It was with open arms that we welcomed President Barack Obama to upstate New York on Monday. Unfortunately, Obama’s powerful message to our region got lost in the absurd political melodrama that has played out in Albany in recent months.

Rather than focus on the substantive things Obama said, news coverage of Obama’s visit has fixated on his “awkward” interaction with Gov. David Paterson. Obama was not in New York to rehash what he said about Paterson a few days ago, when the White House urged Paterson to end his gubernatorial pursuit. Instead, Obama visited a community college in Troy, N.Y. to emphasize the importance of higher education and research in the effort to rebuild New York’s economy.

With a focus on the fiscal crisis in upstate New York, Obama honed in on the real problems facing those living in the area. Obama explained how support for education and revitalized infrastructure — with the support of over $100 million in stimulus funds — would help rebuild the local economy.

“While all of America has been gripped by the current economic crisis,” Obama said, “folks in Troy and Upstate New York have been dealing with what amounts to a permanent recession for years: an economic downturn that’s driven more and more young people from their homes.”

Obama touched on issues that have plagued upstate since well before the national economy took a turn for the worse, echoing concerns once expressed by Former Governor Eliot Spitzer who pledged to inject $1 billion into the area. For example, the upstate “brain drain” — or the inability to keep young, educated individuals in the area — is a very real problem, and one that has afflicted the New York State economy for years.

On a more national level, Obama hit the nail on its head when he accentuated the importance of education in America’s economic recovery. Promising that by 2020 America will have the highest percentage of college graduates in the world, Obama committed to eliminating an “unwarranted subsidy” that the big banks currently receive for providing student loans. We stand by Obama’s pledge to end this subsidy and use this money to increase funding for Pell Grants, thus making higher education more affordable.

Education needs to be the crux of economic reform in New York and the rest of the country. The State University of New York is “the nation’s largest and most comprehensive state university system,” according to SUNY’s Web site. Paterson cannot continue to let the SUNY system fall victim to budget cuts, for there are myriad opportunities for economic growth rooted in the higher education sector of the state.

We thank President Obama for revisiting the issues that must be addressed at this critical time for both the state and the country. We cannot allow political strife — like the stalemate we bore witness to this summer, and the current feud being played out between Obama and Paterson — to continue to deflect attention away from problems like economic recovery in the state.