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Obama Proposes 2 Years of Free Community College
An anonymous reader writes with news about a White House proposal that would provide 2 years of free community college for good students."President Barack Obama announced a proposal Thursday to provide two years of free community college tuition to American students who maintain good grades. 'Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everyone who's willing to work for it,' Obama said in a video filmed Wednesday aboard Air Force One and posted to Facebook. He made the announcement as part of his pre-State of the Union tour and will formally lay out the proposal Friday in a speech in Tennessee. The White House estimated it would save the average community college student $3,800 annually and said it could benefit nine million if fully realized."
As in somebody else pays for it...
But still, it might be ok if the covered courses are useful, and not just "community organizer" type courses. That is to say, something that will train for a marketable skill.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Yeah, right. Someone has to pay for teachers, buildings, and other school infrastructure.
Correct. Society must remove the middleman "money" as a barrier to entry, and instead ask only for performance. First with education, but in the end with everything. The best work, after all, is done by people achieving for its own sake - choosing anyone else is a compromise, and with over 7 billion people in the world, we can afford not to compromise.
1) Open community college
2) Advertise that you can come for free with gubmint money
3) Give GREAT grades
4) Profit
These things really write themselves.
If he really wanted to do it, he'd do it, and let the Republican Congress be the bad guys by stopping it.
then no one will. Or rather, the 2 year degree will be worth nothing.
This is just covering the complete failure of the highschool system, and an attempt to buy votes.
We need fewer people in college not more. In many places by 16 you have the 'trade school' kids and the 'college kids'. Hint: craftsmen aren't just guys with a Home Depot credit card, it's hard work and takes time.
Though a cheaper thing might be to fund AP testing to start. Those who really apply themselves in high school can generally test out of the content that comprises the first year of a typical curriculum anyway.
Would be good for the cultural norm to focus on a more affordable strategy for course materials that really aren't going to be that different between best and worst universities, while leaving the advanced portion to university if desired for improved quality through specialization.
Back of the envelope calculations are roughly $35b/year to sponsor something like this.
What's bad is that the Republicans will fight against it for being too expensive, yet will give $100b a year to fight in a middle-eastern war.
The Democrats will fight against it for being anti-competitive to 4-year universities and get their campaigns funded by the for-profit college industry.
But in reality it ain't that bad. It helps to solve the student loan problem by having the first 2 years paid for, essentially halving the cost of a 4-year degree. Plus it could help churn out more trades professionals (HVAC, plumbers, welders, etc.)
In my state they made preschool "free". Within the year the tuition costs tripled from previous levels that were flat the previous 5 years. Every time the government offers something for free it's cost becomes unbearable.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I'm going to steer away from the point about politicians tossing around the word "free" without really understanding what it means and go a different route instead.
What does "good student" mean? Because under the current state of things, the remedial student making all A's is held in higher esteem than the B student taking all AP level courses. So basically, you'll be encouraging people to get less education to get this "free" "higher" education.
Setting aside the ridiculously low barrier that he established with a 2.5 GPA, what should happen to the majority of CC students that never graduate or go on to a 4 year college and graduate? If you can't complete a community college education, you're probably not someone worth investing in. Sure, there are people who get too caught up in responsibilities like work and children, but I doubt that honestly reprioritizing other responsibilities is the main reason I've seen graduation rates in the high 30s and low 40s at various times for community college.
Now it will be four years for associates, and six for bachelors.
If this programs saves its average participant potentially $3,800 annually it seems to do so by having someone else pick up the tab. And Community Colleges like most Colleges in this country are a joke. Just like most High Schools are.
The average College Freshmen in this country reads at a Seventh Grade Level. And now we are going to lower standards even more at Community Colleges so that EVERYONE can at least get a C+ and these schools get more taxpayer money shoveled into them. Let's lower standards even more and have the working class get raped for more money.
That's two years out of the workforce, two years of not paying into retirement, and no benefit, since those students will simply be competing against each other for the same jobs anyway.
And why is he doing it? Not because it helps students, but because it appears to lower youth unemployment and reduces the need for corporations to train people themselves slightly.
It's a gigantic ripoff, both of students and tax payers.
I went to community college and ended up floundering there for 6 years before transferring because classes we only like $100. You could take classes like 2-3 times and replace your grade. Since the books were more expensive than the classes I always ended up slacking out at the end of the semester and figured I just take the class again rather than buckling down. Now that I have transferred and classes are much more costly I study and pass them all.
We don't need a 13th and 14th grade to fail to teach students what K-12 failed to teach them. Because that's what this would end up being; not a start on post-secondary education, but an extension of high school.
As usual, it's poor people providing subsidies for the rich.
Rich people pay more in taxes... If not, maybe you should address that... But let it be a separate issue.
I'm constantly surprised at how Americans manage to see the bad in every government service provided. In most other modern countries services such as this is what enables poor people to climb. It's the thing that reduces negative social heritage (you have a lot of that in the US)..
Note, just because a government makes it easier to climb out of poverty does not make it trivial. I've never been poor, but because tuition and living expenses was covered for me during university, doesn't mean I didn't have to work hard to earn a degree.
Since when does stopping a retarding fucking idea make someone a bad guy?
Sounds like Barry is getting desperate.
if they work for free, then they can't buy the federally mandated health insurance. then they can't pay the associated fine. then they can't make bail, then they rot in jail.
yay! free college!
I actually tried to RTFA, but the page wont scroll down. Some horrible web design right there.
Yet another entitlement program... We value things we pay for, and trash those things we don't. It is basic human nature. How about 2 years of educational stipends in exchange for 2 years of service in the Peace Corps, military, National Parks, CCC, or any number of programs that would benefit the public? There is a reason why the Republicans did well in the last election. Taxpayers are getting tired of paying for handouts to the increasing number of people who feel they are entitled to them. Look at the explosion in the percentage of American adults on disability--a 500% relative increase over the past 40 years. I hope this proposal goes down in flames.
That's the only definition of "free" that exists. Even the sunlight isn't "free" by your useless definition. How many innocent Hydrogen atoms died to light your day?
If you look down in the corner of the horizon you'll sometimes see a little note with the text: "Your daylight is brought to you by God Inc." :)
The federal school loan program is turning out to be wildly profitable new tax program for the federal government. The loans are exempt from bankruptcy and are typically $40+k per student.
It's incredibly affordable with the amount of federal, state, and county money already subsidizing community colleges to pick up the last 5-10%. This is more likely a program to entice mediocrity into buying into federal school loans for universities after 2 years at the community college level. The GPA requirement is clearly a troll move unless we're going to get honest as a country and start making the 2.5-3 range GPA kids take trades classes at the community college.
Even worse, by making the 2 years free, many students will be skating by on a lot of electives and "fun" classes which will keep them in the perpetual life student mindset. This is the same error that came with making parents responsible for their children's health insurance until they are 25.
Lastly, this is finally saying that the K-12 system is broken and we're not going to fix it. What better way to say that a HS diploma is worthless than making an Associate's degree a freebie.
If you want to incentivize hard work, pay for the last year at a university for students who finish "on time" in 4-4.5 years.
Community college tuition will increase by as possible to get government money AND money from students.
In other words, the community college tuition bubble will start inflating in 3, 2, 1.....
on my student loans from a community college, can I get some $$$ to help me pay it off?
$3,800 x 9 million students x 2 years = $68.4 billion dollars. Perhaps not a lot when you consider the full federal budget, but it's more than we spent on the entire Department of Education last year. The real numbers that matter are 54% and 57%, the Republican portion of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
It's easy to propose things that you know will never make it through the Republican Congress.
He's just looking for bonus points from young voters; there'll be no effort to implement this.
