When considering social protection in the United States, one can clearly notice that there is a wide range of different policies. According to Howard Jacob Karger and David Stoesz, the benefits provided are intended to meet the basic needs of individuals' lives (such as active work, income, relationships, health care, subsistence, and housing) (which) are regulated by social protection policy. (2010, p. 3). For the purposes of this article, we will analyze a specific social welfare policy known as President Obama's Race to the Top initiative. Broadly speaking, this policy centers around four areas of fundamental education reform, which will be discussed further below. Even though the main topic is centered on education, this policy clearly has many different axes. For this reason, we will mainly focus on higher education. This includes the following goals: helping middle-class families afford college, keeping the cost of college low, strengthening community colleges, and increasing public participation in government (House Blanche, nd). Most attention will be given to individual initiatives aimed at making college more affordable and keeping college costs low. Policies can be very helpful when it comes to providing assistance to others. The social work profession strives to enable all types of individuals, groups and communities to function, contribute and progress in society (The West Scotland Consortium, 2000). In particular, Obama's Race to the Top initiative helps social workers help students achieve their higher education goals. This means making the act of attending college a more achievable dream for those who wish to do so; with this policy's emphasis on higher education...... middle of paper......the United States. With the funding of this policy came the desire to prevent student loan interest rates, for students, from increasing further. This goal is in favor of students who are working or hoping to work toward an affordable degree. However, feedback from teachers across the country suggests that the goals of the policy itself are not actually translating into better test scores and are instead causing greater problems within schools. Once all of this is taken into account, one might conclude that the total effectiveness of Obama's Race to the Top reform is limited in its success in improving the American education system. Despite this, future policies should continue to be implemented in an active attempt to make necessary adjustments to problems centered in the American education system..