high education across the United States?
“All I want to do is graduate already,” said Brittany Mcgordy, a senior at San Francisco State University. “But it feels like all the odds are against me and I am never going to see graduation day/”
President Obama and his people have already begun to lay the pavement for the future of education and will continue to develop these plans in the next three months. The goal is for students to begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“We will finally put a college degree n reach for anyone who wants one,” said President Obama.
Obama and Vice President Biden plan to create a new tax credit in order to make a college education possible for all those who are willing to put in the work for it. The credit will be call the “American Opportunity Tax Credit” and will be universal and fully refundable up to $4,000 of college education for Americans. Essentially, each year students who have paid their registration fees will get the amount they paid back when they do their taxes. It will cover approximately two-thirds of the average cost of tuition at public college and universities. This seems to put a smile on many college students since statistics show that the average college student graduates with $19,000 in debt. For some students they are already in the $60,000+ debt group, which is a scary thought considering the job market’s current situation.
In addition, the Obama Administration would also like to “simplify” the application process that students go through each year to get federal financial aid. As many students know, it seems like a battle to fill out the FASFA forms and there always seems to be some kind of problem that pops up in the process making the process not only stressful and annoying but sometimes very hard to understand. Obama would like to see it be as simple as checking a box on your tax form that would allow the information to be sent out for financial aid evaluation instead of dealing with a separate application.
But it’s not just getting through college that Obama cares about, he is also standing up for getting to college. The president focused a lot of attention on early education during his campaign and now, hopefully, we will see his words put into action.
On of the ongoing debates in education has been focused on standardized testing and its effects on the classroom. Some school districts have begun to change their curriculum in the classroom so they will increase students test scores so they will not lose government funding. But on the flip side, Obama believes that the testing has drained the creativity from the classroom and that teachers have become too focused on teaching only standardized testing material for the sake of saving their jobs. President Obama plans to solve the issue by providing more funds to allow states to develop a broader range of testing that will include the use of technology, research, investigation, problem solving and idea shaping.
Another heated subject is the controversial “No Child Left Behind” program that hasn’t seemed to do what it was originally planned to do when it was first introduced. The problem may be the teachers, students, parents, government or many other various factors but the point is that it just isn’t working and needs to be updated or taken out of the education field. Perhaps one of the biggest problems with the program is that we do not know how well every teacher is actually teaching and with all the budget cuts and teachers retiring it is hard to keep track of what teachers are actually dong their job and trying to follow the program in order to help every kid pass each grade.
The city of San Francisco has been greatly affected by budget cuts in both the lower and higher education systems. For the past two years, 500 teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District have faced the possibility of loosing their jobs. However, Mayor Gavin Newsom stepped in to save the day both times by providing funds from San Francisco’s “rainy day fund” to keep the teachers on staff for one more year.
However, not every city in the United States has back up funds of their own to use when necessary to save their cities education. Now it is up to the citizens to step up, work together and fight for quality, affordable and higher education. Lucky for the United States, we have a new and very optimistic president to guide us as we try to save education.
“I really hope younger generations do not have to go through this same battle when it is their turn to go to college,” said Mcgordy.