In anticipation of his annual State of the Union address, President Barack Obama is keeping his focus on young people and students. Although these addresses are normally filled with monotonous and obligatory applause and the same language every year, this year’s address — Obama hopes — will cause a bit of a positive stir in America.

As millennials continue to experience the trials and tribulations of adulthood, Obama wants to give those serious about their education some help and those who aren’t, some motivation to start caring. Along with several other new initiatives regarding online privacy and activity, Obama will encourage more and more young people to pursue higher education.

In an intriguing move, on Jan. 8, Obama announced a general plan to turn community college and technical college educations into free educations. And America should be nothing but thrilled about it.

The cost of a college education is rising at a much higher rate than that of inflation, College Board reported in November that tuition and fees at private colleges rose by 3.7 percent last academic year while inflation only rose 1.4 percent through September. Now families around the country are scared to think about where the money to pay for college tuition will come from.

And as a result, millennials are beginning to take on more and more responsibility when it comes to footing the bill. Many are beginning to pay for it out of their own pockets or are taking out student loans. According to the Pew Research Center,millennials are the best-educated generation in history, today two-thirds of bachelor’s degree earners have outstanding student loans, which average $27,000 when twenty years prior only half of college grads had college debt and the average was $15,000.

Although Obama has yet to announce the specifics of his plan — he will presumably do so at his national address on Tuesday — many are already familiar with the idea. Obama sites Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam as his inspiration for this plan.

Last year, Haslam announced a reform of the state scholarship funded by the lottery. Now Haslam’s focus is to provide free community college and technical school to those who could meet the state’s requirements. While the program is still in its infancy, students soon will reap the benefits.

Obama’s plan is extremely similar. With GPA requirements and accreditation for the schools involved, the federal government promises to fund 75 percent of the cost for states who fully buy in to the program. If all 50 states participate, The White House estimates that nine million students could save up to $3,800 per year.

The cost for the federal government has yet to be announced — and it could be staggering. And in a time when education reform is desperately needed, throwing money at schools isn’t going to work. But, big and targeted spending could provide a nice wake-up call to America’s educators.

In the absence of targeted government spending, adults and parents today are suffering from rising costs and steep inflation, causing young people to be more cautious in their education choices. Young adults are spending more time buried in debt and with jobs that do little to pay off their expenses. With this initiative, there will be greater ability for the future of America to apply their skills in the real world immediately — without the burden of economic ruin.

As Robert Hutchins, an American scholar and philosopher, once said, “The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.”

Although the immediate costs could be uncomfortable, we owe the young people of America nothing more than to ease their already struggling transition into adulthood.

Eric Dunay is a freshman in the School of Architecture. His column appears weekly. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Published on January 20, 2015 at 1:38 am