What a beautiful day in Warren. I'm still here, sitting with the folks from the Freep; they have a blow by blow account of the speech here, and the White House has presented a fact sheet on the American Graduation Initiative here.
Basically, we need to boost the number of college graduates in this country to compete on a global scale. You knew that, we all know that, and now the White House wants to do something about it. A $12 billion dollar plan was unveiled this afternoon...
White House officials say the investment will be spread over a decade. It includes $9 billion to fuel community college challenge grants, $2.5 billion for construction and renovation of buildings and $500 million for online curriculum development. The initiative will get under way within the first six months of 2010, officials said.
Community colleges in Michigan are at capacity now - hopefully this will help CC's expand to add more students and training programs. I know that in Grand Rapids it can be almost impossible to get into the popular courses.
Go read the stories for all the details. From what I heard, sounds like a great plan, and much needed - especially here in Michigan.
I think I got some seriously good pictures here today. Small venue (around 2000 in attendance), sunshine, wispy clouds with the green trees... great setting. It will take me hours to get home, and then go through them all - so look for a slideshow sometime tomorrow.