Every year tuition prices rise. 

According to CNN, the average annual tuition for a year of community college has risen 40 percent. At four year public universities, the cost increased by 68 percent.  

In good economic conditions, governments are willing to support education. However, when the economy is not doing well, the government demands more money from its future academics. Even though the current economic condition is devastating for the job market, President Barack Obama does not want to cut spending, but wants to cut the growth of college tuition in half over the next decade. 

Europeans would label the plan as an investment in education, which is considered a long-term plan. Trying to put more money into universities, and trying to support heavily indebted students, sounds like taking more care about the academics of tomorrow who will be responsible for a flourishing American economy. 

Germany implemented that idea three years ago with a tuition fee of 500 euros ($650) per semester, which sounds to many Americans ridiculously low, but it was, and still is, highly criticized by students as well as the Social Democratic Party. I realized that the U.S. and Germany definitely have two different mentalities and cultures. 

Germany is on its way to abolish the 500 euros fee since criticism has not stopped yet. Having free education is a tradition, and Germans take it for granted that its government provides every citizen the opportunity to become a highly skilled worker who is able to earn a decent middle-class salary. 

If more tuition is demanded, Germans say that the government does not care anymore about its citizens, but became selfish. 

CNN Money states that in Obama`s first term, low- and middle-income students attained a great amount of aid through the Pell Grant program. This year almost $40 billion was spent for around 10 million students. 

Obama also made it generally easier for students to request aid, to shorten their application process and more easily transfer their financial information electronically from the Internal Revenue Service database. The opposition claims that with financial aid for the lower social student group, the tuition for the ones who can afford it has been rising in the last years. 

Additionally the president supported programs that limit the size of student loan payments, which is based on the income of the borrower. Mr. McCluskey, an analyst from the Cato Institute, asserted that the federal aid and loans are often awarded to average students and schools who might not be the best benefit for the national economy’s future. 

Besides all the criticism of Obama and his educational reform plans, he also receives recognition that he focuses on a new social issue in the U.S. which has been neglected for a long time. 

Considering that, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the United States spends 48 percent on military on a global scale, compared to 20 percent by the whole European Union, showing clearly that a redistribution of the national budget is more than necessary. The money, which is not necessarily needed for military expenses, can be invested in education.