Look, I’m definitely going to vote for Obama in this election and I am definitely a supporter. But I have to say that I would have had a different headline to the story as it was posted on annarbor.com, “Roughly 3,000 tickets for Obama speech up for grabs today at 9 am.” I realize that U of M is the big draw, but you would think this might be an opportunity for a more affordable university– say, one that had a 0/0/0% campaign– to have the chance to be on the national stage as a model for keeping costs down.
Just goes to show you what incentives places like EMU really have to be the cheapest game in town….
Good point; that thought crossed my mind as well….
Infuriating. Imagine how much good publicity it would have generated for Eastern had he come here.
annarbor.com is running this “play by play” story about the speech/event:
http://www.annarbor.com/news/president-obama-to-speak-on-college-affordability-at-university-of-michigan-today/
Obama probably understands that a 0/0/0 campaign just results in a decrease in education quality when the college has to spend 5 years making up for the revenue losses with staff, faculty and program cuts.
I had the great fortune of getting a ‘golden ticket’ and attending the event this morning. Note..even with a golden ticket, if you are not over 5’5″ (which even with platform boots, I am not) it was little bit of a sight struggle. Having been there and heard Obama’s speech I’m in agreement with the prior posts. Given that this speech was about college access and curbing tuition, EMU would have been a much, much stronger fit vs. U of M (and parking possibly might have been a little easier).
At EMU we oversee several of the counties premier college access programs including KCP, Upward Bound, Gear UP and Bright Futures. We also have had significant tuition restraint compared to other state universities.
I am a strong Obama supporter. However, I have felt even when he was campaigning in 2007 that his educational policies and platforms were not only building on the Bush administration efforts, but did not reflect innovation in education (i.e. pedagogy) and instead focused on a ‘race to the top’ approach where states or school would be awarded money based upon specific numeric measures. I recognize he wants accountability for the federal government’s investment in higher education. but feel that the accountability will most likely be viewed through the lens of graduation rates and types of employment,etc. EMU is a niche school ..it serves many students who may be balancing a household and a job and do not finish in 4 years. Certainly, we can improve specific processes (for example a 4 year graduation plan as a student enters as a FTIAC), but also need to honor who are students are…and not be penalized.
Finally, Pres. Obama talked about the state’s investment in higher education and this is where I completely agree with him. Basically, The federal government will not invest in states whose investment in higher education is not significant. With our State’s support for higher education cut 15% this year, and with only 27% of EMU’s overall budget provided by the state (making us a publicly supported vs. a public university in my estimation) I believe our federal support is challenged.
The Michigan College Access Network, which receives funds from the Department of Education was denied continued funding this year ..for this very reason. Why? We as a state did not reach what is called Maintenance of Effort, a federal requirement that requires grant recipients and /or sub-recipients to maintain a certain level of state/local fiscal effort to be eligible for full participation in federal grant funding. I know this, because our grant was not fulfilled due to the state’s investment (or lack thereof) in K-12 education and higher education.
So…Sitedad asked me to report on the event…so I did. A couple other quick hits: very few protesters (your run-of-the-mill anti-choice, & pro-pot), only two opening speakers (two students), the lay-out of the space did not allow many of us to see the actual event; no TV projections; press had the best seats; no teleprompter, a shout-out to Denard; an ‘I love you, too’ response from the President to a student, and an overall good-beginning-of-campaign vibe.
The President went to the University of Michigan to talk about “college affordability?” When has Michigan ever been affordable?
That’s like going to the Grosse Pointes and talking to people about owning an affordable home.
My last 17-hour term at Michigan, in 1974, cost $470.00. At the time, Michigan’s credit-hour cost was about $5.00 more than EMU. So, it was about 35 years ago.