“Whoever gets these jobs will have the greatest impact,” Nassirian says. Yet those decisions are not likely until the president first selects a cabinet secretary. The best-case scenario for colleges is if Obama nominates a secretary by year’s end and then selects an undersecretary early in 2009. “You don’t want this position [undersecretary] vacant for a year,” he says.
As advocates monitor the presidential transition, there also is recognition that Obama will face pressure to act on college costs. When touring campuses this fall, United States Student Association President Carmen Berkley noted that Obama campaign literature focused heavily on college affordability, and students responded by showing up at the polls. Early data showed that young people represented 18 percent of the electorate, while the population of senior citizens age 65 and older was only 16 percent.
“There were more of us turning out to vote than the traditional older voting population,” Berkley said. As a result, youth have some expectations of change.
“We’re graduating with insurmountable amounts of debt. For many, even public college is unaffordable,” she said. Priorities should include major increases in the Pell Grant to move it toward the newly authorized $9,000 level — almost double the current appropriation. “Education is cyclical,” she said. “If we fix that, other things will fall into place.”
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