President Obama said the words “college” or “colleges” 12 times in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, which seems like a relatively high figure for a speech—and a nation—full of issues. How does Mr. Obama’s focus on higher education in the address compare to that of other presidents?
The work of Benjamin M. Schmidt, an assistant professor of history at Northeastern University, provides a viewable answer. Using a database containing the text of every State of the Union message, Mr. Schmidt created an interactive graphic that lets users compare presidents based on how many times they uttered (or wrote, for pre-Woodrow Wilson presidents) a word or phrase per million words. The interactive tool also lets users click to see each example of the word or phrase.
Be advised: The radical transformation of the address from a dull statement in its nascence to a piece of political pageantry in recent decades makes stacking addresses of different eras against each other into something of an apples-and-oranges comparison.
With that in mind, how does Mr. Obama’s focus on colleges compare with that of past presidents. It turns out, he’s the top dog:
In fairness to the presidents at the bottom of the list, the federal government was not seen to have much of a role in the affairs of colleges and universities until World War II.
How about community colleges, given Mr. Obama’s proposal to make attendance free nationwide? Again, he clocks in high—and in rare company:
Again, in fairness to earlier presidents, the term “community college” has been in use for only a few generations.
On the phrase “higher education,” Mr. Obama trounces his predecessors:
Mr. Obama also leads the pack on the term “research":
Click here to play with the interactive yourself.
