In President Barack Obama's most recent State of the Union address, technology figured significantly as part of his plan to increase the number of college graduates and reduce the cost of education. With concern that the United States is losing its competitive edge because it is not producing enough graduates and minority students are reportedly falling further behind in academic achievement, the president has pledged to increase the proportion of Americans graduating from college from 40 percent to 60 percent by 2020. He proposes to do it partly by encouraging schools to modernize and adopt improved technology to teach, measure and administer coursework. One part of that plan includes distance learning, or online education, an area where growth is outstripping brick-and-mortar enrollments. Online learning, where 80 percent of a course is delivered online, is especially attractive to minority students because it offers them options not available at many public colleges. Many Black and Hispanic students are shut out, according to the California-based Campaign for College Opportunity, because they are not able to meet the requirements for admission to the state's four-year colleges. In addition, rollbacks on affirmative action at some public universities have resulted in a shrinking number of Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans attending public universities. For-profit institutions have nimbly exploited this disparity by focusing on low-income and minority students eligible for financial aid in brick-and-mortar settings and increasingly online. Ads for online universities have proliferated online, on television, as well as on bus and subway billboards. Proponents of online learning say its technological advancements could offer creative educational solutions for minority students and provide greater access to advanced education for underrepresented minorities.