"2 years of free community college for to good students." -- Derek Zoolander
As an aside, with so many states trying to deal with failing high schools (and the horribly ill-prepared young adults they are producing), now we want to pump these kids through "college". Yeah. Right. Between 'Idiocracy' and the "first wave" spaceship of over-credentialed "professionals" written about in H2G2, you'd think we, as a culture, would see what is going on here. But nope. So I'm sure this will happen and be billed as a resounding success, regardless of actual reality!
K-12, my ass. K-14! It's better.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
I'd appreciate it more if he proposed actually doing the things he promised doing once he became president. You know, things like not expanding government overreach.
Just what I needed back when I was a kid. 2 more years of high school with the potential that afterwards I'll have a sizeable debt coming out of it if I screw off those years like I did when I was a junior and senior.
It would be far more effective to train people in basic programming skills and back office operations and bring the jobs back from India, Ireland, Israel and Indonesia. Costs there have gone above the US minimum wages, when you factor in all the costs of offshoring.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
We already have droves of graduates who can't find jobs because they paid for a degree with little useful application; now we'll have droves of graduates who can't find jobs because the taxpayer bought them a degree with little useful application. Why not, instead, train a generation to build things and to fix things by expanding the trade schools?
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
I'd like to see this as an alternative to the last two years of high school. Students would graduate with a HS diploma and an associate's degree.
What's bad is that the Republicans will fight against it for being too expensive, yet will give $100b a year to fight in a middle-eastern war.
Obama was the one who went to Lybia, and almost Syria, against Republican objections.
Obama was the one that kept troops in Afghanstan until recently, while electing to withdraw a few bases of troops from Iraq only to have to send them back in to prevent the complete collapse of the country to ISIS.
Obama also loves the drone strikes and targeting military assassination...
What was that complaint about Republicans again? It seems awfully partisan and misdirected.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dear Republican Friends,
Don't worry about Obama's community college announcement, it's a great idea.
I mean, clearly the education market is far too competitive as is. With average annual tuition rates of $2,700, who can afford to go to community college I ask you.
Clearly, if we remove all competition in the market, that price can only go down, right?
And I shouldn't need to remind you that the teachers unions have clearly shown themselves amenable to keeping education affordable. Putting all power in their hands is a sure-fire play for better education.
Look at the public school teachers of Pennsylvania! They're absolute saints, taking in a pathetic $62,000 dollars average per annum, after being short-changed with only a 23% raise in income in the last 10 years. Granted, that was with a Republican governor, so they may have gotten a fair 38% with a Democratic governor, but I think the point stands. They never use their union clout in a way that hurts our students.
And just look at what they did with public middle and high schools! The taxpayers of Washington, DC, for example, are paying a measly $29,000 per pupil, and we all know the high quality of the DC public schools! This is clearly a place where government regulation is needed.
No, don't get upset my friends.
Obama is just looking out for the little guys on this one. This has, I assure you, nothing to do with Obama trying to claim back support from the teachers unions after they started attacking him, quite rightly I must add, for instantiating our evil (Republican) decade-long request that poor schools be given the tools to fire incompetent teachers.
Don't fret, big government loves you.
Good luck, and good night, hodwik
Pres. Obama is not going far enough. The U.S., like some other developed countries, should provide free college tuition.
Student loans are dragging down the economy because these people do not have the money to spend. Too much is sucked up paying off the student loans. I would also like to see all student loan debt forgiven.
Yes, I know it is not free. I would finance it through progressive income taxes. I think all government should be financed though progressive income taxes and would like to see regressive taxes such as sales taxes eliminated.
That a GPA lower than 2.5 is impossible to achieve... everyones a winner! Well except the students and taxpayers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Scrap a bloated super jet program that isn't going to win us any war we're fighting today, and you can pay for all people's tuitions and student loans over a couple years.
And instead of bailing out banks, we could have paid off 70-90% of the mortgages directly.
God spoke to me
...public high school is free to the students, and the first two years of college these days are what 11th and 12th grades in high school were a couple of decades ago. This is just continuing to provide approximately the same final level of subsidized education to students, it's just a lot more inefficient now.
> a 2-year degree from a community college does not knock off anywhere near 2 years from a 4-year bachelor's degree.
You may be thinking of jacking around taking two years of random classes, as opposed to getting an associate's degree. Or getting a two-year degree in liberal arts and trying to apply it to a four-year degree in the hard sciences. Most community colleges have matriculation agreements with nearby universities. These agreements GUARANTEE that those two years transfer.
Of course you want to look at the agreement before you select your program - a two-year degree in Art will probably transfer to a four-year degree in Art. If you switch to Physics at the university, that's when only one year of general education classes might transfer. If you pay attention to what you're doing, though, you can have guaranteed that all of your credits transfer. You just have to select one of the two-year programs that applies to your four-year degree plans.
If you don't know what you want to do for your four-year, you can choose "general education" for your two-year, which means taking all the common requirements, a bit of math, a bit of science, a bit of history, etc. Those will apply to most any four-year degree. It means you can't take American History 101-401, though; because most 4-year degrees only include two history classes, not four.
The important part is use this as part of YOUR plan for YOUR education. Like you did.
Community Colleges are great for taking care of the 100 level pre-requisites prior to University.
Community Colleges are great at expanding your knowledge WITHOUT going for a degree.
Community Colleges are great for bringing up your Grade Point Average (GPA) if you had problems in High School but still want to pursue an advanced education.
Etc.
This program should NOT be the FINAL step in your education.
As long as the feds stay out of regulating Community Colleges, which I know they can't and wouldn't spend a microsecond thinking about not, I would agree.
They would then ruin the best, and last, relatively cheap form of college education. And one that really does it well overall as well as per dollar paid and spent.
tom
I hate sigs, and refuse to have one.
And a fucking chicken in every pot.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You are correct right up until the end.
"Now student loans stay with you until you die, no matter what. And now we have people paying their loans off for their whole lives."
Income based repayment limits the amount of time you spend paying back your student loan to 20 years; 10 years if you serve a government entity, for example being a teacher or a police detective.
Further Income based repayment limits the amount of money you have to pay back. New borrowers are limited to 10% of what they make over 150% of the poverty level.
Given the opportunities any degree can offer, particularly engineering, accounting, and nursing, it seems ridiculous to rail against school or the student loans that allow people to afford school.
... even consider what to give away "free" next?
Reminds me of Dangerfield's classic line: "Hey everyone--we're all gonna get laid!"
Community colleges are great, but a lot of people fall into traps that sound like what you are describing. In >>99% of all cases, a 2-year degree from a community college does not knock off anywhere near 2 years from a 4-year bachelor's degree
Lemme chime in with my own experience ...
When I landed on the soil of the United States of America back in the 1970's - yes, I know, it was a long long time ago, but anyway, this is what I had gone through
I spoke no English, I was essentially penniless - unlike those big time defectors, small fly refugees like me never get any financial help from uncle sam. We were already very grateful to be granted asylum and never hope to gain any financial gain in the first place
But anyway, as a penniless refugee who spoke no English my first jobs were in Chinatown. From washing dishes to kitchen helper to chef to waiter, I learned everything, step to step. Meanwhile I saved like crazy (working in a Chinese restaurant we got to eat free and live in very cramped worker quarter free of charge) and I tried my best to learn English any way I could
My first 'investment' in America was the first course I took in community college. It was not actually 'hard', but due to the language difficulties, it took me a while to suit myself in the new and totally different learning environment
First course begat more courses, and I learned of the 'pre-requisite' courses to take that I could transfer to higher learning institutions
So I took all the 'pre-requisite' courses. Of course I already know what I was going to study if I go to real 4-year college, I took all the required math courses, all the basic logic courses, and all the other courses that I could transfer
By the time I enrolled myself in a 4-year college most of the courses I took back in the community college were transferred. Of those courses that they (4-year college) didn't recognize, I took tests to show them that I indeed am knowledgeable enough to be exempted with such-and-such courses
One plus side for me is that most of the math courses that I took in both the community colleges and also in the 4-year college were already 'old stuffs' for me. Back in China we had much *MUCH* tougher math training, when we were in our secondary school (equivalent to 'high school' in the States)
I did the same thing for other degree that I took, including MBA. I took all the pre-requisite courses, such as business laws, economics, accounting, management, marketing, and then transferred them when I finally enrolled into the MBA program
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
hawks are the republicans. the dems are the hollywood darlings.
