@fallenchemist A lot of community colleges have these with state university systems. What it means is that certain community college classes are held to be equivalent to certain public university classes, and are guaranteed to transfer to fulfill those requirements (usually mostly GenEd requirements).
@TatinG I don’t think it’s uniformly true that community college courses are less rigorous than four-year college classes. That’s certainly true a lot of the time, but it really depends on the teacher. I have had some amazing, intellectually engaging and inspiring community college teachers, and I’ve had some that left me disappointed I didn’t wait to take the class until transferring to a four-year college. It can be a crapshoot, but I’m personally glad I did it.
It’s really a matter of the teachers being determined not to dumb things down. I’ve talked this over with some of my teachers, several of whom are still my friends. The student who didn’t know the earth revolved around the sun is a good example of what many of them are up against. I think a lot of good teachers become mediocre teachers when faced with horrible students. Some don’t, and they’re the gems.
Thanks. I am not at all familiar with the community college scene, so that sounded like such an odd term. I just wasn’t familiar with that definition of articulation. And here I thought it only meant being distinct in the sense of speaking clearly or playing a musical passage.
I believe the current graduation rate at community college at 150 % time (ie 3 years, full time, for a two year program) is currently only 20 %. And the graduation rate among Black Students is closer to 10 %.
Graduation rates at Community Colleges are actually much lower than at For Profits.
Unless this heavily motivates students, many who enroll thinking tuition is free, will be hit with a big bill when they fail to make grades.
Something that’s bothers me a bit about the proposal. 8-|
The Tennessee Promise doesn’t go into effect till the fall of 2015. Yet we’re already proposing a Federal version. Why not wait a few years and see what we can learn from the Tennessee plan, before putting in place a federal plan?
What if we learn this plan drives more URM’s and low SES students into local CC’s, with the end result of lower degree (BS/BA) completion? Perhaps these students would have been better off spending the additional funds to attend 4 year institutions (public or private). We really don’t know the unintended consequences (and there is always unintended consequences with these social engineering efforts).
A more universal “free CC” program may actually affect the middle SES students (not the forum “middle class that won’t get financial aid anywhere”, but the actual middle income range) more than low SES students who currently could go to CC using Pell grants (and/or state grants in some states).
But also note that completion rates tend to be strongly associated with the school’s selectivity (i.e. selection effects probably dominate over treatment effects), so moving a student from a CC to a four year school or vice-versa for frosh/soph year may not actually have much effect on that student’s chance of completion. A strong student is likely to graduate whether s/he starts at a CC or a four year school, while a weak student is less likely to graduate in either case.
I wonder what free community college education will do to the value of an associate degree. (For example, would it eventually be of no more worth than a high school diploma?) I don’t know that it would affect it at all…just a thought that popped into my head.
I would rather see them be doing this for trade schools. There are tons of people out there with college degree’s working at mcdonalds and places like that for 8 bucks an hour, while they struggle to find electricians and plumbers and whatnot who are making double the starbucks rate at a starting salary.
That being said, I already pay for my neighbors kids to go to elementary, middle and high school in my property taxes. I don’t want to pay for them to go to college as well. I think this would be better off left to the states for them to legislate.
When even the community colleges don’t want it, you know it is a program that won’t work. On the news tonight, they interviewed an administrator who said the tuition is only 20% of the cost of a community college educaton - books, living expenses, transportation all add more for a population that might not be able to afford those things.
The vast majority of community college students are not changing their housing costs as they’re not moving. Transportation costs may change depending on whether or not the CC is further than their job, and yes books are expensive but they can do things to reduce costs (allow older versions, don’t require textbooks with codes, etc)
Missouri offers a program that gives you free community college tuition for 2 years for students who do 50 hours of community service & tutoring and maintain a 2.5 GPA, as well as 95% attendance. (For certain high schools, of course)
Additionally, the scholarship can apply to some trade & vocational schools, and even some 4-year universities offer small scholarships for it.
We all pay for our neighbors’ lives, fendergirl. I don’t love supporting municipal services for people who want to live in exurban McMansionvilles. We just don’t get the choice to pay our taxes “a la carte” for only the things we care about.
