Pacing back and forth, Vice President Joe Biden's father looked at his son and said he was sorry.
Biden, on the phone Thursday with student journalists across the country, was referencing a time when he was preparing to attend the University of Delaware. Biden said his father was ashamed because he couldn’t help pay for school.
The vice president held a conference call with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The two discussed President Barack Obama's recent proposals to keep college affordable and within reach for Americans.
“No parent should be ashamed like my father was back then,” Biden said. “It’s an overwhelming interest in this country that every person who wants a college degree should be able to get one.”
Obama hopes to shape a plan that will not leave college students in debt after graduation, Biden said.
“We are going to use banks to process the federal loans that students get,” Biden said. “We think it would be better to eliminate the middleman.”
Obama and Biden also hope to provide increased work-study opportunities and to allocate Federal Pell Grants in a way that would allow students or their parents to get up to $10,000 each year in tax credits. Biden said he and Obama are trying to prevent the interest on student loans from increasing.
“The interest on student loans is supposed to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent; 7.4 million borrowers could see these numbers go up,” Biden said. “We are proposing that we keep them at 3.4 percent.”
Today, 62 percent of jobs require a degree beyond high school, Biden said. Although Biden and Obama are making efforts to lower tuition to help college students, Biden said he hopes universities will make cuts to save money as well.
“We can’t keep up if the price of tuition keeps increasing,” Biden said. “We need universities to be more creative to save money.”
However, some Ohio University students fear these jobs aren’t even available.
“I would say one of our biggest problems is that when these kids get out of college, the jobs aren’t there,” said Crescent Gallagher, former vice president of OU's College Republicans chapter. “I don’t know if we can even lower tuition nowadays. OU is having a budget crisis so I don’t even know if they could make the necessary cuts.”
Marika Bresler, a junior studying public relations and the vice president for OU's chapter of College Democrats, said she thinks OU will be able to cut back on spending.
“There are some things that OU can do to reduce costs that wouldn’t be detrimental to students,” Bresler said. “They would allow (OU) to decrease tuition; I think it will be difficult, but it is certainly obtainable.”
Duncan said the U.S. needs universities to be doing the right things to keep costs down.
Biden did not comment on exactly what he and the president hope state universities make cuts on — also a problem, OU students said.
“It’s hard to tell what is going to be done, because we don’t know what is going to be cut,” Gallagher said. “Colleges would probably have to cut services or athletics that students enjoy.”
Biden said students today are “busting their necks” and deserve assistance with the high cost of a college education.
“I think college students today are the greatest generation our country has had,” Biden said. “You volunteer more than any other generation; you do more and are more engaged in good things. You deserve all the assistance you get, because you are the most qualified, giving and consequential generation we have had.”
bc822010@ohiou.edu
