Obama’s community college plan
More non-free lunch from Obama:
The White House proposal would waive tuition for students who attend community college at least half-time and maintain a 2.5 GPA (that’s a C+). You have to work hard not to get that grade. Washington would then cover 75% of tuition on the condition that states pay the rest. The Obama Administration calls this a federal-state “partnership.” It’s more accurate to call it the education version of Medicaid without the fiscal discipline…
White House officials are whispering to reporters that all of this will cost federal taxpayers $60 billion over 10 years, and another $20 billion by the states, if you choose to believe them. The White House predicted in 2010 that expanding its income-based repayment (i.e., student loan forgiveness) plans would cost $1.7 billion that year and $7.4 billion over the following decade. By 2014 the Administration’s estimate had ballooned to $7.6 billion for 2015 alone.
The bigger problem with the new entitlement is that there are already plenty of training programs and financial assistance for students attending community colleges. According to the College Board’s annual survey, tuition at public two-year colleges averages about $3,300, which is less than the $5,090 in average student aid (i.e., grants and tax benefits). Low-income students can also receive up to $5,730 in Pell grants, which Mr. Obama has greatly expanded.
The White House says its plan is based on a Tennessee program that pays for two free years of community college for state residents. If that’s how states want to spend their tax dollars, at least voters are in a position to hold local schools accountable.
But by nationalizing the program, the feds are likely to make community colleges more expensive and bureaucratic…
The whole thing is somewhat of a gimmick, a sound-good feel-good fish to throw to liberals. I’m not sure that even Obama thinks it has a chance of being passed. But it is ideologically in step with his general approach to government:
The new entitlement is best understood as an extension of the Administration’s ideological project to add higher education to the list of entitlements that keep the federal government in charge of American life from cradle to grave…
Punish private schools, subsidize often inferior public schools, snatch regulatory control from states, and add tens of billions in new taxpayer obligations…
Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? How many people will buy this, even as an idea?
neo, “The whole thing is somewhat of a gimmick, a sound-good feel-good fish to throw to liberals.”
But of course. That is their plan. Their only plan. Eventually they will run out of other people’s money, but there is still a lot of wealth in this country to be squandered. The clock is ticking though.
Furthermore, he doesn’t care about the poor students from places like my hometown who attend the Community College. Lots of them go on to 4-year schools, and I bet very few require remedial reading. Also, there are lots of local groups who give kids scholarships to attend, so their is community affirmation of their efforts.
No, Obama only cares about extending free babysitting for inner city kids who can’t read at 18. It keeps them off the unemployment lists.
If you make it free, it’s going to get more expensive.
I find it hard to believe there are many people who put off junior college because it is too expensive. It’s just a plan to give money to people who are already in school.
Why should anyone believe the Obama administration, ever again, on the subject of how much something will cost?
Our President is trying the wrong solutions to solve the wrong problems. But they do seem to be both the same wrong problems, and the same half-baked solutions, that a college sophomore would mouth off about during an all-night bull session with his buddies.
I would like very much to believe that the President of the United States has learned and advanced since his undergraduate days. I’m seeing precious little evidence that he has.
When the inner city drop out rate reaches 40-50%, why are you looking to send people to Community College? Find out a way to keep these young people in school.
Plenty of people will think this is a wonderful idea. Free obamaphones are a wonderful idea as far as those who are the recipients of government largesse are concerned. Give them free lunch and big nanny will have them convinced there is such a thing as ‘free lunch’. These are people who actually believe that goverment is always the solution to all their problems and should provide for all their needs. They believe that if free stuff comes from the government the money will never run out.
They are either brainwashed or just plain stupid. That is what makes conservatism so strange to them, and why they readily believe conservatives are stingy, mean spirited, and perhaps evil.
It’s typical leftist thinking.
“Government needs to assure that all Americans get what they need.” Mario Cuomo
If the first 2 years of college are to be free, why would anyone without a scholarship or grant go to a 4-year college for their first 2 years, paying $50k per year? What parent would pay that? Deflation in higher ed, along with layoffs of those teaching introductory courses (100 and 200 level) is foreseeable, and those could be good things.
