As the Presidential campaign kicks off in earnest, President Obama shouldn’t just defend his record. He should go on the counterattack.
In the second half of the second term of every re-elected President, the administration confronts a challenge. Aspiring successors, particularly in the opposite party, attack the sitting President as a way of currying favor with their primary electorate’s base. Does the incumbent, not up for re-election, sit by quietly while they attack or does he defend his record?
The George W. Bush model is to be a punching bag. Let the process play out because the incumbent no longer has personal political aspirations. That’s a bad model for President Obama, because he has a much better record to defend than his predecessor and a legacy to see carried forward by the next President irrespective of party. Nowhere is this more true than in education – K-12 and higher ed – and opportunities to counterattack abound.
Consider that last week Jeb Bush announced he will give the commencement address at Liberty University. As described recently (here and here), Liberty is one of the worst four-year colleges in Virginia (if not the country) for minority and low-income students. Liberty’s graduation rate for black first-time, full-time students is 22.4 percent. And that’s over a period stretching six years from initial enrollment. Liberty is the least affordable four-year college in Virginia for working class and low-income students. After all grants and scholarships, low-income students are still expected to pay out of pocket (cough, i.e. with loans) over $90,000 to get a degree in four years, never mind six or at all…
President Obama should draw a contrast and give a commencement address at, say, a school like Florida State University. As my colleague has recently profiled, comparatively speaking, underrepresented minority students graduate from Florida State at a pretty respectable clip (73.9 percent). Moreover, Florida State has virtually no attainment gap between white and underrepresented minority students. For working class students, Florida State costs half as much as Liberty.
The Obama administration doesn’t need to denigrate Liberty University. The administration should just use the selection of an institution like Florida State for a commencement address to highlight a contrast. That means not just going to a Florida State-like institution, but talking about the administration’s record on college affordability and its efforts on completion.
Sure, there should be a personal message to the graduates in every commencement address. But graduates should also hear about where they fit in the broader American story. Their achievement and their parents’ achievement should be celebrated. Colleges that positively contribute to the American story should be congratulated. Those that do not should be challenged to improve.
A meaningful commitment to diversity in higher education requires getting more minority and working class students not just into colleges where they are underrepresented, but also through them — to degree completion.
That’s a counterattack worthy of an incumbent President.