No, the Dems assassinate terrorists and then have movies made to show how awesome they are. That is the new Democratic party.
And again, Libya (now floundering) was ALL Democrats/Obama action. Syria almost was too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Great, more shit I get to pay for that helps somebody else, while I got jack squat for help while going through school... Thanks Obama!
So do I get my $50,000 back for my 2 year education? Thought not.
If you paid $50k for 2 years of community college, then I suspect you failed the math course, so no....you don't get it free.
It is not the socialists making college more expensive. It is the people who profit off the higher exploitation system. Start with the privitized textbook companies and add in the loan financiers, then throw in the stadium construction companies and you might get the blame in the right direction.
But that's capitalism for you.
Perhaps our education-overlords are worried too many Americans will learn to speak German and head over to Deutschland so they can get a quality education without going into life crushing debt :|
Nachrichten für Nerds Deutsch
If a student could get just a certificate in a particular skill, without having to take lots of general education classes, the cost and time of getting his/her education would be less.
I got two BS degrees. Later, I took lots of classes from Univ. of California, Santa Cruz Extension (UCSC). Besides lots of C and Unix classes, I took enough other UCSC extension classes to get certificates in Java and in C++.
We need to know the basics of geography, history, current events and civics, in order to be well-informed voters. And knowing the fine arts can enrich our lives. But if we're trying to get a job, we should have the option of getting a certificate, and taking some sort of standardized test to prove that we have basic reading, writing and math skills, without having to take PE and history.
don't go to community college. Didn't Obama watch even one episode of Community?
Government subsidies just jack up the price for everyone. It benefits the poor, harms the middle class, has minimal impact on the wealthy.
Education is an investment in the economy, not a 4-year paid vacation.
Of course, investment is not a guarantee of benefit or cost-effectiveness.
The US has assets that far outmatch its debts. That is how.
Just because countries don't file with the stock market regulators doesn't mean they have nothing.
Sure, it is hard to liquidate an aircraft carrier, but look at what else the country has in its pocket.
Stop believing the country is bankrupt. That is just shortsightedness at work.
Then the 1st program ran out of money & they instituted "fees".
It could be argued that the debt is so high because they didnt do this first.
A lot of issues in the US are not the result of spending too much. Its that they spend at the wrong place. If you end up with millions over millions of uneducated people, you then need safety nets and programs to pick them up, as well as spending millions in law enforcement and all that garbage when crime rate goes up.
Its one of those things where if you don't put the money there, it costs you way more later.
You may be thinking of jacking around taking two years of random classes, as opposed to getting an associate's degree. Or getting a two-year degree in liberal arts and trying to apply it to a four-year degree in the hard sciences. Most community colleges have matriculation agreements with nearby universities. These agreements GUARANTEE that those two years transfer.
Yes, they guarentee that those credits transfer... to general education courses for the most part. Which is fine for most liberal art degrees and some degrees that can be completed with only 2 years of credits, but those wanting to do STEM stuff are going to get the short end of the stick.
The problem is many STEM programs these days have required courses that are spread in such a way that they cannot be completed in less than 3 years. Sometimes 4. It is not that there are 3 full years worth of credits that need to be taken, but that courses have prerequisites and build off each other. Hell, when I started university after getting out of the military, I was already behind for the Electrical Engineering program because I could not take Calculus 1 in semester 1 of year 1. I was able to catch back up to making it in 4 years, but there was very little wiggle room with the ordering in which I could do courses in the Electrical Engineering program at the 4-year university I went to. There was even a grid/chart of courses that needed to be taken each semester in order to graduate on time, and each semester was full with both required courses for the program itself as well as the suggested courses for fulfilling the general education and university-required electives in tandem. Removing those general education and university-required electives, such as from having an associates from a community college, might shave a semester or two off at best (after reordering for the pre-requisites of the first 2 years on the chart).
There is also the issue that many times credits that some 2-year colleges say that will transfer to equivalent 4-year university courses do not. You will need to talk to the 4-year university (not the 2-year college) to see which 2-year college courses apply to what before you take them if you do not want to waste your time. 4-year universities seem to have no problem with transferring general education and general electives crap, but get super-stingy with considering non-general stuff for transfers. Unless the 4-year university has course equivalences written somewhere, do not expect anything technical to transfer as anything more than just more general credits. So that means you already have to have a target 4-year university in mind before you even start the 2-year if you want anything STEM to transfer. And if you change your mind on the 4-year down the road, get ready to get screwed.
As long as you maintain a 3.5 GPA pel grants pay your junior college tuition in CA. I did it for 3 years (I liked college:)...
...food, TV's, recordings of his speeches, internet access, etc. In fact, everything that you need in your life will be free when your federal account administrator determines that you need something. The only thing you will not get is a paycheck. That goes to Obama.
Around here community collage is already nearly free. As long as you are a resident of the county and have at least a part time job the grants you get cover a lot of stuff.
Of course if republicans that get mommy and daddy to pay for expensive but useless private schools realized it is a way for poor adults that want to work into a better career, they would probably have the community colleges shut down.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Leave 4 year+ institutions how they are and make 2 year institutions focus on blue collar skills. Then we can rebuild the manufacturing base in this Country and be exporters of both our intellectual property and the high tech items made from that intellectual property.
It was not intended that the President lead government. It was intended that the President, like the military, be under civilian rule.
And, yes, I know this original intent of the Constitution has been violated by virtually every President.
Seastead this.
In fact, do you have a degree from ANY university in America? If so, then you were on the public dole. It is simply a matter of how much support you had. I 'put myself' through school back in 79-83. Of course, rent, tuition, fees, etc were well within the minimum wage amount. And after the first year of living in Colorado, I was given in-state tuition where 95% of the costs was paid by the state. IOW, that I 'put myself' through school was still subsidized.
So, get over yourself.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Instead of just academia, how about training for for welding, construction, etc. It is long past time to bring back manufacturing of all type.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A far cry from what you said
What did I say? Did you even read it? It doesn't contradict what you wrote in bold at all. Are you drunk today?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Because it was our education that was used to build up America. We need to bring that back. And that means not just an investment into Academia, but also into blue collar training.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Almost anything at community college is general education or applied trade skill. In community college you can get a lot of good degrees in medical technician things and such. Aside from that its all, math, English, etc. I doubt you can take a single class in being a community organizer at any community college in the US.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Often the education ends up paying for itself in the long run. For example, the GI bill after World War II ...
Most economists say that government funded adult education has an ROI of between 15-20% (as seen in tax recepts), those who consider it a taxpayer cost rather than a wise investment are ironically in dire need of an education.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
That completely depends on the state you live in.
If your 2-year college actually guarantees (that is, they explicitly state it as a guarantee or promise) that their program transfers 2 years of credits into such and such a program at such and such university, and you go and complete that program satisfactorily (that is, to whatever gpa requirements the college claimed would be required to fully transfer their credits to the university), and only then discover that the university will not give you the full two years of credits, you could probably have a proportional amount of your tuition refunded. Because, you know... the point of calling it a guarantee in the first place is so that you can get your money back if they can't live up to what they promise.
