Jan 23, 2015 10:14 AM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

President Barack Obama spoke at the University of Kansas (KU) on how young people can best prosper in a recovering economy and universal childcare.

According to the Washington Post, Obama proposed providing families with a tax credit up to $3,000 per child while expanding childcare to a million children. Obama has made higher education a priority during his presidency, and now appears to want to help students take advantage of an economy on the rise again.

As a college basketball fan, he endeared himself to the crowd by shouting "Rock Chalk" and praising the Jayhawks, the highly successful basketball team at KU.

Obama did not do well in Kansas during either election, so his visit to KU was a bit out of the blue, but he detailed his ties to the state, declaring himself "a Kansas guy." He said his grandmother was raising his mother in Wichita during World War II while working on an assembly line. With the men overseas fighting the war, women were home, more and more of whom went to work, so childcare became hugely important.

"So this country provided universal child care because they understood that if women are working, they're going to need some help - right?" Obama said in his address. "These aren't just nice-to-haves - this is a must-have.

"So the point is, if we knew how to do this back in 1943 and '44, and here we are in 2015, what's the holdup?"

The President tied his address to higher education, noting that good childcare in many U.S. states costs more per year than tuition at a university. He also shared his own experience with his wife Michelle, raising their children while paying back student loans.

Alyssa Cole, a senior studying history and African and African American studies, introduced the President at his address Thursday. According to the Post, she wrote to Obama in 2013 to tell him about her experience attending school, working and raising three young children.

She said she had to face impossible decisions on a regular basis, having to choose how much of her paycheck she should spend on childcare, sometimes spending it all.

"By the way, this is personal for me," Obama said. "Trying to figure out how to manage child-care costs was extraordinary at the same time that you're paying back student loans.

"I don't want anyone to be day-care poor."

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