BOULDER — President Barack Obama addressed a wildly cheering crowd at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Coors Events Center on Tuesday night to talk about student loans, saying he knows firsthand the problems students face regarding rising debt.
“This isn’t something I just read in a briefing paper,” Obama told the crowd of 10,000. “When we got married, we got poorer together. We paid more in student loans than we paid for the first condo we bought together.”
Continuing his story, Obama said he and the first lady finished paying off their loans only eight years ago.
For Obama, the first sitting president to visit the Boulder campus, according to school officials, his stop in Colorado got off to an inauspicious start. After dining on pizza at the Sink, a local eatery, the president had yogurt spilled on him while greeting patrons.
“I’m very embarrassed,” the female customer said.
“Getting yogurt on the president — you’ve got a story to tell,” Obama said.
The incident was in keeping with the overall tenor of the evening. Clad in a sport shirt without a jacket, the president appeared relaxed during his 30-minute talk; many of his comments seemed remarkably similar
.
“He failed them because we have the highest level of unemployment for youth in this country in recorded history,” said Brown, a Romney delegate. “I predict that the president will have substantially less support among college students this election compared to four years ago.”
But that was one of the reasons for Obama’s three-school tour, which included a stop at the University of North Carolina on Tuesday morning as well as a talk at the University of Iowa today. After Obama gained 66 percent of the vote in 2008 among young people between the ages of 18 and 29, campaign sources told The Washington Post that a key goal of the president’s re-election effort is to register as many new young voters — those between the ages of 18 and 21 who were too young to vote in 2008 — as they can.
And on Tuesday, it appeared Obama’s words had resonated with the young audience.
Tripp Howell, a 20-year-old business school student, confessed afterward, “I always said I wasn’t an Obama fan, but now I don’t know who I’m going to vote for. I think he has a good heart for us, so I’m going to check him out.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
Kristen Leigh Painter: 303-954-1638 or kpainter@denverpost.com
Sizing up college debt
College students are struggling to afford higher education. A look at some of the numbers:
Debt comparison (Dec. 2011)
• Total outstanding student loan debt: $996 billion
• Total outstanding credit card debt: $704 billion
Average college student debt:
• 2009: $24,000
• 2010: $25,250
Sources of undergraduate aid, 2010-11 (total: $177.7 billion)
• Federal loans: $70 billion
• Federal Pell grants: $34.8 billion
• Institutional grants: $29.7 billion
• Federal education tax credits/deductions: $13.4 billion
• Other federal grant programs: $13.1 billion
• State grants: $9.1 billion
• Private/employer grants: $6.6 billion
• Federal work-study: $1 billion
Sources: Project on Student Debt; ; Federal Reserve; National Association of Colleges and Employers
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