That said... you should still probably read the fine print of any such guarantee to be sure that the program you are intending to take actually transfers to the degree that they appear to claim.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
worked out so well!
Kindest regards,
Legal.Troll
>. You will need to talk to the 4-year university (not the 2-year college) to see which 2-year college courses apply to what before you take them
Yes. As an example, I live next to Texas A&M. Next to A&M is Blinn, a community college. They have very specific agreements that this two-year degree counts as two years toward this four-year. So IF you plan ahead, you have a guarantee. A large percentage of students follow that plan, both to save money and some students need a good GPA at Blink before they are qualified to be admitted at A&M. That's probably pretty typical of major flagship universities.
The Texas A&M System has six other universities, such as Prairie View. One flagship, six other state schools in the system. Which means MOST state universities aren't the big-name flagships. Prairie View and the others are a bit more lenient on transfer credits. Some accept any class that's ACE accredited - which includes some that aren't even taught by colleges. That class taught by the Forest Service may be ACE accredited and accepted by many non-flagship universities.
I recently went back to school after having run my own companies for twenty years, riding the internet revolution. I chose a university that is a state school in Texas and 18 other states, Western Governors University. It is designed largely for adult students with job experience, so they'll accept all sorts of things for transfer credit. For example, industry certifications; if you have one of Microsoft's or CompTIA's more advanced certifications, they accept that in place of a similar class.
So you don't HAVE to take another three and half years if you already did two. You CAN get your degree from a state university like Prairie View rather than Texas A&M, or you can even do WGU and get credit for that system you designed and built at work, if it proves you know the subject matter.
If you want to go to a major flagship school, the kind where most applicants don't get in, then you better plan ahead and be aware of the specifics of the matriculation agreement.
Source: I manage a campus where we offer ACE accredited courses and have matriculation agreements. We're part of the Texas A&M System, but we're not a university.
Follow the money.
Who benefits if we offer free 13-14th grade education to teens? Community colleges, who'll need to expand significantly, hiring more teachers, expanding schools, etc.
And ultimately? It means more jobs/$ for teachers....the one demographic that votes more consistently Democrat than even black Americans.
Yes, I'm sure this is all about making sure kids get an education.
-Styopa
I didn't say you "always" can. You're broken.
What's your problem, do you have giant loans and the earlier post gave you a brief glimmer of hope that you could get them discharged or something? If you took the money and spent it on a car and fun in college, it's so sad that you have to pay it back now.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Wow, the Democrats are suddenly pushing all sorts of populist proposals now that they're safely out of office and don't have to worry about actually implementing.
Funny how they couldn't have suggested any of these things a few weeks ago when they had a chance of actually passing.
college tuition is cheap, the big cost is the books for the courses.
An average of $3,800, times as many as 9,000,000 students, for two years, is 64.8 BILLION dollars. (And I guarantee that's a LOW estimate.) The average American makes $800,000 in income during the course of their lives. Let's call it a million, to make the numbers easy. The government taxes, on average, about 50% of the wealth that an American generates in their lives. So, for every million the govt spends, TWO citizens have to sacrifice their entire lives. 64.8 billion is the accumulated lifetime taxed earnings of 129,600 American citizens. The blood, sweat, tears, and overtime of almost 130,000 people. So, the next time you find lefties who like to pontificate about the money we're "investing"...remind them where the money actually comes from. (Hint: it's not from Obama's stash.)
Gee, money does grow on trees. Tax payers can afford to pay for lazy asses to never enter the work force by continuing education for a life time. Heck, just look at college professors. Need I say more?
And while we are at it, why not free cable? We already have free phones from Uncle Scam, who can't keep his hands out of your pants.
Or perhaps free condoms? Or even better a school to learn how to be a prostitute? Now that is education!!
it was our education that was used to build up America
Oh! It was education!
I was told it was the theft of a continent full of resources we then exploited with slaves.
Seems like the "what made 'murica" narrative is rather "adaptable."
We need to bring [our education] back
Maybe. But how does herding a bunch of low caliber slackers through a High School II pencil whipping operation contribute to this?
also into blue collar training
For what, exactly? Blue collar jerbs? You'll need to stop the container ships and reign in the EPA, OSHA, NLRB and bunch of other TLAs for those to emerge.
Good luck with that. Odds are good our next president will be a big government Walmart exec whose campaign is funded by China. Again.
I've always liked the idea of a more specific "traning" for high school students. We have enough smart jobs; it's time for some traning for dumb jobs. Kill all the robots and give the jobs to High Shool grads. Part A goes in slot A; Part B goes in Slot B. Heres your check for minimum wage. Now go drink some beer.
I don't know--it's community colleges, which should be relatively appealing to Republicans who like supporting hard workers. Republicans hate social welfare programs, but really like the *image* of the hardworking American. By sticking with community colleges rather than going for the elite schools, this may actually have some chance of getting Republican support.
I have to say, Americans are really strange.
Only in America would someone claim, with a perfectly straight face that attending a 4-6 year university is "elite". Are you really that brainwashed?
Do you people not understand the first rule of power? Limit education and knowledge. Keep the people ignorant. It seems they have done such a good job of it that folks actually thinks that uni is only for the elite.
I lived in Germany for several years. At the end of the day, what I pay for taxes is about the same as what I paid in the US. What do I get for my taxes in the US? I get to drive on shitty roads, my kids can go to high school, and there was the worlds largest army by a factor of 10.
In Germany, there is a small army but, my kids get a master or doctorate as they like, I have health care, I drive on great roads, and hell, I can even call the fire department to come a remove some bees in my garden.
It is really strange that all the Jesus people in the US have no moral problem with spending trillions on an Army, but rage about money spent to educate the population and therefore make the country richer and more able to compete against other nations.
I don't think "good grades" means what he thinks it means.
If you've got actual good grades, this program is unnecessary, because you're already getting a scholarship. If you aren't already getting an academic scholarship, then your grades aren't actually "good", they are some amount less than that.
I didn't see in any of the articles covering this story exactly what the president believes constitute "good grades", but I'd wager they're at about the level that might get you the switch, out behind the woodshed, in a number of Southern red states, should you come home with them on your report card.
I'm not opposed to the idea, but I really see this as no different than "another two years of high school so you can put off working and making a decision about your future for another two years", unless there's going to be a requirement that they pursue an associates degree of some kind. An associates degree will largely transfer towards a bachelors degree - and will completely transfer, if it's the right one, and the local 4 year college has a matriculation agreement with the community college for that field of study. Four years of dinking around, however, will get you at best 6 moths to a year of your general studies requirements out of the way.
Technically, you can pretty much come out of high school with high scores on 4 or 5 AP tests, and then CLEP for 3-12 credits per $80 exam for one of 5 subject areas covered by 33 tests, and pretty much have an associates degree the day you enter college, if you are willing to test out locally of a small additional number of additional general subjects.
It think that in this case, he's probably referring to "C+ and above students".
It might work well. Community college is pretty cheap, and can nearly double one's income early on. One BIG variable is that a lot of community colleges already have a high drop-out rate and that's among people who are motivated enough to pay for it. If it was free, many more people might start without being highly motivated to do the hard work to finish.
I'd like to see what happens with the one state that's already trying it before forcing it on the other 49 states. I say give that a year or two and see how it works so we know a) does it make any sense at all vs other uses for the money and b) HOW should it be done - what exactly went wrong and what went right in that state.
I suspect that with an objective, dispassionate analysis of just how the experiment went in that one state, we could come up with something that would work well nationwide. It might end up being very different from what the president has in mind, but still the same concept. Maybe certain programs are taxpayer funded - if the nation needs more nurses, subsidize nursing school, but don't subsidise the study of Victorian art or whatever. Let's have a look in a couple years and see what we can learn from the state that's doing it. Then, spend billions of your money in the way that seems to make the most sense based on actual results.
