Obama Speech on Education Reform to Highlight Financial Aid and Student Loans

President Obama will highlight reforms made in the arena of financial aid and student loans as part of a review of his administration’s work in higher education in a speech today at the University of Texas at Austin (“President to Tout Achievements in Higher-Education Policy,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Aug. 9, 2010).

The victory speech, most likely a political pick-me-up for the Democratic party prior to what is shaping up to be a contentious mid-term election for Congressional Democrats, will promote higher education reform as one of the “four pillars” of the president’s economy-improving domestic policy, which also includes health care, energy, and financial reform.

“You have heard a lot about the other [three] pillars, but we have made tremendous progress on education reform as well,” Dan Pfeifferhe, White House communications director, said to reporters in a conference call, suggesting that achievements in higher education reform have been dwarfed in the larger public dialogue by successes in the other three areas.

Pfeiffer and Education Secretary Arne Duncan mentioned to reporters the four main achievements to be discussed in the president’s speech:

Ending the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), which used taxpayer funds to subsidize the issuing of federal college loans by banks and private lenders, and transitioning the origination of all federal parent and student loans to the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program, which issues the loans directly to students, cutting out the third-party middlemen
Increasing federal funding to community colleges and historically black colleges
Expanding federal student financial aid, including Pell Grants and Stafford student loans
Simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to help make it less cumbersome for eligible students to get money for college from Pell Grants and federal student loans

President Obama will deliver his speech in Gregory Gym at about 2 p.m. Central Time. Live streaming of the speech can be viewed on the U.T. Austin “Know” website and at the following URL: http://realaudio.cc.utexas.edu:8080/ramgen/redundant/obama080910.rm

A captioned version of the live stream can be viewed here: http://realaudio.cc.utexas.edu:8080/ramgen/redundant/obama080910cc.rm

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