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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.
I understand worth means different things to different people, but a 2 year degree will be worth nothing only if you place absolutely no value in knowledge.
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.
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.
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.
How is giving every kid with good grades the opportunity to get more than a high school education without having finaces be an overriding consideration?
Of course it helps the students. The best thing in the world to improve the odds for success in life is more education.
And the first 2 years of college/university are worlds apart from what you learned in grade 12.
but because it appears to lower youth unemployment and reduces the need for corporations to train people themselves slightly.
Fascinating world view you have there.
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.
Good point. We should end public education at grade 4. Its just years they aren't in the work force, and of no benefit since they'll just be competing each other for the same jobs anyway; and all it does is reduce the need for corporations to train people themselves.
I mean, everyone does work for a corporation right? There aren't ~20 million sole-proprieterships in the country. And there certainly aren't another 40 million+ people working for small to medium businesses.
It's a gigantic ripoff, both of students and tax payers.
Seriously. Sarcasm off. More available education is one of the best things we can do for the country. This isn't no-child-left-behind sillyness... this is about making sure students who can and would succeed at post-secondary school get to go.
What would be a better use of tax dollars in the long run?
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
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
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 !
You pretty much hit the nail on its head. When most governments take socialist action, it is because of socialist motives (people demanded it). When US takes socialist action, it is because of capitalist motives (businesses lobbied for it). So cost controls, either through regulation or via competition with the public options (in US, public option often ends up being publicly-funded option, rather than publicly-run option) are quickly ruled out as infeasible or unfair for privates. Then everybody nods their heads on how government is not the solution.
This is not to say that a bit of this does not happen in other countries, but seems to be especially problematic in US.
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.
>. 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.
Adam Smith's capitalism isn't what is in charge today. Why talk about some idealized version of capitalism that never was, beyond small town bakers that Adam Smith observed (you are not the only one who has read some economics). The world moved on. Its better to read Piketty than Smith to keep up with the times.
BTW, it makes it a lot easier to cuss and complain when you are anonymous, doesn't it. Does it feel good?
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.