Free Community College?

Haymitch · Jan 9, 2015

Obama to propose free community college

WASHINGTON -- President Obama will propose two years of free community college for American workers Friday, part of what the White House says is an effort to make community college as universal as high school is today.

"Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for anybody who's willing to work for it," he said aboard Air Force One amid a three-state tour to preview his State of the Union Address. "It's something we can accomplish, and it's something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anyone in the world."

The program would require action from a Republican-dominated Congress. "With no details or information on the cost, this seems more like a talking point than a plan," said Cory Fritz, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The White House said details on the cost and funding would come in the State of the Union Address on Jan. 20 and the president's budget request Feb. 2. But the White House expects 9 million students to participate and save up to $3,800 a year for two years. That would place the cost at nearly $70 billion, though there are questions about building capacity at the nation's 1,100 community colleges.

The federal government would pay three quarters of the cost, at least initially.

In some ways, the community college plan is a bookend to Obama's 2013 proposal to pay for universal pre-Kindergarten through a state and federal partnership. That $75 billion proposal, which relied on dwindling tobacco tax money to provide federal matching funds, never got traction in Congress.

Obama, joined by Vice President Biden, will announce the plan at Pellissippi Community College in Knoxville, Tenn. Obama's plan is modeled after the Tennessee Promise -- a state-level free-college plan starting this fall, paid for with Tennessee Lottery proceeds.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/08/obama-free-community-college/21466969/
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Today, on a visit to Tennessee, President Obama will announce a proposal to make two years at public community college “free for anyone who’s willing to work for it.”

The video doesn’t say anything else, but the website has a tiny bit more detail:

The feds would pony up three-quarters of the “average cost” of community college;

Students would be expected to enroll at least half-time, maintain a 2.5 GPA, and make steady progress toward completing a degree in three years;

Community colleges would have to offer academic programs that fully transfer to four-year colleges or occupational programs in high demand fields with high completion rates. They’d also have to implement “promising evidence-based institutional reforms” to improve (whatever that means).

[Below are Forbes' Four Reasons to be Skeptical]

1. Will “Free tuition” automatically improve community colleges’ often dismal rates of student success? Federal data show that at two-year colleges, 31 percent of first-time, full-time students graduate within three years. The implicit assumption of free-tuition plans is that the main reason students don’t finish community college is the cost of tuition. Not, say, the fact that somewhere around 50-60 percent of community college students are not college-ready, or that many community colleges are not designed with student success in mind.

Color me skeptical that a federally-funded free option will solve all of these problems. To be clear: research shows that tuition prices and grant aid do influence enrollment rates, and we’re learning more about how they influence student success.

But the notion that making college free will mechanically improve student outcomes is naïve. Take community colleges in California, where students pay the lowest published tuition in the nation ($1,429 this year). Attendance is essentially free to many students who qualify for Pell Grants. In a 2012 analysis, I found that retention and completion rates across California’s community colleges were above the national average. But completion rates were even higher at two-year colleges in Wisconsin and North Dakota, where tuition is two to three times as high and Pell Grant recipients make up a larger percentage of enrollments than in California.

A free option would almost certainly boost enrollment rates. But these cross-state outcomes do suggest that pushing tuition to zero may not be a silver-bullet solution to lackluster student success.

2. Will direct federal funding compel community colleges to improve? Free college proponents have argued that since the feds are kicking in money directly, they’ll have more power to push community colleges to get better. This seems to be the thought process behind the requirement that colleges adopt “promising evidence-based institutional reforms” (which sounds an awful lot like Race to the Top).

The assumption here is that the feds will be able to drive community college improvement if they hold the purse strings. Again, I’m skeptical. To be sure, policymakers could conceivably control tuition prices through funding formulas and fiat. But they will have a much more difficult time ensuring that institutions provide a quality education at the price they charge. The federal Title 1 program in K-12 has struggled to improve underperforming public schools, even with the expansive accountability provisions of No Child Left Behind.

