INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WOWO): President Obama makes his first visit to Indianapolis in almost four years on this afternoon.
Obama is scheduled to appear at Ivy Tech Community College, which means one of his main topics will be his plan to provide two free years of community college. What Obama calls his “America‘s College Promise” plan was to be available, he initially said, to “anyone willing to work for it”, meaning those with a 2.5 grade point average and attending school at least as a half-time student. But in his federal budget proposal, Obama limited to the program to students from families with an income of $200,000 a year or less.
While Congressional Republicans oppose the plan, Obama‘s plan is modeled after a Republican plan. Tennessee recently launched a free community college program with backing from a Republican governor and GOP-controlled legislature. Several Republican officials accompanied Obama when the president officially released the plan during a speech at a community college in Knoxville, TN, and the president will try to appeal to bipartisanship in Indy. The White House says former Republican Senator Dick Lugar will accompany Obama, and the president will be introduced by Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard.
That isn‘t swaying some Republicans in this state. “It goes more to the argument that states should be driving the education of their constituents, their children, their college-bound kids,” said State Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R, Fort Wayne), who advocates letting states handle much, if not all, of education funding. “We have seen some well-intentioned ideas go very wrong. No Child Left Behind is the poster child for that.” Obama‘s plan would have the federal government pick up 75-percent of the cost of community college, with states picking up the rest.
Ivy Tech President Tom Snyder supports Obama‘s community college plan, though that support comes just over a year after Snyder testified to a Congressional committee against the president‘s health care law. Snyder said the Affordable Care Act‘s mandate of insurance coverage for employees working 30 hours a week or more forced Ivy Tech to cut teaching hours for several adjunct professors, lest the community college system‘s insurance costs rise rapidly.
Supporters of Obama‘s plan say it would help Indiana attain its goal of having 60-percent of residents obtain some sort of post-high school degree. Teresa Lubbers, former Republican state senator who is now the state‘s Commissioner of Higher Education, isn‘t sure.
