Mister President, we thank you for addressing the need to expand college opportunities. As you noted, currently, inequity and inequality are replete. “[T]he United States still has a long way to go to open the door to college for low-income Americans….We have to make sure there are new ladders of opportunity to the middle class.” While your words are sweet, the solutions you propose seem incomplete. We believe that it is not enough to suggest that we “ensure [that] lower-income students aren’t disadvantaged by lack of access to college advisers and [an] inability to prepare for entrance exams.” Remedial programs are fine, but these do nothing to ameliorate the financial bind that comes with pursuit of a college education. As you well know it is the money, honey.
The First Lady observed, “These kids are smart. They will notice if we’re not holding up our end of the bargain.” Millions of our young have noticed! We did not honor our commitment.
It is we who made a promise and posited the pledge; this is the land of opportunity. In American you can dream. Together we can do. Success is not solely for select philanthropic few and other “foundations.”. Nor, Mister Obama, are these individuals the answer to how we might expand college opportunities. There is asolution that honors the “bargain”…

Here’s Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free

By Jordan Weissmann | Originally Published at The Atlantic. January 3 2014, 2:15 PM ET | Updated January 16, 2014
A mere $62.6 billion dollars!
According to new Department of Education data, that’s how much tuition public colleges collected from undergraduates in 2012 across the entire United States. And I’m not being facetious with the word mere, either. The New America Foundation says that the federal government spent a whole $69 billion in 2013 on