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Board of Trustees Chair Appears with VP Joe Biden
The College Board’s Board of Trustee chair, Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, was invited to participate in an expert panel at Syracuse University when Vice President Joe Biden visited the school Sept. 9. Biden was there to chair a meeting of the White House Middle Class Task Force. Other notable participants included Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor, SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel and New York State United Teachers President Dick Iannuzzi.
Speaking to a group of more than 1,000 Syracuse high school students, SU students, parents, Say Yes to Education foundation and school district leaders, faculty, staff, and members of the greater Syracuse community, Biden reiterated the Obama administration’s goal of having the highest proportion of students graduating from college in the world by 2020, and spoke fervently of its commitment to building America’s middle class through better education.
“There is no lack of passion about the need [to prioritize] education for the future well-being of this
country,” Biden said. “I’ve never seen a time when so many major stakeholders in the system have gotten involved. … I believe we will do whatever it takes. … There is no higher domestic priority [than education]. It is the single most pervasive change we can make that will help everything — from crime on the street straight through to international competitiveness.”
Syracuse University, where Copeland-Morgan serves as associate vice president for enrollment management and director of scholarships and student aid, was chosen to host the task force because of the university’s commitment to the critical issues of college awareness, access and affordability, and the Syracuse community’s collective work on the Syracuse Say Yes to Education initiative, which includes a K–12 comprehensive support program that addresses four major obstacles to postsecondary access for low-income students: academic, social-emotional, health related and financial. Now the Syracuse Say Yes to Education program is bringing this success to an entire school district — the first program of this scale in the nation. Biden said of the program, “Let me pause to compliment Syracuse University and the entire Syracuse community about the Say Yes to Education initiative.” He pointed out that Say Yes deals with two of the major obstacles to attending college: achievement and affordability.
After remarks from Biden, Duncan and Geithner, audience members were invited to ask questions. In response to a student’s question about whether the government would help parents who had taken out PLUS Loans to supplement their students’ Pell Grants and other financial aid, Copeland-Morgan replied, “I’m really appreciative of the Obama administration [because] there has been legislation put forth and changes that went into effect this year that will make it easier for parents to repay their parent loans, [such as] opportunities to defer payments on loans while students are still in school — a new benefit that they can defer that until six months after the student is out of school. The other thing that I would say is that we are putting forth ideas to address the challenges that families are facing today, and there are processes in place that will allow the student loan areas to work with families who are experiencing hardship. … The important thing about this kind of town hall meeting is it gives us an opportunity to listen to those concerns, to build on the flexibilities that the secretary and the president have already made in the area of parent loans. I would really encourage you to talk to a financial aid person — here at Syracuse, certainly, you can talk to us — but to make sure that parents and students are aware of the different options they have for working through some of these credit issues.”
Copeland-Morgan went on to say, “I'm very appreciative of the opportunity to work with the vice president and the task force on this very important topic. The work of the university in collaboration with the Syracuse City School District and the Say Yes to Education foundation is targeted toward these exact issues — helping to make education affordable and a reality for all students, but especially those who face the challenge of being middle-income and economically disadvantaged students.”
To learn more about the White House’s Middle Class Task Force, visit
www.whitehouse.gov/strongmiddleclass. To learn more about Syracuse’s Say Yes to Education,
visit www.sayyessyracuse.org. A recorded webcast of the event in its entirety is available at http://biden.syr.edu.
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