Barack Obama Quotes About College

• For too many of us, it's become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or on college campuses, or places of worship or especially our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it's true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there.

  Barack Obama

  College, People, Political

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• With the changing economy, no one has lifetime employment. But community colleges provide lifetime employability.

  Barack Obama

  College, Community, Employment

• If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we've got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship.

  Barack Obama

  Mean, Kids, Cutting

  News conference in the East Wing, www.nytimes.com. June 29, 2011.

• Affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America, because, frankly, if you've got 50 percent of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn't really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids aren't going to college.

  Barack Obama

  School, Kids, College

  "Late Edition" with Wolf Blitzer, edition.cnn.com. July 27, 2008.

• Community colleges play an important role in helping people transition between careers by providing the retooling they need to take on a new career.

  Barack Obama

  Powerful, College, Play

• Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody's who is willing to work for it.

  Barack Obama

  College, Two, Years

  "Episode 611: Community". wwno.org. March 20, 2015.

• We have to stand up for these issues when it's tough, and that's what I've done. I did it when I was in the state legislature, sponsoring the Illinois version of the DREAM Act, so that children who were brought here through no fault of their own are able to go to college, because we actually want well-educated kids in our country who are able to succeed and become part of this economy and part of the American dream.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Country, Children

  The California Democratic Debate in Los Angeles, www.realclearpolitics.com. January 31, 2008.

• We're going to have to invest in the American people again, in tax cuts for the middle class, in health care for all Americans, and college for every young person who wants to go. In businesses that can create the new energy economy of the future. In policies that will lift wages and will grow our middle class. These are the policies I have fought for my entire career.

  Barack Obama

  Cutting, College, Class

• Every single thing I`ve done, from the Affordable Care Act to pushing to raise the minimum wage, to making sure that young people are able to go to college and get good job training, to what we`re pushing now in terms of sick paid leave,everything I do has been focused on how do we make sure the middle class is getting a fair deal.

  Barack Obama

  Jobs, College, Class

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

• Estiven Rodriguez couldn't speak a word of English when he moved to New York City at age nine. But last month, thanks to the support of great teachers and an innovative tutoring program, he led a march of his classmates - through a crowd of cheering parents and neighbors - from their high school to the post office, where they mailed off their college applications. And this son of a factory worker just found out he's going to college this fall.

  Barack Obama

  Teacher, New York, Cheer

  Fifth Presidential State of the Union, delivered 28 January 2014

• And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I'm able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don't need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they've got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans.

  Barack Obama

  Couple, Struggle, Kids

• You know, in college, I smoked a little pot, did a little blow.

  Barack Obama

  Blow, College, Littles

• America ranks 21st when it comes to math education. We rank 25th when it comes to science. We used to be number one in the proportion of college graduates. We now rank ninth. And at an age where knowledge, skills, are the determinant of how successful we're going to be, unless we reverse that we're going to keep slipping behind economically to a lot of other countries.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Math, Successful

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• Later, I would realize that the position of most black students in predominantly white colleges was already too tenuous, our identities too scrambled, to admit to ourselves that our black pride remained incomplete. And to admit our doubt and confusion to whites, to open up our psyches to general examination by those who had caused so much of the damage in the first place, seemed ludicrous, itself an expression of self-hatred - for there seemed no reason to expect that whites would look at our private struggles as a mirror into their own souls, rather than yet more evidence of black pathology.

  Barack Obama

  Struggle, Pride, Psych

• In America, we've set up a system whereby when you take on college debt, you will never have to pay more than 10 percent of your income in repayments. And what that will do is make sure that you will never be prevented from going to school just because of money. We want to make sure that you and others like you can succeed.

  Barack Obama

  School, College, America

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• Whenever I write a letter to a family who has lost a loved one in Iraq, or read an email from a constituent who has dropped out of college because her student aid has been cut, I'm reminded that the actions of those in power have enormous consequences--a price that they themselves almost never have to pay.

  Barack Obama

  Writing, Cutting, College

  Barack Obama (2007). “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream”, p.48, Canongate Books

• We've now got a group of young people in this country who for all practical purposes are American. They grew up here. They've gone to school here. They don't know anything other than being American kids. But their parents may have brought them here without all the proper paperwork - might have brought them here when they were three, might have brought them here when they were five. And so, lo and behold, by the time they finish school, and they're ready to go to college, they find out they can't go to college and, in fact, their status as Americans are threatened.

  Barack Obama

  Country, School, Kids

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• I think what grows the economy is when you get that tax credit that we put in place for your kids going to college. I think that grows the economy. I think what grows the economy is when we make sure small businesses are getting a tax credit for hiring veterans who fought for our country. That grows our economy.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Kids, Thinking

  The second presidential debate at Hofstra University, www.democracynow.org. October 17, 2012.

• You don't need to see my birth certificate, or my college records, or my legal writings, or... anything.

  Barack Obama

  Writing, College, Needs

• If we can make sure that that young boys starting at the age of three or four already knows their colors and their letters and are getting good preschool, and by the time they get into school they've got a good teacher and are getting the support that they need and are able to keep up with their classwork, that is going to do more to reduce the incarceration rate at the same time, obviously, as it increases the college enrollment rate.

  Barack Obama

  Teacher, School, Boys

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• We believed we could prepare our kids for a more competitive world. And today, our younger students have earned the highest math and reading scores on record. Our high school graduation rate has hit an all-time high. And more Americans finish college than ever before.

  Barack Obama

  Reading, Kids, School

  Sixth Presidential State of the Union Address, delivered 20 January 2015

• Our unalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those rights were stripped from college kids in Blackburg and Santa Barbara, and from high schoolers at Columbine. And, and from first graders in Newtown, first graders.

  Barack Obama

  Kids, Pursuit Of Happiness, College

  Source: www.msnbc.com

• I was raised by a single mom who had to put herself through school while looking after two kids. And she worked hard every day and made a lot of sacrifices to make sure we got everything we needed. My grandmother, she started off as a secretary in a bank. She never got a college education, even though she was smart as a whip. And she worked her way up to become a vice president of a local bank, but she hit the glass ceiling. She trained people who would end up becoming her bosses during the course of her career.

  Barack Obama

  Mom, Smart, School

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• If you're willing to put in the work, the idea is that you should be able to raise a family and own a home, not go bankrupt because you got sick, 'cause you've got some health insurance that helps you deal with those difficult times; that you can send your kids to college; that you can put some money away for retirement. That's all most people want. Folks don't have unrealistic ambitions. They do believe that if they work hard, they should be able to achieve that small measure of an American dream.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Retirement, Believe

  Remarks by the President at Conveyor Engineering and Manufacturing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. January 25, 2012.

• Right around my first year of college - I remember "Song of Solomon," by Toni Morrison, just moved me tremendously. The power of language and how it can peel back truths, bring things to the surface. So I learned a lot from fiction.

  Barack Obama

  Song, College, Years

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