I'm a Republican.
Buy a cheap plane ticket an go to college in Italy, Germany, France or Luxembourg for 100$ a year or so.
But you have to believe in evolution and know that Earth is older than 6000 years for that.
^D
You know what would've been great in that article? An actual reference to a person that had done it. It was a reference to a story of a theoretical thing.
> a 2-year degree from a community college does not knock off anywhere near 2 years from a 4-year bachelor's degree.
You may be thinking of jacking around taking two years of random classes, as opposed to getting an associate's degree. Or getting a two-year degree in liberal arts and trying to apply it to a four-year degree in the hard sciences. Most community colleges have matriculation agreements with nearby universities. These agreements GUARANTEE that those two years transfer.
Of course you want to look at the agreement before you select your program - a two-year degree in Art will probably transfer to a four-year degree in Art. If you switch to Physics at the university, that's when only one year of general education classes might transfer. If you pay attention to what you're doing, though, you can have guaranteed that all of your credits transfer. You just have to select one of the two-year programs that applies to your four-year degree plans.
If you don't know what you want to do for your four-year, you can choose "general education" for your two-year, which means taking all the common requirements, a bit of math, a bit of science, a bit of history, etc. Those will apply to most any four-year degree. It means you can't take American History 101-401, though; because most 4-year degrees only include two history classes, not four.
I would need to chime in here.
I have 3 degrees and most of my credits do not transfer to other institutions I have applied at, however when that happens I approach the administration about testing out of all of the classes that did not transfer. I have done this successfully 8 times in a row so far. All you generally have to do is take the final from the class in question and ace it, then there is no question you have mastered the skills in the course. Even though the credits do not transfer you have demonstrated an unswerving mastery over the material and in that situation most universities just go ahead and award you credit for that course. It can be nerve wracking but it is certainly better than having to take the same classes over and over and waste all that money and time.
Unfortunately free education does not solve the real issues at hand:
1.) Lack of jobs, ones you can support a family on, across the spectrum. For tradesmen (and women), engineers, technicians, jobs for the liberal arts majors, even jobs for the people with only a high school education outside of the trades.
2.) The great predatory lending practices of student loans.
3.) The inability of parents to take a more direct role in their children's education. Earlier a posted mentioned how K-12 failed their students. Well the students should take more responsibility to apply themselves.
Having 2 years of 'free' (for the student) community college education is nice having, but the looming issue of jobs remains. While our electrical, water, and other infrastructure rusts away.
Scrap a bloated super jet program that isn't going to win us any war we're fighting today, and you can pay for all people's tuitions and student loans over a couple years.
The F-35 program is projected to cost ~$1tr over 55 years, or ~$20b/year, or ~$60/person/year. An extra $60 in each person's pocket per year isn't trivial, but it's certainly not enough to pay for their education.
And instead of bailing out banks, we could have paid off 70-90% of the mortgages directly.
Your first statement checked out false by a couple of orders of magnitude. I'm not even going to bother checking your second statement.
Is that why it costs the government less than $10,000 per child for primary and secondary school, but private primary and secondary schools cost more than $20,000 per year?
If the "market" solved the problem, private elementary and high schools should cost LESS than public schools, not more than double.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
... as in "free of charge at the point of access". Like the NHS in England. It's "free" in the sense that you pay for it through National Insurance, but don't get raped to death financially if something bad happens to you.
Nothing is ever truly free, but its a start -- and not too bad, if you see social charges as payments for services rendered, as opposed to a "tax".
Do a little research into a classical education. Classical as in what was taught in college 100+ years ago and it makes today's education look like remedial schooling. Not counting the advances in knowledge for the sciences; you would be speaking at least 4 languages. Had read a great deal of complex literature and philosophy. Even k12 education was vastly superior.
Frankly a modern education is horrid by comparison.
That may be wrong, but not as far off as you think. Given a flat distribution of 0-70 year olds (to make the math easier), and 4 years of free college, with 1/2 the 12 graders going to college, it's closer to $2100 per person per year, which just under 1/4 of the in-state college tuition average of $9400/yr.
As for the mortgages, there are 13.6T in mortgages. Bailing out the banks was only a couple trillion (all told), but since 2000, we've spent approximately 8.3T on defense alone (not including DHS, CIA, NSA, etc), or 61% of the value of all the mortgages in the US. We could have still been #1 in global military spending for those years and, with the bank bailout funds, paid off close to 70% of all US mortgages.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Congratulations everyone, a mysterious thing shows up in taxes next year titled "college tax" so for all those who want free college then get taxed another 10 percent for everyone else.
In all reality, I see this as being something bad in the long run because it will go into our taxes and we will get taxed more. It's better to have people to learn to wisely handle money and pay off college instead of letting the Govt get involved more.
This would in fact increase the number of college educated workers in the world who are making college graduate wages and are paying college graduate wage taxes?
Consider if you could increase the number of college graduates an assume that they'll make an average of $10,000 a year more than they would have otherwise. (some will do much better... some much worse). Now tax that at 15%. That's $1500 a year more for each of the 9 million people. It will take probably 6 years to recoup the initial investment the government made in those two years of school. Then, over a period of the next 50 years that person works for a living, They'll contribute an additional $75000 a person which should yield $675 billion tax revenue without accounting for inflation.
If we consider that the same people without subsidies would have a high likelihood of collecting benefits (food stamps etc...), that could be much closer to $3-$4 trillion in additional tax revenue over 50 years.
So... in what way would this be a stupid idea?
You want full employment? Outlaw computers. There'll be so many jobs we won't have enough people to fill them and you'll have an H1B program for computing exemption allowances every year.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Community college has long been free to the poor, it's called a federal Pell grant, and you not only get your tuition waived but you also get some money for books and materials. You can get one every decade or so, IIRC, I've had two and I actually got a degree the second time. Which brings me around to my central point: that degree has only one purpose, and it ain't employment. It's guaranteed matriculation. At least here in California, a student gets guaranteed entry to any CSU upon successfully completing community college. Of course, you still have to come up with the money for that.
So in short, this is not even a band-aid, this is some tape over a gaping wound. The best it can possibly do is forestall a horrible crisis for another couple of years. Of course, that's good enough for Obama's purposes...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...just shovel them off to "college" instead.
How long before remedial math is taught at the college level?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The government gives you money to go to school. You get a 3.0 and up, continue with free education until you get your associates degree. If you fail out the first semester the IRS should come down on you like Thor's hammer because you just wasted taxpayers money.
This is an admirable step, but there's a much better way to deal with the student debt issue, IMO. Deal with the existing debt and this will inject significantly more money into the economy.
Most of the higher education institutions today are only in it for the money and they're fleecing students and taxpayers. There is absolutely no reason for me to pay $800 to play paintball for a semester or weave baskets, as it will add nothing to my future career....it's purely a way to pay for some unneeded program or faux research.
The problem with a free lunch is that most of the people who get it today will come back to get it tomorrow. That's way bailing anyone out of any debt is foolishness, it reinforces the idea that you can get away with being careless to downright fraudulent.
I could agree to paying for post graduate work but I don't want to see the same kids who never had to lift a finger in the k-12 program just think of this as another excuse to not become a responsible citizen for a couple more years. Let the socialized payoffs come at the end, not the beginning.
Bush had a plan for a mandatory two-year enlistment plan that would then basically realize the same thing. I do think we should have mandatory military service but I realize not everyone is OK with this. So, I think we should also include other programs such as US Peace Corps. Otherwise, it's easy-come easy-go, and no one will fully appreciate the benefit.
All state schools should be free.
