Download
Audio: http://pan.baidu.com/s/1qWzCna0 Download Video: http://pan.baidu.com/s/13274E Weekly
Address: Tuition-Free Community College
The White House
April 11, 2015
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Joe
Biden and I’m here filling in for President Obama, who is traveling abroad.
And I’m here with a simple
message: middle-class economics works.
Our economy has gone from crisis
to recovery to now to resurgence – with the longest streak of consecutive job
growth ever recorded in the history of this country and more than all other
advanced countries combined.
But to make sure everyone is part
of this resurgence, we need to build on what we know widens the path to the
middle class – and you all know what it is, access to education.
Folks, the source of our economic
power and middle class strength in the 20th Century was the fact that we were
among the first major nations in the world to provide twelve years of free
education for our citizens.
But in the 21st Century, other
countries have already caught up and twelve years is simply no longer enough – a
minimum of fourteen years is necessary for families to have a surer path to the
middle class and for the United States to be able to out-compete the rest of
the world.
Consider that by the end of the
decade, two out of three of all jobs will require an education beyond high
school, from an 18-week certificate to a two-year associate’s degree to a
four-year bachelor’s, or a PhD.
And consider that folks with an
associate’s degree earn 25% more than someone who graduated just from high
school. And folks who graduate with a four-year degree make 70% more.
But today, the cost of higher
education is too high for too many Americans. Too many folks are priced out of
a piece of the middle-class dream.
And that’s why the President and
I have a straightforward plan to remove that barrier and expand the pathway to
the middle class – by bringing the cost of community colleges down – down to
zero.
Zero – for anyone willing to work
for it and for the institutions that meet certain basic requirements.
Our plan is no give-away.
Students must keep up their grades and stay on track to graduate. States must
contribute funding and hold community colleges accountable for the results. And
community colleges must maintain high graduation and job placement rates.
And here’s a key point – community
colleges will have to offer courses that are directly transferrable to a
four-year degree.
If two years of community college
are free – and credits can transfer to a four-year university – that means the
cost of a four-year degree will be cut in half for a lot of working families
struggling to send their children to college, qualified children.
And under our plan, students from
low-income families will be able to keep the benefits that flow from other
financial aid, like Pell grants, to cover childcare, housing, transportation – costs
that often keep them from attending class and completing a degree in the first
place.
But here’s another key point. Not
every good-paying job will require a two-year or four-year degree. Some of
these jobs will require just a training certificate that can be earned in just
a few months.
For example, you can go to an
18-week coding bootcamp – with no previous experience in computers – and become
a computer programmer making up to $70,000 a year.
There are other jobs in fields
like advanced manufacturing and energy that pay $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a
year – jobs you can raise a family on.
It’s a simple fact that community
colleges are the most flexible educational institutions we have. I’ve traveled
all over this country, from New York to Iowa to California, to see how
community colleges create partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and local
businesses to generate jobs; support apprenticeships with organized labor, and
prepare hardworking students for good-paying jobs in the areas in which they
live.
Making community colleges free is
good for workers, it’s good for companies, and it’s good for our economy.
Here’s what we propose: Close
loopholes for the wealthiest investors and levy a .07% fee on the biggest banks
to discourage the kind of risky behavior that crashed our economy just a few
years ago.
Doing just that would pay for
free community college – and provide a leg up for working families through tax
credits to cover necessities like childcare.
That’s what middle-class
economics is all about – giving folks a fair chance to get ahead. A fair tax
code. No guarantees. Just a fair chance.
It’s simple folks, two years of
community college should become as free and as universal as high school is
today if we’re to make this economic resurgence permanent and well into the
21st Century.
So I want to thank you all for listening. I hope you have a great weekend and God bless you all and may God protect our troops. |
|部落|Archiver|手机版|英文巴士 ( 渝ICP备10012431号-2 )
GMT+8, 2016-7-24 15:21 , Processed in 0.067801 second(s), 10 queries , Gzip On, Redis On.