WEEKLY ADDRESS: Making Higher Education More Affordable for the Middle Class

Remarks of President Barack ObamaWeekly Address

The White House

August 24, 2013

Video

Hi, everybody.  Over the past month, I’ve been visiting towns across America, talking about what our country needs to do to secure a better bargain for the middle class. 

This week, I met with high school and college students in New York and Pennsylvania to discuss the surest path to the middle class – some form of higher education.

But at a moment when a higher education has never been more important, it’s also never been more expensive.  That’s why, over the past four years, we’ve helped make college more affordable for millions of students and families with grants and loans that go farther from before.

But students and families and taxpayers cannot just keep subsidizing college costs that keep going up and up.  Not when the average student now graduates more than $26,000 in debt.

We cannot price the middle class out of a college education.  That’s why I proposed major new reforms to make college more affordable and make it easier for folks to pay for their education. 

First, we’re going to start rating colleges based on opportunity – are they helping students from all kinds of backgrounds succeed, and on outcomes – their value to students and parents.  In time, we’ll use those ratings to make sure that the colleges that keep their tuition down are the ones that will see their taxpayer funding go up. 

Second, we’re going to jumpstart competition between colleges over innovations that help more students graduate in less time, at less cost, while maintaining quality.  A number of schools are already testing new approaches, like putting more courses online or basing course credit on competence, not just hours spent in the classroom.

And third, we’re going to help more students responsibly manage their debt, by making more of them eligible for a loan repayment program called Pay-As-You-Earn, which caps your loan payments at 10 percent of what you make.  And we’ll reach out directly to students to make sure they know that this program exists.

These reforms won’t be popular with everybody.  But the path we’re on now is unsustainable for our students and our economy.

Higher education shouldn’t be a luxury, or a roll of the dice; it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford. 

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

大家好。在上个月，我走访了全国很多城镇，探讨我们国家如何为中产阶级争取一块更大的“蛋糕”。

本周，我与纽约和宾夕法尼亚的高中和高校的学生们探讨了跻身中产阶级的必由之路—某种形式的高等教育。

但是在高等教育比以往如何时候都更加重要的时候，它也比以往如何时候都昂贵。这就是为什么在过去的四年里，我们已经采取措施使高等教育对几百万拥有比以往更多的政府资助和学生贷款的学生和家庭来讲更加可承受。

但是学生和家庭以及纳税人们无法持续补贴日益增长的高等教育费用。在大学生毕业平均背负26,000美元债务的时候肯定不能。

我们不能让高价使中产阶级望教育兴叹。这就是为什么我提出使高等教育更加可承受并且使人们更容易地支付教育费用的新的重大改革议案。

首先，我们将根据机会为高校排名—他们能否帮助各种背景的所有学生成功，和根据成果—他们对学生和家长们的价值。我们将适时根据这些排名确保降低学费的高校获得纳税人的更多投资。

其次，我们将尽快启动高校之间在帮助学生更快、学费更低又保证质量地毕业方面创新的竞争。很多学校已经尝试新途径了，诸如把更多课程放到网上或课程评分根据能力而不是仅仅根据课时。

第三，我们将更多学生们负责任地管理他们的债务，使他们中更多人有资格参加叫做“量入还款”的项目，这个项目让你的还款额不超过你的收入的百分之10.我们将直接让学生们确实知道有这个项目。

这些改革可能不会得到每个人的认同。但是
我们现在的路线对我们的学生们和我们的经济来讲不可持续。高等教育不应该是奢侈品或打骰子；它应该是美国的每个家庭都能承受的经济必需品。

谢谢，周末愉快。

Important words and phrases:
1. surest
2. subsidize
3. a roll of the dice