Paul E. Bahre
Here in Oklahoma, you can already get two years free at Community College. You still have to pay for books though. Part of our property tax pays the tuition. So, really it is not free, it is just everybody paying for it. However, I would say that it benefits the community.
Should the Federal government do it? No. They are too large and too distanced to be able to efficiently manage it. Costs would triple or quadruple. Instead, Obama should encourage the local communities to fund their local community colleges.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
These agreements do break down, I have seen it happen. In the case I witnessed the students just lost out and there was no recourse. Talk about pissed off students.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
You can often see it coming though. If it isn't a STEM program with government funding and the number of students seeking the degree is very low you can expect it to be killed. Just make sure there is a good solid student population seeking the program.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Got my MBA from WGU (and my employer even paid for it). Loved that it was entirely self-paced and was able to finish a semester early :) If WGU ever offers something equivalent to a MSCS I might pursue another degree there on my own dime (it's a non-profit school and cheap).
It should include 4 yr state colleges - classes only, not room and board. The states would have to pay a certain percentage of the cost. And should only be available to those states that make a financial commitment to it.
These articles use very selective statistics in order to make a point that goes along with the author's political leanings. The first article basically says students are paying the same amount each month because the terms of their loans are longer. The second article looks at households headed in an age range from 20 to 40? This adds in people who did not go to college or are 20 years out to drive down the average debt so the numbers fit the narrative. It doesn't give previous averages either. Why not compare have debt burden of new graduates from previous dates to debt burdens on current graduates.
Adjusted for inflation, average tuition costs have gone up %230 since 1981. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/d... Fill in whatever politics you want around the numbers, but at least be honest with the numbers you are using.
When a big part of your tax money goes to an awfull large and unnecessary military budget, there is no room for "free" education or healthcare. If you allow that, maybe, just maybe you deserve hight education costs and a ridiculous complicated health system
I know that a 2.5 GPA is a B, but it's a damn low B average. If I had a 2.5 GPA average in college my parents probably would have started to stop providing their support. Hell, I would have been embarrassed to have my entire average be that low, meaning I'm getting a good share of C's.
Add onto that the fact that this 2.5 GPA is expected at community college. A little research finds that in 2006 the Average College GPA was 3.11 (and a large number of results claiming grade inflation). Articles discuss that today's 3.11 is the 2.52 of the 1950s.
This tells me that paying for someone who gets a 2.5 GPA isn't paying the hard workers. It's paying the tuition of just about everyone but the bottom of the barrel. Not to mention the "easy" classes that will be no doubt be taken by many to help keep that GPA up lest you get hit by a big bill suddenly.
This strikes me as a great opportunity to drive people into STEM fields that need more people, or at least that we're told need more people. I don't necessarily like the idea of forcing people that aren't meant to do it there with free money, but just handing people cash to get any degree they want, as worthless as it might be for them or for society, doesn't seem like a good plan either.
This is a $34 Billion dollar per year proposal - where will the funding come from? I wonder if those who support this program would still support it if this 'free 2 year college' program replaced the Pell Grant program, completely eliminating all grants for students attending four year institutions? All this really does is extend high school by two years and delay the student's entry into the workforce by a similar period in many cases...
They currently offer:
M.S. Information Security and Assurance
M.S. Information Technology Management
MBA Information Technology Management (from the College of Business)
It creates unemployment and cheap labor.
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It's about time, other civilized countries such as Germany offer free college education. Our economy is much bigger than Germany but we prefer to spend all our money on make work projects in the military industrial complex. Less B2 bombers and more education to actually help people get ahead and eventually pay it back in the form of taxes they pay from having a decent job. Let's make it happen.
"free for everyone who's willing to work for it". Huh? If you're willing to work for it then it doesn't need to be "free". Besides, nothing is "free". Just some other poor bugger is paying it.
This is the second great idea I've heard from Obama. Now if all the pure capitalists in here would stop knocking it and realize that most other civilized countries around the world already have programs like this (or free college in general) then that would be great! It gives kids in HS something to shoot for, and is just a good idea in general.
> a 2-year degree from a community college does not knock off anywhere near 2 years from a 4-year bachelor's degree.
You may be thinking of jacking around taking two years of random classes, as opposed to getting an associate's degree.
Nope. It's difficult to even set up your schedule to have more than half transferrable classes in that period, let alone all. Notably, many of your degree requirements won't be transferable.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Rich aren't going to community college.
I'd rather have an educated society than not. Wouldn't you?
Yes, I would love to have an educated society. A society educated enough to pose the following argument:
I already paid for my college education. Now I have to pay for everybody else's?
I suppose I would look at it differently, if the govt plans on reimbursing me for my education, before I have to pay it into the system. Otherwise, I am being double-taxed.
according to a study published in 2011 by Jason Iuliano, at least 40 percent of borrowers who do include their student loans in their bankruptcy filing end up with some or all of their student debt discharged.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You know what would've been great in that article? An actual reference to a person that had done it.
Hey, you know what was in the article? An actual reference to a person who had done it. Glad you're following along.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If this passes, it will just make CC an extension of HS.
My grandfather came from Italy and never went to school at all. He was perfectly literate, in two languages. He was well read, knew math as well as most people, and played several musical instruments. He had a wide variety of skills like welding, auto mechanics, and construction. He ran several successful businesses, and did well financially even during the great depression. Maybe that was just a different time.
I see you're in California. California GUARANTEES full transfer of credits, and tere is guaranteed admission, for anyone completing the two-degrees at California community colleges. There are currently 24 majors that qualify, with more planned.
For full details see http://adegreewithaguarantee.c...
Suppose you don't choose any of the 24 majors with guaranteed full transfer of credits.
UC accepts may classes, including technical classes like a variety of computer science courses, from your local community college, Mendocino. Here's where you can find precise details:
http://web1.assist.org/web-ass...
For example, you can select "Computer Science" in the drop-down and see that UC gives credit for these computer science classes taught at Medocino:
CSC 201 Computers and Computer Aplications
CSC 210 Computer Organization and Architecture
CSC 220 Introduction to Computer Science
CSC 221 Programming and Algorithms I
CSC 222 Programming and Algorithms II
History classes from your local school, Medocino, accepted by UC include:
==== History ====
HST 200 History of Western
Civilization I
HST 201 History of Western
Civilization II
HST 202 United States History
to 1877
HST 203 United States History
Since 1865
HST 205 World History to 1500
HST 206 World History since
1500
HST 207 Mexican American
History
HST 208 Women in American History HST 220 Mexican History
HST 221 California History
HST 222 Native American History
HST 250 Contemporary America: The People and the Issues
I've never quite understood your habit of making blanket statements about topics you know nothing about, which you seem especially prone to do in response to someone who actually knows the subject at hand. I told you in my post I run an ecampus for the Texas A&M System where we deal with transfer of credits. Our department MAKES the atriculation agreements with the other schools. So why you'd pull something completely out of your butt, a complete and total guess, is bewildering. You aren't stupid - there are topics you know a lot about. Then there are topics where you're completely clueless - utterly and completely wrong. You'd look like a genius if you kept discussing the topics you have a clue about but just stopped making these declarations of "fact" on topics you are completely unfamiliar with.
field would most likely be paid for. Not sure about math, but physics, chemistry, engineering, and the like is usually paid for through tuition waivers and a stipend for teaching and research. I was paid 25-30K a year through grad school with free tuition.
Shouldn't that satisfy "everyone starting in at least roughly the same place"?
It'd be nice to see a lot of the people who would really *like* to go be able to go... again. "Again", because the GOP has been hacking at the Pell grants for decades. When I worked for a major city community college in the early eighties as a programmer, one of my jobs was the tape exchange with the feds, part of the grant process. Therefore, I knew from direct data that better than 80% of the students were there on Pell grants.
These days, from what I read, it's a fraction of that.
