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In the recent State of Union address, our President comprehensively focused on higher education. He called for our nation to take over the mantle of leadership in this field once again by enhancing the number of college graduates.

He said that it is imperative to retain talented students by reforming immigration laws. He asked Congress to offer support for research and said that teachers who are proficient in subjects like engineering, technology, science and math must come forward to teach.

Obama reiterated his commitment to make American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent and strengthen Pell Grant program which were detailed in the fact sheet released by the White House. It is however important to ruminate on what all this implies.

There are varied views on our President’s goal and agenda which is evident with the variety of thoughts floating around –

In New York Times, David Leonhardt’s economic column says that the best investment made by a society is higher education. Economy of a nation can be significantly boosted by enhancing number of college graduates. He went on to say that it is not worth protecting the status quo. Huge amounts of federal money are wasted on higher education by the states and the federal government.

No incentive is offered by them for success and colleges get away without any accountability. No reward is offered for colleges that do an exemplary job of graduating students. Similarly, no punishment is given for colleges that do nothing about graduating students.

SOTU story in the Chronicle of Higher education focused on our President’s five year freeze on discretionary spending. It spoke about how he spared research and education from this freeze on non defense programs. The article focused on how our President in his 2012 fiscal budget will call for spending on clean energy technology, information technology and biomedical research. These remarks were understandably applauded by the college lobbyists.

Obama’s call to make college access affordable was focused upon in the University of Iowa’s student news paper. Cary Covington, the Associate Professor of the political-science department of this university was interviewed for this purpose. According to him, enhanced access can be provided for students through tax credits. He also said that it will make it easier for students to stay in college with the help of anything that will defray education costs.

Inside Higher Ed focused on our President’s commitment to protect Federal programs that were important for universities and colleges. The fact that there were no clear details offered by our President in the speech on programs that will be shielded was pointed out in the article.

The Daily Reveille’s interesting narration was based on their video interview with students on what they wanted Obama to talk about. The responses were mixed with many students asking them why they were broke and many others wishing he would address problems related to the state budget, ending of war and education spending.

Almost all of them feel that our President indeed has lofty goals to pursue but no specific, clear cut direction and plan towards achieving his goals.