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President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama met today with over 140 college presidents at the White House. Also present at the event, were dozens of organizations committed to raising the number of low-income students who attend college.

No more than half of low-income high school graduates apply to college, so the President has asked the first lady to spearhead a national effort to encourage colleges — the more selective ones, in particular — to admit and graduate more students who are poor.

"We want to restore the essential promise of opportunity and upward mobility that's at the heart of America," said President Obama. "To that end, young people, low-income students in particular, must have access to a college education."

He was preaching to the choir. Every institution and organization present, after all, had to show up at the conference with a plan to help needy students get into college.

Eric W. Kaler, president of the Universtiy of Minnesota, promised to offer increased financial aid and more advice to kids from poor communities. He says that admitting these students doesn't mean universities have to lower their standards.

"I'm proud of the fact that we don't accept students at the University of Minnesota who we don't project to succeed, said Kaler. "We look for the potential."

Non-profit groups say they're ready to help more students navigate the Byzantine college admission and financial aid processes. Jim McCorkell, president of College Possible, submitted a plan to reach out to a total of 20,000 students in Nebraska, Oregon, Wisconsin, Minnesota and, soon, Pennsylvania.

Still, McCorkell points out that one of the big issues the Obama administration is highlighting, and that could be a big problem in America, is undermatching — instead of opting for a four-year college, or another school that would be more suitable, low-income students end up attending a local community college.

"Sometime's that's the right fit," says McCorkell. "But sometimes it's not."

The only governor in attendance was Delaware's Jack Markell, a Democrat. He says enrolling more low-income students in public institutions is a costly proposition given the huge cuts in state funding for higher education in recent years.

But the nation's economy, says Markell, cannot afford to lose bright young people just because they're poor. He says his plan, in partnership with The College Board and several Ivy League schools, is already helping a thousand of these students get into college.

"They're low income students who are probably not going to apply absent our intervention," said Markell.

Yet, according to Jim McCorkell, there are two big problems that hit these kids especially hard: tuition costs and student debt.

"When you look at the average student loan debt in America, it's now approaching $30,000; so something has got to be done," says McCorkell. "The question is, what's driving tuition up at a rate so much greater than inflation?"

People in attendance say everybody tip-toed around that question during the day-long panel discussions. Administration officials stressed the issue of college access. Officials insisted the administration is separately tackling the high cost of college.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in an Illinois case that could drive a stake through the heart of public employee unions.

At issue are two questions: whether states may recognize a union to represent health care workers who care for disabled adults in their homes instead of in state institutions; and whether non-union members must pay for negotiating a contract they benefit from.

To understand why a growing number of states actually want to recognize unions to represent home health care workers, listen to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan:

"The home services program has about 28,000 home care aides, and these people are working in homes all over the state. There isn't a centralized workplace, and the goal for the state is creating and retaining a professional group of home care aides to meet the needs of what is an ever increasing population of older people with disabilities."

Prior to the state recognizing the union in Illinois, turnover was huge, leaving large gaps in coverage for disabled adults. In the 10 years since unionization, however, wages have nearly doubled, from $7 to $13 an hour; training and supervision has increased, as well as standardization of qualifications, and workers now have health insurance.

It's no surprise then that retention has greatly increased. What may surprise many is that this arrangement is cheaper, with savings of $632 million, according to the state.

No one is forced to join the union, but non-union members — and there are three in this case — do have to pay the costs of negotiating and administering the contract. Under long-established labor law, when a majority of workers approve a union, those who do not join cannot be forced to pay for political activities of the union. But if the union is accepted by the state, as it was in Illinois, non-members still have to pay their fair share of the expenses of negotiating a contract. That's to prevent them from free-riding on the dues of members.

For some workers, however, any fee is too much.

"They just don't want to deal with this organization whatsoever," says their lawyer, William Messenger of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Or, as Pam Harris, who cares for her son at home, puts it: "I object to my home being a union workplace."

Harris, however, is part of a separate and much smaller group of workers, most of whom care for family members at home, who voted down union representation. So her only claim in this case is that she fears there will be another vote someday.

Those who care for the bulk of the disabled are quite different. Not only did they approve union representation, most care for people who are not relatives.

Those opposing any fair-share fee have several claims. First, they say the state is not their employer, because under this program, the individual patients, known as customers, hire and fire their own aides. The state replies that the program was designed that way because these workers would be in people's private homes. But the aides are trained and supervised by the state, equipped with supplies by the state and paid twice a month by the state, and the state can fire them.

The second claim by the objectors is their view of the union as little more than a lobbying group. "Wages paid to government employees should be deemed a matter of public concern," Messenger says.

Does that mean public employees simply can't have a union because they are dealing with the government, and the government, per se, involves political issues? "Yes, to a large degree. Yes," Messenger says.

In other words, Messenger views bargaining for wages and health care as a political act. "I reject the notion that the [Service Employees International Union] somehow got higher reimbursement rates for them," he says. "Illinois could raise the reimbursement rates unilaterally."

"[There are only] three people who are complaining here," counters lawyer Paul Smith, who will argue on behalf of the state and the union in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

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Just 1 percent of the world's population controls nearly half of the planet's wealth, according to a new study published by Oxfam ahead of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.

The study says this tiny slice of humanity controls $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the poorest 3.5 billion people.

Other key findings in the report:

— The world's 85 richest people own as much as the poorest 50 percent of humanity.

— 70 percent of the world's people live in a country where income inequality has increased in the past three decades.

— In the U.S., where the gap between rich and poor has grown at a faster rate than any other developed country, the top 1 percent captured 95 percent of post-recession growth (since 2009), while 90 percent of Americans became poorer.

"Oxfam is concerned that, left unchecked, the effects are potentially immutable, and will lead to 'opportunity capture' — in which the lowest tax rates, the best education, and the best healthcare are claimed by the children of the rich," the relief agency writes. "This creates dynamic and mutually reinforcing cycles of advantage that are transmitted across generations."

In other words, Oxfam says that if trends continue, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.

"[People] are increasingly separated by economic and political power, inevitably heightening social tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown," the report says.

The World Economic Forum is scheduled to hold its annual meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, beginning Jan. 22.

The Oxfam report largely mirrors findings of several other studies in recent years that have documented growing income inequality in the U.S. and across the globe.

In September, a University of California, Berkeley study found that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw their incomes grow by 31.4 percent over the period 2009 to 2012, while the other 99 percent experienced just 0.4 percent growth. Last month, the Pew Research Center published a study that found income inequality in the U.S. was at its highest since 1928, the year before the start of the Great Depression.

Chef Furard Tate is the kind of man who never sits still. He flits from the order desk at Inspire BBQ back to the busy kitchen, where young men are seasoning sauce, cooking macaroni and cheese, and finishing off some dry-rubbed ribs smoked on a grill.

"We grill on a real grill," Tate says. "None of this electric stuff."

But as important as the food is, Tate says it's also important that it's made by young hands who must learn a slow, consistent process.

Washington, D.C., has a thriving restaurant market with a plethora of restaurants serving its multicultural residents. But this barbecue eatery offers more than food on its menu.

Inspire BBQ aims to reclaim troubled young people, teach them a trade, and give them a chance at success.

"When an adult realizes that a young person took that process and is actually learning how to make everything, it actually means even more, because it reminds us that: My education started at home," he says.

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