Today’s college students certainly are patient. They overwhelmingly supported Obama in both of the last presidential elections and he’s just getting around to throwing them a bone.

Adam Aigner-Treworgy of CNN reports.

Obama says he’s looking for ways to keep college costs down

Warrensburg, Missouri (CNN) – Offering an abbreviated version of the economic address he delivered in Illinois earlier in the day, President Barack Obama addressed a crowd at the University of Central Missouri here Wednesday evening and pointed to the school’s business partnership program as an example of what needs to be done to drive down college costs.

“Here at Central Missouri, you are a laboratory for this kind of innovation,” the president said.

The president and his advisers have announced plans for a series of speeches throughout the fall focusing on issues he sees as crucial to the middle class. At UCM, Obama got a bit more specific about his plans for education.

“I’ve asked my team to shake the trees all across the country for some of the best ideas out there for keeping college costs down, so that as students prepare to go back to school I’m in a position to lay out what’s going to be an aggressive strategy to shake up the system,” Obama told a crowd gathered in the sweaty UCM gymnasium.

Prior to the speech, the president said he spoke with the president of the university, the local superintendent of schools and the head of the community college system about a partnership they’ve developed. Under the partnership the president outlined, local high school students in Lee’s Summit can earn credits toward an associate degree, allowing them to earn a bachelor’s degree at UCM in two years.

Great. Now students can go into massive debt in half the time.