'Education was the gateway to opportunity for me,' president says at Democratic National Convention. By MTV News Staff
President Obama accepts the Democratic nomination at the DNC Photo: The Washington Post/Getty Images
President Barack Obama officially accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States on Thursday night. Originally expected to speak in front of 73,000 people at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, Obama switched venues to the smaller Time Warner Cable Arena to avoid potential rain.
The president touched on a wide array of subjects, including climate change, General Motors, the war on Al Qaeda and the importance of education, a subject that particularly hit home for Millennials.
Somah Haaland, 18, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, was hoping the president would speak about education. "Obama has done so much to help me already," she said. "He has doubled the funding for Pell Grants, so I got almost a thousand dollars worth of scholarship money, which has helped me incredibly." Haaland, a college freshman studying psychology, went on to say, "For example, textbooks were 450 dollars, and at this point in my life it's so nice that my president is backing me up."
"Education was the gateway to opportunity for me," Obama explained in his speech. "It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life."
One of the stars of the Democratic National Convention, Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, told MTV News that parents must play a vital role in helping their children to plan their futures. "A lot of parents want to do the right thing but they are disengaged," he said.
Nadia Farjood, 21, a Harvard student majoring in government and neurobiology, said, "I do hope the president talks about the student-loan piece. ... A lot of people don't know that [the Obamas] just paid off their loans. He knows what it's like. I hope he explains articulately what he's going to do for young students."
In addition to using his speech to tell Americans what he would do for them, the president asked for support Thursday night.
"Help me recruit 100,000 math and science teachers in the next 10 years and improve early childhood education," he said. "Help give two million workers the chance to learn skills at their community college that will lead directly to a job. Help us work with colleges and universities to cut in half the growth of tuition costs over the next 10 years. We can meet that goal together. You can choose that future for America."
"Choice" was a word President Obama used over and over again in his address. And 45 million Millennials now have the chance to make a choice this year and help decide who wins the 2012 election.
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