Having your dad come along as you tour colleges doesn’t seem really cool. Luckily, Malia Obama’s father is among the busiest men in the world and so won’t make the excursions with her this year to visit Barnard College, New York University, or her father’s alma mater, Columbia University. It’s okay, First Lady Michelle Obama is there to help. The mother-escorted college tour has been the norm for presidential children at least since the Clintons and Bushes were in the White House–so it’s not exactly newsworthy. But tell that to Yahoo! News!
What would be newsworthy is if the First Daughter decided to forgo the advantages of her privileged education (she’s a student at Sidwell Friends School, an elite prep school in Washington, D.C.) and–instead of an Ivy–choose instead to attend a state university or historically black college and university (HBCU). That would do two things: it would put her outside of her normal orbit, and would be an amusing bit of daughterly rebellion: her father, the president, reportedly has an antipathy toward HBCUs.
