In fact, I heard the president of our university system speak to a business group last week and project that our state will have the fourth largest increase in public school enrollments of any state in America. The nation, the states and the colleges, I am afraid, are behind the curve in planning to meet the educational needs of this tidal wave that is coming at us. It is something that you and I need to be thinking about and planning for. The cost and price of higher education are also matters of great importance. They are legitimate and real concerns for many working class and middle class American families, especially for those that are most disadvantaged economically.
Cost bears a direct relation to opportunity.
Frankly, in some quarters colleges and universities are being criticized as sluggish in their responses to the changing needs of students and the changing economic and demographic conditions of American society. While this is not true in every situation, it is something we ought to be very aware of, because we ought to be looking ahead, we ought to be anticipating. American higher education ought to be getting ready. And everything we know about the 21st century tells us, as you well know, that higher education will be even more central to the future of our states and our nation than it has ever been before. The opportunity deficit refers primarily to who gets into our colleges and universities.