President Uses Comedy to Send Message About Student Loans
By: Matt Turner / KNWA Nightly News Anchor
Updated: April 25, 2012
The cost of going to college at the University of Arkansas could actually double for a certain group of students.
Interest rates for student loans were frozen at 3.4 percent in 2007 but that law will expire on July 1st. So in response, President Barack Obama is telling college students to ask their local congressman to approve an extension.
In a recent appearance on NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", the president made his point by participating in a comedy sketch called Slow Jam the News.
As the show's band played soulful R&B music, President Obama looked into the camera with a straight face and delivered several lines to an auditorium full of students at the University of North Carolina.
Mr. Obama started by saying, "What we've said is simple. Now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people." With the music continuing, Fallon followed up by lowering his voice and saying, "Ahhhh yeah.....You should listen to the President. Or as I like to call him, the Preezee of the United Steezee."
The audience broke out into laughter and continued to do so as Fallon and the president kept going with more political lines and jokes.
But while a lot of people think the appearance was funny, the issue at hand could result in an ugly battle among democrats and republicans in Washington D.C.
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the student loan extension measure this Friday and House Speaker John Boehner says republicans will approve the measure, but they'll have to take money away from the president's healthcare reform law to make up the difference.
Interest rates for student loans were frozen at 3.4 percent in 2007 but that law will expire on July 1st. So in response, President Barack Obama is telling college students to ask their local congressman to approve an extension.
In a recent appearance on NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", the president made his point by participating in a comedy sketch called Slow Jam the News.
As the show's band played soulful R&B music, President Obama looked into the camera with a straight face and delivered several lines to an auditorium full of students at the University of North Carolina.
Mr. Obama started by saying, "What we've said is simple. Now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people." With the music continuing, Fallon followed up by lowering his voice and saying, "Ahhhh yeah.....You should listen to the President. Or as I like to call him, the Preezee of the United Steezee."
The audience broke out into laughter and continued to do so as Fallon and the president kept going with more political lines and jokes.
But while a lot of people think the appearance was funny, the issue at hand could result in an ugly battle among democrats and republicans in Washington D.C.
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the student loan extension measure this Friday and House Speaker John Boehner says republicans will approve the measure, but they'll have to take money away from the president's healthcare reform law to make up the difference.
