In his budget proposal last week, President Barack Obama announced that he wants the United States to have the "highest proportion of college graduates in the world" by 2020.
His $3.55-trillion budget presents this kind of "real and dramatic change," including a significant amount of education budget reform, Obama explained.
Unlike former President George W. Bush, who focused on K-12 education with programs like "No Child Left Behind," Obama intends to prioritize college affordability.
He proposed to raise the U.S. Education Department's discretionary budget to $46.7 billion, a 12.8-percent increase.
His plan is to save $4 billion per year by ending a long-time government-subsidized college loan program, in the process bolstering a direct loan program created by President Bill Clinton in 1993. That would make the federal government the only source of federally-supported college loans.
Last year, the subsidized program, called the Federal Family Education Loan, loaned $56 billion to six million students. The direct loan program, on the other hand, gave $14 billion to 1.5 million students.
Obama would also increase the maximum Pell Grant to $5,350, as well as make it part of the federal government's mandatory annual budget. It would link regular grant increases for students to inflation.
Thirty years ago, Pell Grants paid for 77 percent of the cost of attending college, according to student aid experts, but now they only cover 35 percent.
Additionally, Obama proposed spending $2.5 billion over five years to raise college graduation rates.
"In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity - it is a prerequisite," he said in his speech last Thursday.
In terms of K-12 changes, Obama proposed a new program called Promise Neighborhoods, giving poor urban children access to a good education and services including health care, family counseling and preschool.
"This budget creates new teachers -- new incentives for teacher performance, pathways for advancement and rewards for success," Obama said. "We'll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps."
Bill Andresen, associate vice president of federal affairs at Penn, said the University supports Obama's efforts to make higher education more affordable and accessible.
"These are significant changes in these programs on which, I think, Congress will want to hold hearings and deliberate at some length before taking any legislative action," he said.
