On Feb. 2, Obama proposed a record-breaking $4 trillion budget for 2016 fiscal calendar.
The proposal is geared primarily toward federal agencies promoting health care, infrastructure, climate change, immigration and defense.
The Fiscal Times reported that these agencies will receive anywhere between 5 to 31 percent increase in federal financing.
However, another crucial element in the largest budget plan yet to be released suggests a strengthening of middle class economics and education.
According to Forbes, “Obama’s unhelpful framing of the American Dream” has created “divisions between people” because instead of wealth being “created,” it is being “spread.”
In actuality, middle class economics is an idealistic policy allowing the poor to rise to the middle class and the middle class to rise to the wealthy.
Obama uses a reverse approach for the 2016 budget proposal. By allocating the wealthy to sponge up most of the taxes, social classes face a knock-down instead of a necessary pick-up.
This heavy increase in budget size has managed to extend even further to affect college students. The proposed idea of funding free community college has established a stronger accountability for student success.
Michael Leachman, the director of State Fiscal Research with the State Fiscal Policy division at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told The Wall Street Journal that this budget proposal proves positive for education at a local level. Due to the proposal’s emphasis on funding local education, states have been able to refocus their funding back to schools since the recession.
These new financial incentives for schools to meet higher standards has the Obama administration submitting a college-rating system.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the college rating system would measure schools by their graduation, retention, student-loan repayment rates and accessibility to low-income students.
Additionally, the White House is working to eliminate questions from the student financial-aid application. These questions are related to assets, non-IRS untaxed income, non-IRS exclusions and other income adjustments.
A $600 reduction in expected family contributions is also proposed to combat the decrease in Pell grants.
Despite the 2016 proposed budget stomping on social standards, educational contentions are finally being disputed. A resolution may be nonexistent, but highlighting prevalent student issues allows these problems to finally boggle the minds of congress.
Opinion columnist Courtney Gigant is a business sophomore and may be reached at [email protected].
