So what is this proposal going to do to get lower SES students to be academically admissible to these colleges they can attend for free?
I think I’d make a remedial program available at a very modest cost. Practically nothing. In that way, kids would be committing to it, versus biding time, and have some skin in the game. It wouldn’t be a degree, more like going for a certification. Bare bones, no frills, like “night school” used to be. The carrot would then be admission to one of the state schools. Tuition rates would again be minimal. Make lots of campus jobs, maybe make them a requirement, to nick deeply into that lower cost.
I’m not sure how free tuition “should” work for parents who can afford something. I’m sure that’s a can of worms.
And who pays for this? I have another set of ideas about how to build revenue outside of taxes.
Remedial program? Why not fix K-12? “Remedial” is too late.
We were taking of remedial earlier. You asked about getting kids to admissibility (presumably any kid not ready, not only URMs face this.)
@ucbalumnus : thanks for laying out some possibilities.
@lookingforward:
Thank you. I was wondering if we all our collective wisdom there was no one willing to invent something. (there’s a proverb that goes something along the lines of 'criticizing is easy, creating isn’t ').
I agree we need a remedial program now - and that definitely should be free or low cost.
We can’t wait for K12 to be fixed - it’s been a work in progress for 32 years and we’re still not there. Let’s keep working at it. In the meanwhile, we need remedial education and there seems to be a consensus on this board that free tuition would not be a wise investment if the students need remedial education.
Creating Remedial schools (let’s call them Postgraduate College Prep schools : p) would be meeting the lower cost requirement - no frills:, beside a daycare center ; just take the classes you need to be qualified for college, with three cycles to work with working adults, morning classes, afternoon classes, and evening classes; no fancy gyms no dorms no intercollegiate sports. (I have no objection to student art displays. beauty isn’t a luxury and can be cheap.) It would lower the cost of college since all students would be ready to learn. And lookingforward’s right, the students having free tuition if they get through the program would be a powerful incentive to take the appropriate classes.
States used to subsidize higher education. Can’t they be incentivize to go back to what they used to do anyway?
There are too many colleges here, I cannot imagine how that would work. How could there be enough funding for this to pay the salary of faculty and staff, day-to-day running of all of these colleges?
Then every state might only be allowed to have a limited number of public unis, which would eliminate the possiblity for low income students being able to commute if they live too far away.
That would result in masssive layoffs of faculty and staff and closings of many, many schools.
The teacher to student ratio would go up, there would be fewer amenities, lectures would be even bigger, quality of education would go down.
And someone would be paying for it. Higher taxes would pay for it.
Maybe make tuition free for $0 EFC students, if they do workstudy and take their student loan.
Also there might have to be a minimum GPA requirement then because if it’s free then everyone could go to college and might take much longer than 4 yrs to graduate.
Tuition is free in Germany, but number of students being able to go to uni is restricted and unis are more utilitarian. Also many careers can be attained without university study which reduces overall number of college students as well.
The German unis usually don’t offer student housing so they don’t have those expenses to deal with.
Why do we think that kids who didn’t learn what they should have in k-12 will learn it with more time in remedial schools?
The “free” tuition for all is borne out of a concept of everyone should go to college. We should dispel that concept because its dumb. We don’t have enough jobs today for everyone with college degrees (particularly that actually require college degrees). So why would we push even more kids to college at great cost? And in the process push even more kids to grad school also at great costs (not necessarily because they need to go there but just to differentiate themselves from the pack)?
We could go the route of Europe but many countries there simply track certain kids into college and others on different tracks such as trade schools (often at early ages such as 4th grade). Not sure how well that would go over here. I suspect not well (and I am not sure I would disagree with those criticisms).
Like a lot of issues that the US has, the solutions are complex. But for whatever reason, we seem to want silver bullets that will act immediately for so many issues. Just won’t be like that.
In Germany, if you start a vocational track in hs, there’s a complicated path, many hurdles, to move to college qualifications. But as I said on another thread, different countries, most of them smaller, with different social contexts and burdens, are not always the right role models here.
surprised this thread has not been closed since several posts are clearly political.
That being said, I’ve been a long-time supporter of reducing the expense of attending public colleges. But, I’d start with zero-ing out the tuition/fees at community colleges (for ‘academic,’ transferable classes) first.
In terms of “reducing the expense of attending public colleges,” are you talking about expense to the students or actual expense period? And what do you propose (in either case)?
If this were ever to come into play, which I do not think it will, the states should have the right to decide which of their schools would be free and how many OOS students, or students who would be full pay, it could admit.
A school would have three categories of students, instate ‘free’ students, instate paying students, and OOS students. The federal govt would pay 1/2 of the tuition and fees for the ‘free’ students, but the state would have to find the money for the other half. The states could become need aware for admissions and just not admit the students it couldn’t afford to pay 1/2 ‘free’ tuition for. Or it could offer free educations at certain schools but not at the flagship(s).
I’m not worried about this coming into play, just fooling around with the possibilities.
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I think I’d make a remedial program available at a very modest cost. Practically nothing. In that way, kids would be committing to it, versus biding time, and have some skin in the game. It wouldn’t be a degree, more like going for a certification. Bare bones, no frills, like “night school” used to be. The carrot would then be admission to one of the state schools. Tuition rates would again be minimal. Make lots of campus jobs, maybe make them a requirement, to nick deeply into that lower cost.
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I agree. When I see news pieces that indicate that 50% of freshman at Calif publics must take sub 100 English and Math classes, that’s a problem. It delays graduation, and it’s costly to provide tuition and R&B for an extra semester or two.
Those who aren’t ready for college-level courses should be required to take the sub100 courses online, from home, during the summer…or in a classroom, if nearby.
Free (or very cheap) community college is certainly more reasonable than free state colleges. CCs teach trades too, so not as many kids would be flooding colleges and getting Bachelors as would be if all college were free. Free state colleges would be too difficult and expensive, not to mention unfair.
And it should be noted that colleges in the US are of a different kind than colleges abroad. Certainly some schools in Europe and elsewhere are of great quality, but for the most part uni in America is truly something else. Just like US medical schools vs foreign medical schools.
And I want to add: Is it really within the power of the President to set the cost of state-controlled universities?
It is up to congress, and yes, they can have unfunded mandates which cause the states to spend money. Think of No Child Left Behind and other such legislation. It is usually put that if the state wants federal money for schools/highways/water projects/safety services, it must do X to get it. States had to pass a maximum speed limit of 55 to get highway money in the 70’s. States had to evaluate teachers to get NCLB money, but many ways to do that.