Will federal bureaucrats have an easier time raising student achievement in community colleges?

3. “Free tuition” won’t change how much it costs to deliver higher education, which will continue to increase. A public option would change who pays for higher education, but not necessarily how much it costs to provide it. Economists argue that traditional higher education is like other service industries: because the product consists of interaction with highly educated labor in small groups, it is difficult to raise productivity. As wages rise in the rest of the economy, colleges must pay employees more even though their output doesn’t increase, leading to higher costs.

Simply shifting who pays the bill will do little to change the bill itself. So while additional federal investments might cover the cost of a free public option today, those same sums won’t go as far next year or the year after unless colleges also make changes to their cost structure. Taxpayers would have to foot an increasingly large bill.

4. A public monopoly could crowd out promising innovations from the private sector.

If the plan is limited to public community colleges, it will move us toward a public monopoly like we have in K-12. After all, it’s hard to compete with free. This will crowd out the kinds of innovative models that have emerged from nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Western Governor’s University, Southern New Hampshire, Excelsior College, and others—all private—are perfecting competency-based models that allow students to earn credit for what they know, not how long they sit in class. For-profit online course providers like StraighterLine and Udacity allow students anywhere to take college-level classes for little or no cost.

If we are going to go in this direction, a better approach would be to allow private organizations to compete as well. If a private college or course provider can provide an effective, tuition-free education for the 75 percent that the feds will kick in, why shouldn’t they have access to the program as well?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/akelly/...out-obamas-free-community-college-proposal/1/
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The proposal would undoubtedly face opposition from the new Republican-controlled Congress. Muñoz did not say how the President hoped to pass the legislation through Congress, adding the White House had yet to run it by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

In a statement, Cory Fritz, a spokesman for Speaker of the House John Boehner, said, “With no details or information on the cost, this seems more like a talking point than a plan.”

http://time.com/3660891/obama-proposes-free-community-college/
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Seems the plan is to base it off what Tennessee did:

Last year, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed into law a scholarship program that provides free community and technical college tuition for two years to the state's high school graduates. About 58,000 of the state's roughly 62,000 seniors have applied to participate this fall.

But Tennessee Republican Rep. Diane Black said her state's plan, called Tennessee Promise, is paid mostly with lottery funds, while the federal funding source for Obama's plan is unclear and states will have to help pick up the tab. "Ultimately, any efforts to reboot Tennessee Promise as a one-size-fits-all nationwide approach will be met with heavy skepticism from Congress," Black said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ollege-program-for-those-willing-to-work-for/
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So, what say you CF? Yea or nay?

DonnyMost · Jan 9, 2015

Where's the "all education should be free?" (provided you qualify academically) option?

Northside Storm · Jan 9, 2015

President Obama is taking leads from Quebec's CEGEP program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEGEP

CEGEP (/seɪˈʒɛp/ say-zhep or /ˈsiːdʒɛp/ see-jep; French: Cégep; also CÉGEP, Cegep or Cégep) is a publicly funded pre‑university college in the province of Québec's education system. Originally a French acronym for Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel, known officially in English as a "General and Vocational College", it is now considered a word in itself.[1] [2] It refers to the public post-secondary education collegiate institutions exclusive to the education system in the province of Quebec in Canada. It is a loanword from French.

Although all colleges in Quebec are colloquially referred to as CEGEPs, only public colleges are officially referred to by that name. Both public (CEGEPs) and private colleges have the same function in Quebec.[3] Although they may occasionally be compared to junior colleges or community colleges, CEGEPs differ in that a Diploma of College Studies[2] (or Diplôme d'études collégiales, DEC) is required for university admission in Quebec unless a student enters as a mature student which typically means a minimum age of 21 with other requirements. Pre-university programs are typically two years in duration, which explains why secondary school and undergraduate degrees are both one year shorter in Quebec relative to elsewhere in Canada. A student in Quebec cannot enter university with a secondary diploma from Quebec alone.
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tallanvor · Jan 9, 2015

Its not free. tax payer pays.

