Tom Hanks Pens ‘New York Times’ Article Backing President Obama’s Free Community College Plan

Tom Hanks has thrown his support behind President Barack Obama’s proposal for free community college education by penning an article about his own experiences.

The star wrote a piece for The New York Times entitled I Owe It All to Community College, in which he recalls the two years he spent at Chabot College in Hayward, California in 1974.

Hanks reiterates the importance of the establishment to him because it “made those two years an invaluable head start”.

The star speaks of President Obama’s proposed initiative to make community college free for up to nine million Americans and voiced his hopes of the plan coming to fruition.

Hanks explains that his classmates were of a wide array of backgrounds including “veterans back from Vietnam, women of every marital and maternal status returning to school, middle-aged men wanting to improve their employment prospects and paychecks” and says he hopes the President’s scheme will open those doors for a younger generation.

He writes, “President Obama hopes to make two years of free community college accessible for up to nine million Americans. I’m guessing the new Congress will squawk at the $60 billion price tag, but I hope the idea sticks, because more veterans, from Iraq and Afghanistan this time, as well as another generation of mothers, single parents and workers who have been out of the job market, need lower obstacles between now and the next chapter of their lives. High school graduates without the finances for a higher education can postpone taking on big loans and maybe luck into the class that will redefine their life’s work. Many lives will be changed…

“I drove past the campus a few years ago with one of my kids and summed up my two years there this way: ‘That place made me what I am today.'”

Photo Credit:Jaguar PS / Shutterstock.com