Q&A on the News

Q: Who paid for Barack Obama’s education?

-- Al Martin, Atlanta

A: Both the president and his wife, Michelle, have said several times that they used student loans and scholarships to pay for their college educations. President Obama attended Occidental College, Columbia and Harvard Law School. Michelle Obama attended Princeton and Harvard Law School. They've said those loans were not paid off until they saw a jump in their income in the mid-2000s as a result of the sales of Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope," which was No. 1 on The New York Times nonfiction list in 2006. He received a book advance of $1.9 million, and he was contracted for three books, The Washington Post reported in November 2006. Obama also wrote "Dreams From My Father" in 1995. Michelle Obama told the National Review in 2008: "The salaries don't keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so you're in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when you have to save for your kids. Barack and I were in that position. The only reason we're not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books. … It was like Jack and his magic beans. But up until a few years ago, we were struggling to figure out how we would save for our kids."