Can someone please explain to the President that …
“THERE AIN’T NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH” b**
Lets see if I can do the math…$3,800 X 9 Million = $34.2 Billion
Can someone tell Gator that he didn’t say “free” he said “free for responsible students”?
To which I say- gee, we might finally be realizing that an affordable, good education is a good thing? Well I’ll be…
@Gator88NE Well, the cost of the two recent wars was what, a hundred times that?
I’m all for it, heck i wish it happened 2 years ago
I wonder if this is tied into expanding the Americorps program. ( from pursuing news articles, it appears to be)
After a year of service ( for which they receive tiny living stipend), corps members receive an educational voucher worth a bit less than the two years of community college and can be used for loans or to pre pay tuition.
I think it would be great if it expanded, they’ve been promising that almost since they started 20 years ago.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/how-obama-and-congress-failed-americorps-and-failed-america-again-20130801
I think it’s great. I have a number of relatives who are faculty members at community colleges and they often talk about how CC’s are an excellent, extremely underrated resource for many.
“Free for responsible students”? And how does that change anything? You still have to FUND the program.
Any spending bill that goes through Congress has to including spending “offsets”. In other words, the bill has to explain how it will be funded, either through new taxes, penalties and/or spending cuts. So, how will this be funded?
Will we cut Pell Grants to help pay for this program? We’ll we require Pell Grant participants to attend a CC for the first two years (lots of cost saving there…)? Will we charge a surcharge to those going to a 4 year college (very Obamacare like…). Perhaps we’ll raise the rates on Student loans to help fund this program. Perhaps the program will be “means tested”, so low SES students get it free, but middle class students have to pay a portion of the tuition.
We can have lots of fun with this, but until the President proposes a way to pay for the program, he’s not making a serious proposal.
This is unrrelated, but a couple of states (Tenessee I believe it was) has already implemented similar plans. I’m skeptical how much national support this will receive, it will most likely be implemented by varying degrees on a state by state by basis
A little detail can be found in http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/us/politics/obama-proposes-free-community-college-education-for-some-students.html .
I’ve long thought that we should eliminate Pells at private colleges. (Harvard can easily afford to give a few more thousand in financial aid to support its so-called interest in economic diversity.)
Instead, use the money for the community & state colleges.
Of course, “Free for responsible students” will also lead to other cost. This will cause an increase in enrollment (duh, its free!), the CC’s will have to build new facilities and hire additional staff. These cost would fall back to the states.
This looks like it’s based on the Tennessee plan, Tennessee Promise. They are even calling it “America’s College Promise”.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/barack-obama-free-community-college-114094.html
I wonder what is happening to applications at the Tennessee four year state colleges?
Some people believe that cutting tax rates will increase total revenue, due to the boost to economic activity (trickle down). Similarly, the $34 billion may be recouped many times over in increased productivity and taxes from the better educated worker base. It could be called trickle up.
Last April, we had a discussion on the Tennessee Promise program (please do not bump this old thread):
Keep in mind, the Tennessee program is funded (it’s based on the Hope Scholarships).
Ignoring how it going to be funded, will there be a monitoring of the schools and how many students maintain “acceptable progress?” Will those numbers be connected to $$? Unintended consequences and the ripple effect…dumbing down of content and grade inflation to preserve funding.
I can support ideas like this if there are binding articulation agreements and course paths with the public 4 year universities. It shouldn’t be a crap shoot for kids to pick the correct classes, get into their 4 year uni of choice based on their first two years GPA and coursework and graduate in 4 years.
@shawnspencer: “This is unrrelated, but a couple of states (Tenessee I believe it was) has already implemented similar plans”
@Gator88NE: “Keep in mind, the Tennessee program is funded (it’s based on the Hope Scholarships).”
The Tennessee plan (called Tennessee Promise) is funded by the proceeds from the Tennessee lottery, as is the Tennessee Hope Scholarship. A slight problem – at least for the Hope Scholarship recipients – is that the funding of the Tennessee Promise program decreases by $1,000 per year the amount that Hope Scholarship recipients receive for their first two years of college enrollment. So in a sense you have a bit of “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Its a very small step. If government can provide things for free, there isn’t really any good reason to stop at (or even start with) community college. I think free food, clothing, and shelter for responsible people should be far ahead of that, and free transportation and recreation should be next.
It makes you wonder who the curmudgeon was who came up with the idea of charging for things.
Would this be free to all, not means testing? Someone who would be full pay at State U or cozy LAC can go to community college for “free.” And can we at least call it federal taxpayer funded instead of free?
Lots of things are good to have, and it is fun for me to use your money to buy something for someone else. But really, “free”??
Oh good grief, dadx. Talk about not adding anything to a discussion.