Haymitch · Jan 9, 2015

tallanvor said: ↑

Its not free. tax payer pays.
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But "we owe it to ourselves"!

DonnyMost · Jan 9, 2015

tallanvor said: ↑

Its not free. tax payer pays.
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It's pretty damned obvious that "free" is meant to explain the cost incurred by the student.

We should all be willing to freely educate our society. There is no greater ROI (rivaled only by medical/family care).

tallanvor · Jan 9, 2015

DonnyMost said: ↑

It's pretty damned obvious that "free" is meant to explain the cost incurred by the student.
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And i am reminding others of the major downside of such a plan since none of the other posts did.

DonnyMost said: ↑

We should all be willing to freely educate our society. There is no greater ROI (rivaled only by medical/family care).
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What if I want to go to school for 25 years? You wanna pay for that?

DonnyMost · Jan 9, 2015

tallanvor said: ↑

What if I want to go to school for 25 years? You wanna pay for that?
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Depending on the field and your qualifications, absolutely.

tallanvor · Jan 9, 2015

DonnyMost said: ↑

Depending on the field and your qualifications, absolutely.
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give me your address and I'll send you the bill for 25 yrs of study of homeopathic medicine and women studies.

DonnyMost · Jan 9, 2015

tallanvor said: ↑

give me your address and I'll send you the bill for 25 yrs of study of homeopathic medicine and women studies.
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Dear Applicant:

We regret to inform you that your field of study is not eligible for the DonnyMost grant.

In addition, based on your posting history, you are extraordinarily unqualified academically.

We here at the DonnyMost Foundation for Educational Advancement appreciate your time in applying and wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Regarts,

Northside Storm · Jan 9, 2015

tallanvor said: ↑

give me your address and I'll send you the bill for 25 yrs of study of homeopathic medicine and women studies.
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I'd rather give you the bill of $20 trillion I racked up f**king the markets with HFT front-running.

Northside Storm · Jan 9, 2015

the downside to the plan: it costs money.

well, ****, let's just not do anything ever anymore.

DonnyMost · Jan 9, 2015

Let's make education hard to obtain and impossible to afford!

What could go wrong??

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_4FgN_8IvKE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

cwebbster · Jan 9, 2015

DeVry?

Summer Song Giver · Jan 9, 2015

DonnyMost said: ↑

There is no greater ROI (rivaled only by medical/family care).
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ROI on a 2 year CC education.... ha.

JuanValdez · Jan 9, 2015

Not too crazy about it. Subsidies distort the market, create perverse incentives, and protect inefficiencies. I do believe in a strong public education system, but I think we should be focusing our efforts on the young. Community colleges are getting too many people who didn't get enough attention in kindergarten. That's too late to solve the problem.

For community colleges, I'd rather see the government partner with industry to create a system in which people could be trained to have the skills needed by the patron industries.

DonnyMost · Jan 9, 2015

Summer Song Giver said: ↑

ROI on a 2 year CC education.... ha.
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ROI for the country. Dollars spent vs. dollars returned to our economy.

Education is almost always a worthy investment, even if it's something meager like 2 years in a CC.

SamFisher · Jan 9, 2015

it's already heavily subsidized anyway, sounds good.

TheRealist137 · Jan 9, 2015

tallanvor said: ↑

And i am reminding others of the major downside of such a plan since none of the other posts did.

What if I want to go to school for 25 years? You wanna pay for that?
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If you read the freaking post it says that you have minimum GPA requirements, and you must make steady progress to complete the degree in 3 years. If it takes 25 years for you to take community college, that means you're taking like 1 class a year, there is no difference in cost compared to you trying to graduate in 2 years by taking 12 classes/year

Maybe if you got free Community College, you would have learned to read and think before commenting.

AXG · Jan 9, 2015

Law school should be free. I have some friends that are over $300K in debt. "Luckily" for me, I'll only be about half of that.

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