At 11:30 a.m. this morning, President Barack Obama walked out, the sleeves on his blue button-down shirt rolled up, to wall-to-wall applause from the audience in the Anschutz Sports Pavilion at the University of Kansas.

“Hello, Kansas!”

As he started his remarks, Obama talked about his deep roots in Kansas; his mother was from Wichita, his grandmother from Augusta and his grandfather came from El Dorado. He said “I’m a Kansas guy,” although pointing out that while head KU men’s basketball coach Bill Self has won 10-straight conference titles, he as a president has lost two straight in the state of Kansas. But, he said, “it’s good to be back.”

His speech was an expansion of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, when he talked about what he calls “middle-class economics.”

“How do we restore this link between hard work and being able to get ahead?” Obama said. “How do we make sure that everybody is doing (his or her) fair share, everybody has a fair shot and that everybody is playing by the fair rules? How do we make sure that everybody not only shares the success, but also is able to contribute to the success of America?”

The majority of the speech surrounded the belief of equality; men should not make more money than women, big corporations should not receive more tax breaks than the small, and childcare should not be just a woman’s issue anymore.

“I mean come on, it’s 2015,” Obama said. “It should be sort of a no-brainer.”

Nancy Schneider-Wilson, 54, waited more than four hours on Tuesday to secure tickets for herself and her friends. And on top of that, she started waiting in line today at 7:20 a.m., all to see a man she respects immensely.

“I respect that he’s looking out for the average person, not just the people at the top,” Schneider-Wilson said. “He remembers the middle people. He’s trying to not be influenced by the big corporations who are trying to run this country.”

Schneider-Wilson was also impressed with Obama’s newest project: free tuition to two-year colleges.

“People don’t have access to education like they should,” Schneider-Wilson said. “Once you get the first two years under your belt, then you could go for the next two, five, six years. It’s a great impetus to get people who thought they never could go, into school.”

Obama said the economy is creating jobs at the fastest rate since 1999. But he says the growth is not enough, and what’s important is giving everyone what they need to secure a job in the competitive economy.

“We’ve got to make sure that all people have the tools and support they need to take advantage of this growing economy,” Obama said. “It’s not good enough just to not screw it up. Let’s build on the momentum and move it even further .. that’s what we have to focus on.”

What this would require, according to Obama, would be giving families a sense of security. Affordable child care, college, health care and fair wages, all things that senior Jacob Mogle believes to also be no-brainers.

“I think what he talked about in Lawrence today wasn’t really controversial at all,” Mogle said. “Who would disagree that people of all genders would not deserve the same pay?”

He added, “The real challenge of what he had to say today was with how he would make it possible.”

Obama said the problems in America do not only reflect the blue or red states. And although he knows that, in politics, people will not always agree, he hopes that with the help of younger Americans, especially those in hiding in the red states, the future can be written in a more positive way.

“I still believe that we as Americans have more in common than not,” Obama said. “And I’ve seen too much of the good, generous, big-hearted optimism of the American people over these past six years to believe otherwise. I will never stop trying to make our politics work better. That’s what you deserve, and that’s what will move this country forward, and Kansas, we have some big things to do together.”