Community colleges are ideologically more free from Leftist control.
This attempt signals that a new campaign is in motion.
Ymarsakar hits the nail on the head. Obama is sinister. This is not likely to be some toss off largesse; it is much more likely to be a power grab to make sure fewer people escape leftist indoctrination.
The priority that Obama put on federal takeover of student loans in 2009 was noteworthy. This must be the mop up operation. Must keep those leftist sinecures rolling. There must not be enough positions in four-year universities for all the critical theory studies graduates. Look for requirements to staff up diversity training bureaucracies. It is important for HVAC technicians, machinists and medical assistants to be well versed in white privilege and microagressions.
Thievery is another Obama priority–whether redistributing to his favored groups or simply lightening the purses of the middle class in order to destroy the group in society that is most resistant to statism and central planning by the self-appointed aristocracy.
I recently took classes at a community college that had an articulation agreement with a nearby private technical university. Per credit hour costs were $70 for the community college and $700 for the university. Ten times as expensive for the first two years of identical course material! And when the students from the community college compared notes with those who went to the university from the start, they were happier with the quality of the instruction and personal attention they received at one tenth the cost.
A few years ago, the Department of Justice went after private for-profit schools, implying they were fraudulent diploma mills. No doubt some were but this all adds up to the government/statist class preventing people from not supporting the university racket that charges grossly bloated tuition in order to provide sinecures for the leftist intelligentsia whose skills in the free market would not be worth as much as a barista or toll booth attendant.
Sheesh, these people are embarrassing. Have they ever had a new or fresh idea?
I happen to think that community colleges are a good value, but this is nothing new; they have been for 50+ years (my brother attended College of DuPage (near Chicago) before going on for a 4 year degree in the late 60s). I thought community colleges were pretty modestly priced and already subsidized and even free in some states already for instate HS grads who qualify; not to mention, that there are already federal job training programs in existence. Am I wrong? So, why is this some sort of break through? What’s up? Why now?
Could it be that this is just another manifestation of the Chicago way? Let’s create a lot of useless make work jobs for your constituents; in this case, educators with useless degrees.
Not to mention, that this doesn’t address the real problem of college freshman reading at a seventh grade level.
This plan of Obama’s builds on the bill in Tennessee signed into law last year by its Republican governor. It’s only the nationalizing that’s different.
Like Romneycare versus Obamacare.
It is almost as if Obama thinks we aren’t going broke fast enough!
“Washington would then cover 75% of tuition on the condition that states pay the rest.”
I work in a community college system with 23 schools; we depend on *receiving* tuition, not paying it. There is no way we could pay out 25% of tuition (aka, take a 25% reduction in our primary source of income) and keep our heads above water. We’d have to cut classes, cut programs, lay off instructors, cancel facility upgrades, close facilities, etc. etc.; in other words, gradually die and close our doors.
I suspect then the feds would come to our “rescue” with a complete take over. And, of course, the federal money would also come with all sorts of strings attached, like oversight of our curriculum.
Like with Obamacare, where the poverty level was raised to compensate for his liberal fiscal policies, his support for extending grade school to college is detached from economic development.
I wonder how many children can be aborted and still sustain good perceptions. How much, or rather, how many, are people willing to sacrifice in order to make Democratic social policies look viable?
“Free” college is a direct assault on the GI Bill and the ROTC program. Why go into the military, if Obama is just going to give “free!” college to any half-wit who manage 2.5 GPA?
… And indoctrinate, indoctrinate, indoctrinate a whole ‘nother group of studentistas.
Obama’s idea is about as appealing as last weeks breakfast. We already have free education through high school. A couple of years more of government education will probably not change much. If this free schooling were done by the states rather than by the Federal Government then it might help a few people.
Selling freedom for cheap in exchange for what?
“The whole thing is somewhat of a gimmick, a sound-good feel-good fish to throw to liberals.”
While it is that (“a sound-good feel-good fish”) it’s, more importantly revelation of yet another underlying false premise of the leftosphere. Glenn Reynolds addresses this in what he calls “Reynold’s Law” (emphasis mine):
Note the date: September 23, 2010
The link: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/106691/