We keep hearing how education is the key to a better job... but the folks who don't have it can't afford it, because all they can get are part-time jobs flipping burgers and working in big box stores (while the owners of them, the Waltons, etc, are seeing increased billions of dollars for the few of them). More people with better jobs means a bigger economy... but the GOP and the billionaires paying them are running on two rules: 1, if you're not a billionaire, you're not working hard enough, and c) he who dies with the most money wins.
mark
I see you're in California. California GUARANTEES full transfer of credits,
I've talked personally to the counselors at the college I attended about this issue. It might be guaranteed, but if the class you need isn't offered when you need it, you're not getting it.
I've never quite understood your habit of making blanket statements about topics you know nothing about,
Right back at you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I didn't say you "always" can.
Sure, but your statement is a bit like saying that with a college education you can make $200k/yr. Sure, some people with college educations do make that much money, but is a vast minority who do so. I suspect there are more people do make that much in the first 10 years of their career with a bachelors degree than there are who manage to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy.
There are alternate payment and funding methods being explored -- but America is slow, slow, slow, slow to adapt to such things. It was discussed on NPR's Freakonomics, and there's a university that's actually trying it out -- if my Google-fu were strong today. The Obama story is saturating anything to do with free tuition atm.
Anyway, for those of you who didn't click on the link, upon graduation, the university takes a 5% cut of any money you make for the first 20 years of your working life. This creates a massive incentive for the university to place the student in the best-paying job possible -- because that means more money for the university. As such, the university is going to want the student to be as desirable to employers as possible -- which means the best training and education possible.
Personally, I'm really fond of this idea.
Nope. I'm not an IT guy, I'm a developer :)
At my workplace, college tuition can be paid for via a program of either forgiveness (for tuition paid by the company up front) or reimbursement (for tuition paid by the student up front and then reimbursed by the company). Forgiveness and reimbursement are only available based on getting reasonably good grades (B or better for both undergrad and grad work, IIRC).
I think both notions would make a ton of sense for this kind of government program. Other posters have wisely already observed that not all education is equal. Others again recommended that rather than finance the first years of college, it might be more beneficial to finance the last (to encourage those near the end to just complete their degrees and get out into the workplace).
It seems to me like with a judicious use of forgiveness/reimbursement based on successful completion of coursework (e.g., credits awarded), and a reimbursement scale based on the perceived usefulness of the class/degree being pursued (via bureau of labor statistics recommendations) would allow the government to take an active role in engineering a long term competitive workforce. Want more STEM graduates? Raise the % of reimbursement for passing STEM classes. Maybe raise the % reimbursement as well for more advanced classes (50% first year, 60% second year, 70% third year, 80% fourth year). Lower the % of reimbursement for those professions which the BLS indicates we don't need as many of as a country.
Under such a system, you can always get any degree you want, but if you do something that aligns with the government view of what will be beneficial to the country, the government will pay you something for it. It certainly makes sense to have higher subsidies for higher paying professions (in many cases, those most in demand) because they increase the future tax base the most.
As far as I can tell, we all want a more educated populous and recognize benefits for that as a whole... Maybe there are smarter ways to do it than a blank check for a couple of years of higher education.
In Soviet Russia, us are belong to all your base.
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Posting as AC to avoid possible slash dotting of my institution.
Full disclosure: I have been an adjunct computer science instructor (one course per semester) at a local California community college since 1981. I also attended that for a couple of semesters. I have taught courses which transferred directly (introductory C++) as well as courses which didn't directly transfer (PL/SQL, Objective-C).
My three children all attended community college before transferring to a University of California campus. All three are STEM majors. The youngest is a senior.
In California, around 1992 the legislature mandated that the higher education systems (University of California, California State Universities, and community colleges) synchronize their course offerings. As a result, most *academic* courses are articulated between the UCs, CSUs, and community colleges. (Trade-related courses, such as the AST automotive courses, are not part of this process.) A system, IGETC, was developed which most private universities in California also observe (e.g. USC, Pepperdine).
So, for example, math courses invariably transfer one-for-one at calculus level and above. The same applies for all courses which are part of either a general education requirement or a major requirement. There are generally very few courses which don't transfer. Some which commonly don't transfer are basic high school equivalent math courses, English remedial courses, ESL, and so forth.
If your state university system and its community colleges are not articulated, I'd first blame the politicians - they are wasting your money.
And, if you enroll in a community college, be sure to work regularly with counselors to ensure your courses transfer.
Regarding the President's proposal...it can provide very good results both for the students and for the economy. At the same time, some of the trade education probably should begin in high school - when I attended high school, we had auto shop, wood shop, metal shop, electric shop, and print shop. Granted, the last is probably obsolete today, and AST certification probably is not feasible within the confines of a high school curriculum, but I think the country would benefit if the Common Core standards put more trade education back into high school along with the Obama proposal.
I was pointing out that student loans are not, in fact, exempt from bankruptcy. And somehow you've taken issue with that. You have some kind of emotional reaction to student loan topics or something.
But then FWIW, if you look at the article it says, "according to a study published in 2011 by Jason Iuliano, at least 40 percent of borrowers who do include their student loans in their bankruptcy filing end up with some or all of their student debt discharged."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Community College Certification Project!
Or possibly this one might be better: Universal Student Scholarship Registry...
I am sure Fox will come up with something catchy. Hopefully not something stupid like Obamalearn...
Professors spend their lives in academia instead of the real world, and all those touchy-feely do-gooder ideas and ideals "work" really well as thought experiments in an ivy-covered ivory tower. Of course people with little experience in the real world (something professors and young people generally share) are more likely to be dems. People who have lived in (and ften have been mugged by) the real world, lean right.
When I was considering college that is pretty much what I did. I started a community college 2 year course track that was a direct tranistion to a 4 year course at the big state school. I never bothered finishing as my career was already moving and life got in the way but I definitely would have had small bills for school if I followed through.
My wife did much the same though she went all the way through getting her Masters. She eneded up with a relatively small amount of debt. She made payments a bit over the minimum and ten years later it's about paid off without ever having been a heavy load.
ONE right-leaning "think tank" (Heritage) published ONE paper supporting an insurance purchasing mandate, and then ONE left-leaning "establishment" Republican governor (Romney) in a VERY Democrat state (Mass.) with a nearly totally Democrat legislature and judiciary implemented Romney care and you PRETEND this means Obamacare is a Republican Idea????
By your "reasoning": A bunch of Democrats owned slaves and started the Klan... therefore all racism and bigotry is a product of Democrats (see how easy that was?)
Incidentally, iit turns out that Romney was advised by the same Democrat MIT professor (Gruber) who helped the Democrats design Obamacare and who has been repeatedly caught on YouTube admitting that the whole thing was based on lies and is economically unworkable, and that it only passed becasue the Americans who supported it (that would be Democrats and independents) were stupid.
It used to be that when you pointed a gun at your neighbor and took his money in order to buy yourself stuff we called it "armed robbery". Now, however, if you get the government to point a gun at your neighbor and take his money and then give the money to you so you can buy yourself stuff we call it "free stuff" (as though your neighbor's money always rightfully belonged to the government). This practice of using a middleman in the robbery also used to involve the term "money laundering" but now it's just "spreading the wealth around" and making everybody "pay their fair share". It all sounds great to the people getting the "free stuff", but if you are the one being robbed it feels nearly the same either way (when the government does it it's a bit worse, since you cannot call 9-11 and hope to get the police to help you get your money back).
Incidentally, this process that puts benefits into the hands of specific people as, effectively, a wealth transfer, is a VERY different thing from our founder's definition of "the general welfare" ... which was stuff that benefitted all equally without intentionally helping any specific person (like roads, parks, dams, national defense, etc).
