Barack Obama dropped the economic F-bomb many times during his speech last week: fair. What is fair? Who has an unfair advantage? It is an arbitrary term and must be done away with if we are to see through political rhetoric. 

He especially used “fair” when talking about education. Apparently, states investing $10,000 per student every year for a public education isn’t enough to have a fair chance. 

That’s $120,000 per student, K-12. If someone is not able to garner funding for college after having that much money pumped into them, can we blame the government?

Let’s pretend Obama realizes this and out of sheer goodwill wants to provide more money to prospective college students. 

We would be lying to ourselves — only 2% of his budget goes to education — even less toward college funding. That’s one-eleventh of the health care budget, one-tenth of defense funding and a third of pure interest we are paying on our debts.

The states provide us with as much of an opportunity we could ask to be college-ready, including financially. 

If one can’t “afford” college, it’s because they squandered high school and didn’t utilize the tools given to them. Even still, Obama’s budget doesn’t reflect his cry for fairness. 

Just because someone can’t afford college, it doesn’t mean they didn’t have a fair chance. I wasn’t chosen over someone else to get here; I had to work hard, be a leader and apply for over 200 scholarships all through high school.

Fairness isn’t gauged on what we have, but what we are able to have. When it comes to education, we all have access to the same resources. The government is not a scapegoat for personal responsibility.