Obama: College Costs Rising Because of ‘Folks Who Did Not Want To Pay Property Taxes’

‘Reinforcement of the values in characters we want, that’s where we as a society have the capacity to make a real difference — but it will cost us some money. it will cost us some money’

"We're going to argue hard for that stuff. And lo and behold, if we do those things, the values and the character that those kids are learning in a loving environment where they can succeed in school, and they're being praised, and they can read at grade level, and they're less likely to drop out, and it turns out that when they're succeeding at school and they’ve got resources, they're less likely to get pregnant as teens, and less likely to engage in drugs, and less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system -- that is a reinforcement of the values and character that we want. And that's where we, as a society, have the capacity to make a real difference. But it will cost us some money. It will cost us some money. It’s not free. You look at a state like California that used to have, by far, the best public higher education system in the world, and there is a direct correlation between Proposition 13 and the slow disinvestment in the public university system so that it became very, very expensive. And kids got priced out of the market, or they started taking on a whole bunch of debt. Now, that was a public policy choice, based on folks not wanting to pay property taxes. And that's true in cities and counties and states all across the country. And that's really a big part of our political argument. So I am all for values; I am all for character. But I also know that that character and the values that our kids have that allow them to succeed, and delayed gratification and discipline and hard work -- that all those things in part are shaped by what they see, what they see really early on. And some of those kids right now, because of no fault of those kids, and because of history and some tough going, generationally, some of those kids, they're not going to get help at home. They're not going to get enough help at home. And the question then becomes, are we committed to helping them instead?"

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