That statement means that 60% end up with nothing discharged, and it says nothing about how much is discharged on average.
And I'm not sure how my reaction is emotional. I merely pointed out that your statement was misleading, even if completely factually true.
And I'm not sure how my reaction is emotional. I merely pointed out that your statement was misleading, even if completely factually true.
It wasn't even misleading if you take it in context
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And I'm not sure how my reaction is emotional. I merely pointed out that your statement was misleading, even if completely factually true.
It wasn't even misleading if you take it in context
The same is true of any statement made by any salesman or politician anywhere. That could be used as the definition of misleading - a statement whose common interpretation changes when removed from a fairly detailed context.
Mod this guy down. He goes on a major diatribe about this and that based solely on his MISINTERPRETATION of what the OP said. OP said "WASN'T subsidized". This is undeserved positive mod points. Remedy this /. !
Loans do not stay with you until you die. They will survive the FIRST bankruptcy but subsequent bankruptcies can eradicate them. Google it.
The "work for it" the President referred to at the Knoxville conference was in regards to TN's way of doing this: the student IN EXCHANGE for going to college, pays their own time and labor working some number of hours of community service. It is the very DEFINITON of "working for it". Also the TN program is subsidized by the state Lottery which was supposed to already be paying for education but instead half assed it with contributions to the Hope Scholarship. We're basically making them do what they promised twenty years ago when the lottery got pushed through the state Congress.
I've been a fan of this idea for years. 25 yrs ago when I moved to CA from MA community college was $50 a semester plus cost for books. In MA a similar school was close to $1200 per semester plus books. So lets be real for a min. A community college education is not on par with Ivy League or even a lot of high level state universities. But it is by now means a 'discount' degree. It's more like khols vs sacks fith not big lots vs nieman marcus. That being said it should be a state level decision. The more we push federal funds around to solve state-specific problems, the more we dig ourselves into ridiculous debt. The biggest problem with federal solutions to local problems is that the costs vary greatly. An apt, groceries and community college tuition in NYC are wildly different than the same in Fargo ND. IMO this is why grand federal programs are always doomed to fail. They try to treat problems in multiple states as if they are equal. And while the concepts behind the issues may be equal, the costs to correct are managed by local economies, and as such a federal solution will only be wasteful &inefficient.
when I was in college jr college was free! all I paid for was the books. wtf happened?! our state now has a lottery supposedly to give schools more money. someone is grafting! If jr college was free in the 1970's without the lottery wtf is different now?!
Education is the ladder for the poor. You should be able to climb as high as you would like to. By investing directly into the intelligence of the people we are directly creating a better society.
We live in a world in which 1% of the population could easily support the other 99% of the population. We should all, constantly, be going to school through out our entire lives or creating art or exploring, occasionally swapping out with the 1% work force.
We should be producing automation engineers.Instead, we're bombarded with bullshit and our corporate politicians keep us in servitude.
Remember, if it doesn't "make jobs" or "make money" then it isn't worth discussing. Let's start discussing a quality of life that's actually worth having.
It's really starting to soun like our overlords are starting to notice the people getting fed up as a whole and are now finally starting to realize they have to appease us atleast a little bit.
It can take almost anything that works well in other countries, and somehow totally fuck it up here because of all the partisan garbage and corporate interests that turn everything into shit.
We have the ability to house, feed, medicate and educate every single member of our populace to the highest degree of quality and yet most of us are living in ghettos and prisons. One percent of the populace could support the other 99% . We could all be constantly going to school or studying our world or creating products & art while taking turns performing whatever tasks we haven't manged to automate yet. We should be creating tons of engineers to automate right now. Our potential is utterly wasted so long as we squabble between each other and do not work together to rectify the problem via solutions that satisfy everyone. Everyone can be satisfied. There is bounty.
Socialism is not evil. Capitalism is an outdated model used to keep the populace distracted from the root of the problem: they never made slavery, they just made involuntary slavery illegal. If you work 40 hours a week, you are a slave.
I've gone to university for 5 years ( 3 year bachelor + 2 year master) for free.
In sweden. Only thing i had to pay for was housing, but you got student loans for that.
I really don't se why america couldn't afford this system when a little bullshit country like sweden can.
As a 1 semester in adjunct professor at a community college, no thanks. The poorest already have their tuitions paid. A lot of them go half a semester, get their Pell grant, then withdraw. Senior colleges are expensive, but community colleges, at least around here, are comparatively very cheap. Don't let them in unless they're willing to sacrifice at least something for it. He says "... free for everyone who's willing to work for it," What does that even mean? He knows if they do "make them work for it" through some farce of community service, it won't be long before it just becomes an entitlement, and maybe even an obligation. It's bad enough that thugs stay in high school till they're 18. Keeping them in till they're 20 or older is an enormous burden on the teachers.
Teaching kids who want to make something of themselves is one of the greatest jobs there is. Babysitting people who go because they're getting federal money to go is one of the worst jobs you could imagine.
All university and college education should be paid for by the community. Germany does this and the moderate attempts to introduce tuition payments flopped. As in the US, the majority of the money did not end up in academia. For US universities the expenses in academia (teaching students) were flat throughout the past two decades while the administrative expenses grew by a factor of three. Money collected through tuition is mainly spent on more admin assistants, office furniture, landscaping, or football stadiums. Speaking of which, cutting college athletics out entirely would already lead to a big savings. No a single athletics program at any US school is generating revenue, quite contrary, over all after counting free tuition and benefits for coaches and athletes the programs generate a net loss that is paid by other students. What Obama should ask for is this: - spin off college athletics into self-financed (non-profit) organizations that may cooperate with colleges, but are not longer a part of a college, neither financially nor administratively - slash administration to a reasonable minimum - drop tuition for all degrees across the board, students still have plenty of money to pay on housing, books, and materials - in return set limits as to how long a student can attend school before completing a degree, not everyone is cut out for this Until that happens, your best bet is learning German and study in Germany. Excellent universities and no tuition, not even for foreigners. Just be prepared that even the middle of the pack colleges in Germany are tough. I've studied both in Germany and the US, in the US even at master level. While I did not attend all US universities the ones I attended were academic fluff.
As usual, everybody gets sucked into the BIG fail issue of cost/time: value as a monetary function. The value of higher education is not only monetary ( I am not pretending that money is not a factor, just that only fools make it the primary factor). Think of it from these perspectives:
1) If you have a job with 4 weeks of vacation time (with holidays) each year you are commited to 48X40=1920 hours of your life at your job. This is slightly less than 1/3 of your life. If you are doing this just for the money then you are either creating a human who is an ATM robot (as in a cash machine for your "loved ones") or is miserable and getting ground into the dust. Do something that you want to go to work on every day, no matter the money.
2) back in the day, I was taught that the reasion to study history AND math AND science AND literature AND etc is to learn the different modes of thought, understanding and reasoning. That an education gave the student multiple ways to interact with information, and that this gave the student a depth of insight that was the definition of an educated person. Certainly my education, and of the educated people I know succeeded at this at least partially.
3) my education gave me opportunities that were life enhancing and changing: when I graduated high school I had other things to do than go to university. I started businesses, started a family, lived a hard, fast life of the semi-successful businesssman, father, familyman, community person. In my 40s, I gave all that up and went to university (Beginning with a year at community college, just sayin') and got a BA. That degree let me do what I had wanted to do for twenty years: go abroad and work overseas. It was fantastic, just what I wanted. While there I found that a Masters degree would give me more opportunities to do more of what I wanted to do, so I did that. I had wanted to work overseas for 20 years but didn't have the educational foundation to do it, and now I do.
Education helps you grow, to do what you really want to do and to live the way you really want to: forget the money, that is for chumps and fools who think it can buy happiness or security.+
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.