Michelle Obama Aims for Higher Percentage of College Education in the US

US First Lady Michelle Obama undertakes a more vital policy role in education by joining President Obama’s endeavor to have the highest percentage of college graduates in 2020.

Encouraging students to seek higher education, US First Lady Michelle Obama said that her story could be any other student’s story. Mrs. Obama was referring to her own struggles while pursuing college education, not allowing obstacles to mar her goal to obtain a degree. She spoke on Tuesday to students of Bell Multicultural High School.

2020 goal

Bell Multicultural High School, only a few miles from the Capital and attended mostly by immigrants, is one of the focus priorities of the First Lady as she takes a broader role in the education policy of the country especially for students in communities lacking in services and facilities. Mrs. Obama joins President Barack Obama’s endeavor to bring back the United States to the academic track by aiming for the highest percentage of college graduates by year 2020. She underscored the importance of achieving this goal to students, emphasizing that their personal triumph is as also a principal objective.

Individual success

The First Lady made clear to students that the 2020 goal of attaining an improved number of college degree holders can only be realized through individual efforts. She also said that no matter how much the president, the teachers and school heads strive to reach the present aim, the only ones who can really produce such success are the students themselves. She stated that whatever is going on in their homes or communities, the strongest impact on the students’ education will come from their individual efforts. In other words, Mrs. Obama added, it is upon the students to manage and control their education through quality of focus, input and amount of work they exert to earn a degree.

Personal experience

Mrs. Obama shared her own experience with the students of Bell Multicultural High School while she was attending one of the leading high schools in Chicago. She spoke about her personal dilemmas when she had to rise very early in the morning and travel for an hour by bus to get to her school. She said her parents did not finish college but this did not discourage her on her belief that education was a powerful tool in shaping her future.

First Lady Michelle Obama was born to a striving working class family. She applied for admission at Princeton University, an Ivy League campus and later attended Harvard Law School. All these she achieved, she told the students, with many pitfalls and discouraging circumstances.

Too ambitious

Giving the students more insight on her own struggles in college, Mrs. Obama related how her teachers in high school would tell her that she might be too ambitious and that her goals were too high. She was told, according to her, that she would never be able to enter a school as prestigious as Princeton. The 10th graders quietly listened to the First Lady as she said how she felt when it dawned on her that nobody was really going to help her fulfill her dreams. She then realized that it was all up to her to work hard in order to reach her aspirations.

Financial assistance

Mrs. Obama lauded Menbere Assefa, a 22-year old alumna of Bell Multicultural High School. The young alumna earned a degree from James Madison University via a scholarship. Assefa belongs to an Ethiopian family that migrated to the United States when she was only eight years old. Assefa encouraged the students to likewise find scholarships and financial assistance to support their college education.

Coordinated thrust

Mrs. Obama is coordinating with Arne Duncan, Education Secretary, in supervising the president’s program to improve the country’s college education rate. President Obama believes the nation can highly improve its current 12th place rank of college degree holder population worldwide.

Photo Credit: Michelle Obama