Biden, Obama planning ‘fun’ college tour

Vice President Biden will join President Obama for the Scranton, Pa., leg of a “fun and informative” bus tour on college costs, the White House said Monday.

Spokesman Josh Earnest said that the president would discuss how to “reign in the skyrocketing costs of a college education.”

“It is going to be hopefully both fun and informative,” Earnest told reporters at the daily press briefing. “The president does plan to have some new proposals that he’s going to be talking about.”

{mosads}When Earnest was pressed what specifically would be “fun” about the college tour — which will also swing through New York with stops in Buffalo, Syracuse and Binghamton — he said that he didn’t expect the president to swing by any fraternity parties.

“The current plan is for the vice president to join the president in Scranton, so that should be fun,” Earnest said, to laughter from the White House press corps. “See?”

Biden is a native of Scranton and spent much of his childhood there.

The tour has been billed as a continuation of the economic push that Obama launched last month at Knox College in Illinois, during which he argued his agenda has helped the country battle back from the recession.

But Earnest indicated Monday that the president’s focus would be fairly narrow on Thursday and Friday of this week, rather than a broad economic argument to frame upcoming battles over the federal budget and debt ceiling.

“The focus of the proposals that the president will be talking about will be higher education,” he said.