President Obama has made his intentions quite clear – he wants to see more people heading back to school and he is willing to help make this possible with the help of government funding. In order to achieve this goal, he has called upon the Senate to back is plan to expand loan grants programs that are available to college students. Furthermore, he wants to remove banks from the loan process in order to do away with what he considers to be an unnecessary middleman.

In a speech given yesterday at Hudson Valley Community College, President Obama not only called for support of his education initiatives, but also for expanding policy so all Internet traffic will be treated equally. The new FCC rules endorsed by Obama are intended to stop Internet providers from being able to block or slow down high bandwidth traffic, which places an unnecessary burden on the network and prevents the Internet from achieving its full power.

As part of his education initiative, Obama also wants to see an increase in the availability of grants and loans to students. He also wants to see an increase in the amount of funding directed toward the Pell Grant program.

“Right now, the federal government provides a subsidy to banks to get them to lend students money,” said Obama. “The thing is, the federal government guarantees the loan in case the student doesn’t repay . . . If we simply cut out the middle-man, and lent directly, the federal government would save that money, and we could use it for what it is actually meant for: helping students afford and succeed in college.”

Education and the Internet weren’t the only things on the president’s mind, however, as he also addressed the continuing need for fundamental changes to be made within the American economy in order to achieve a recovery and to lay down the groundwork for future growth.