President Obama makes a stop in Des Moines

Ben Carson would keep the Department of Education if elected president, but add oversight for colleges and universities, the Republican candidate told a crowd of more than 100 people during a stop Friday in Corning.

In recent days, Obama has lambasted Republicans running for their party’s nomination on topics like the economy and climate change, saying they’d take the country in the wrong direction if elected to the White House. As part of the event, the president will unveil a change to the federal financial aid system that allows students to apply in October instead of January.

President Obama spent the afternoon in Des Moines, the capital of the kickoff caucus state that might be instrumental in winnowing down the 2016 main area and finally choosing a president within the common election.

Asked by one participant for his views on the 2016 candidates’ education policies, Obama said he wouldn’t tell anyone who to vote for – “at least not right now; later I will”.

“All these steps taken together should help hundreds of thousands more students pay for college and I know that’s important to you”, said President Obama.

“I wish that that opportunity was available to me because I ended up graduating from school with a lot of debt”, said parent Vanessa Howell, who was in the audience at North High School.

In 2008, Obama won Iowa, beating Clinton. Clinton is also in Iowa on Monday, campaigning in the northwest of the state. Still, he was joined by White House political strategy director David Simas, who typically joins Obama on travel involving campaign fundraisers or other overtly political events.

“Don’t make your decision based on, well, where are all my friends going so that I can do the exact same things with the exact same friends that I did in high school”, Obama said.

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Pulitzer Prize winning Iowa…

And while the president didn’t directly criticize independent-turned-Democrat and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, he did indicate, in response to a question from an intern for Hillary Clinton, that he thinks the U.S. Senator’s higher education plan is unrealistic.

Obama has not said whom he favors in the Democratic race. “But you’ve got to correct him, you don’t want to put him in charge of stuff”.

“If you hear a candidate say that the big problem with education is the teachers, you should not vote for that person”, he said.