With his congressional address and the release of his budget last week, President Obama proposed bold changes to federal higher education policy.  In Tuesday’s congressional address, Obama announced “By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”  The Thursday release of Obama’s budget proposal revealed his plans to reach that goal.  The budget includes a proposal to make the Pell Grant mandatory (therefore no longer subject to congressional allocation), a move hailed by US Public Interest Research Group’s Higher Education Associate Rich Williams as "far and away the single most significant policy that the president could undertake to communicate to students and families that he understands their struggles to finance college.”  The budget proposal also ends the subsidized loan program, the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program which subsidized lending through banks and corporate lenders.  All federal student loans would instead be housed in the U.S. government’s Direct Loan program, a move that will save $4 billion a year.  The United States Student Association (USSA) sees Obama’s plan as a realization of the change this fall’s election promised. “We must expand opportunities for every student to receive a higher education in order to rebuild this country and I think the President has taken a giant step forward to make this happen,” said Carmen Berkley, USSA President.

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