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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.
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.
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.
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
Executive orders have financial restrictions. He could easily fund a study and employee a political contributor to do the work and get the results he wants, This would make great cannon fodder for the 2016 election.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
because EO's have to follow the law and president's can't write them at will. even if Obama did write one like that there would be no funding for it since all funding bills originate in the House of Representatives and every program has to be funded by law. he can't just take a pot of money and spend it as he sees fit. every program and line item in the budget has to be approved by both houses of congress
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.
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.
They'll both fight it because it cuts into the profiteering of the ECMC Group. These are the debt collectors who have just taken over Corinthian to transform their schools into "non-profit" so that they can keep the federal student loan money train flowing which in turn guarantees a steady stream of defaults that they can profit from.
Free education from the federal government will be lobbied against heavily by these parasites.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
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.
I actually tried to RTFA, but the page wont scroll down. Some horrible web design right there.
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.
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."
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.
Everyone could already make quite a dent in the cost of their college educations if they went to CC for the first two years now. You don't even have to make it free for it to have a significant impact on the price of a bachelor degree.
Plus it could help churn out more trades professionals (HVAC, plumbers, welders, etc.)
If your grades are good enough to take advantage of this, then you aren't going to want to settle for being a plumber looking for work when you get done.
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.
Any reason I got +5 for saying the same thing before?
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Mostly random stuff.
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
amnesty for illegals is a constitutional power to overturn a criminal conviction. for ACA, read the law. most of them are vague enough to give the president a lot of leeway. and go read your own link. unfunded mandates are laws passed by congress
maybe you should go back to high school for some remedial social studies?
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
you don't have to complete the comm college.
in fact, I used it (back in the 80's) as a way to save a LOT of money on the first year or 2 of my own college experience; the quality was as good as my other 4 yr schools (that I later went on to), it was something like $18/credit (!!) and I was able to live at home and have an easy transition from HS to college. going straight to college is a big shock to many and for me, I had that 'half step' and so I had a much easier and more fun time.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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
amnesty for illegals is a constitutional power to overturn a criminal conviction.
Overturning a conviction REQUIRES A CONVICTION. A blanket statement that not only will there BE no prosecutions for a crime but that the crime itself is no longer a crime is much more than a pardon.
for ACA, read the law. most of them...
I'm not going to waste time reading the entire ACA, and I'm not sure why you refer to "most of them" when I'm referring to a specific law. A law which had a mandate for employer coverage that was unilaterally changed by the executive branch after the law was passed.
and go read your own link. unfunded mandates are laws passed by congress
You clearly didn't read the link. Quote:
Pretty clear -- and it clearly contradicts your ridiculous claim that "every program has to be funded by law", since "unfunded mandates" can also be created through legislation. You even now admit that unfunded mandates can be created by congress passing laws.
Remedial what?
> 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 !
because EO's have to follow the law and president's can't write them at will.
Really? So the executive order that unilaterally modified the ACA to defer corporate compliance with insurance mandates was "follow[ing] the law"? The executive orders that deal with amnesty for illegal aliens are "follow[ing] the law" with regard to legal immigration? The claim that he's going to use Executive Orders to get what he wants done until the congress sends him legislation doing what he likes is "follow[ing] the law"?
legislative branch creates the laws, executive branch enforces the laws, but as always there is discretion involved in enforcing the law. It happens every day. Have you ever been (or known anyone who was) pulled over for speeding but then let off with just a warning, or given a ticket for a less severe infraction instead? That's discretion in enforcement.
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
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.
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
Government subsidies just jack up the price for everyone. It benefits the poor, harms the middle class, has minimal impact on the wealthy.
Because national defense is an actual power granted to the federal government by the Constitution while education is not.
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.
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.
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:)...
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.
Only in California. And their problem is that they allowed a lot of illegals in who paid no taxes and just sent the money back home. IOW, CA outsourced even the jobs that could not be outsourced.
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.
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'
>. 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."
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.
Gee, money does grow on trees.
Since some money are actually made of actual paper, this is a factually correct statement!
Tax payers can afford to pay for lazy asses to never enter the work force by continuing education for a life time.
Two years is a life time?
Let me guess: you are from red neck state with life expectancy under 35?
And while we are at it, why not free cable?
One can succeed in life without the cable. But not without the education.
Or perhaps free condoms?
Actually some school and medical institutions already give away free condoms.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
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.
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".
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?
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?
It's better to think of it as $32 Billion per year, since that's how the government functions, or a $7600 benefit for 2.7% of the population.
There are 29 million children in the US in families which have more than 2 children, or about 15 million 3rds/4ths/5ths, etc. Why don't we stop subsidizing them? Just the tax exemption on those large families would be $5000 of the $7600 needed to cover the cost. Heck stop subsidizing the second kid and you've covered the whole cost and have change to spare! Quit paying people to punch out babies altogether and, boom, there's $200 Billion a year (it's a $3000 refundable amount per child), you can put the extra $170B towards the debt so those kids won't pass on the burden to their kids.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Oops - the $5k actually covers the $3800 annual cost all by itself. (Though my "stop subsidizing baby making" comment stands. $200B is a lot of cash)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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?
...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.
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).
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.
> 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.'"
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."
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.
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 :)
Four classical languages: French -> Royalty, Latin -> Religious, English/German -> Commoners, Dick Waving -> Peasants.
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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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...
I would say not. In most places that I know of in the US, K-12 education is funded to a large extent by property taxes, which means that rich districts have a lot more resources than poor districts.
I did a quick search and found this very brief article about it: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wherew...
The actual proportions and differences very likely vary greatly depending on state and locality.
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.
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.
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.
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.