Dear Barack – Why you also got a D on your higher education budget proposals

Note: This post is the third item in a thread of three. If you’ve not read the two previous posts, they are here and here.

Dear Barack -

We’ve already discussed the C grade. Your diagnosis of problems in higher education was accurate, but you didn’t dig beneath the surface to understand the causes. And, in a perverse manner, that meant your budget proposals will have an effect opposite to what you intended. Instead of making higher education more affordable and accessible, your proposals will make it more expensive and difficult for students and their families. It’s a serious error, but can also be corrected. And you did, at least, engage people at an intellectual and analytical level.

Rhetoric and analysis, however, have limited power to persuade people to act. Emotion is the missing ingredient, and stories provide the best way to unite ideas with emotion. As the screenwriting coach Robert McKee argues, stories “fulfill a profound human need to grasp  the patterns of living – not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience.” You had a wonderful opportunity to engage the emotions of the American people and persuade them through story, but you essentially passed on the chance. That’s why I gave you a D.

For starters, it’s clear you didn’t do the assigned reading. There were only two short articles. One was an interview with Robert McKee that appeared in the June 2003 issue of the Harvard Business Review. The other was the 2007 Nobel address of Doris Lessing, who tells a compelling story that illustrates how education can ignite dreams. It begins about two-thirds of the way into her address with these words: “I would like you to imagine yourselves, somewhere in Southern Africa, standing in an Indian store, in a poor area, in a time of bad drought.” Read it. Maybe you can use it as a benchmark for your own stories, to see if they tap into the energy and truth that Lessing does. I apologize that the article by McKee is only available from the publisher for a fee, and am really struggling here to bite my tongue about dead tree publishers.

Ok, then, what frustrated me so about your effort? I think you’ll see when I summarize in a few sentences the storyline that bobs and weaves throughout your budget proposals for higher education. If you think I’ve done an injustice to your ideas, please let me know. I’d be delighted if I was wrong.

Here’s the higher education story you would have motivate us. The United States and its citizens are up to their bellies in a river full of crocodiles. We got there because of the “profound irresponsibility” and greed of private and public institutions that now leaves us mired in a deep recession and facing an uncertain future. To escape this predicament, we need to “jumpstart” the economy and invest in America’s future. One of the priorities must be education. A more highly educated workforce will provide mobility into the middle class and beyond. It will also improve the “overall success of our economy.” But the real cost of higher education has risen dramatically and retards both individual opportunity and the ability of the country to compete in a global economy. Our goal by 2020 is to regain the world leadership in the proportion of citizens with a college degree. To do this we plan to make higher education more affordable through tax credits and more grant and loan aid. We also plan to improve retention once students enroll in college, and to expand investments in innovative and promising programs whose efficacy is supported by research.

I’m sure I haven’t included all the sub-texts in this story. But I think it’s a fair summary.

You’ve got the makings of a story. I especially like the crocodiles. Dire circumstances, nasty antagonists, struggles against the dark side … it’s all there. But the denouement, oh my, what a bummer of a let-down. The dramatic tension just fizzles away. I rather doubt many people will find your 2020 goal energizing.

Come on, Barack. You can do better than that. According to McKee, “Persuading with a story is hard. … It demands vivid insight and storytelling skill to present an idea that packs enough emotional power to be memorable.” Your story fizzles because you haven’t yet reached the necessary vivid insight.

I cannot help you much here. It’s your story to tell. But I will make one suggestion.

We both know that all of us are in this together. That includes people like the young mother reading Anna Karenin in Lessing’s story. It also includes those recently fallen from the grace of large bonuses and stock options. Everyone. Everywhere. Not just in the United States. Everywhere.

Tell us a story that doesn’t hide behind competition and the fear of others, that outlines a future we don’t yet see clearly. Tell us it’s going to be harder than hell to get there and that there will be mistakes and troubles along the way. Everybody can understand that kind of story. And get motivated by it.

I look forward to your revisions.

Sincerely,

Gary