Posted on 01/24/2015 3:52:12 PM PST by Starman417
Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama has been on an education kick of late. On January 20, 2015, he proposed in his State of the Union speech "free tuition" to Community Colleges for anyone.
To make sure that community college is accessible for everybody, put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who's willing to work for it.
Obama announced a series of tax proposals that would raise taxes on financial institutions and wealthy individuals, and simplify education tax credits to pay for his plan for free community college education.
Wow! Sounds great.
So great that a closer examination is in order. Let's begin with the phrase "... everybody who's willing to work for it."
If we use dropouts to represent those NOT willing to work, we find that about 1 in 4 high school students does not graduate from high school with his or her class. Nearly 4 in 10 minority students do not graduate with their class. The total number of high-school dropouts annually is presently about 3,030,000, or about 8,300 per day.
But, hey, most community colleges don't require high school graduation, so everything's cool. Those not willing to work can still feed at the free public money trough.
The national graduation rate for Community Colleges is nothing to brag about. Only 21 percent of students graduate with a two-year degree three years after beginning to attend community college. Yes, that's correct - three years, two year degree, 21 percent graduation rate.
Obama's plan includes ensuring that community college credits are transferable to four-year schools. But, so what? Only 16.2 percent of community college students with an associate degree went on complete a four-year degree. And only 9.8 percent of students who left a community college without an associate degree went on to graduate from a four-year college.
Holders of a Community College Associate Degree earn 94 percent of the median weekly wage of all workers. True, they earn more than those with no degree of any kind, but an associate degree holder isn't going to be rolling in money.
What does all of this sum to? Not much "bang for the buck." Taking Obama's numbers, we can expect about 1.9 million community college graduates each year (21% of 9 million). At a cost of $7.2 billion each year (21% of $34.2 billion).
But let's examine yearly cost from another angle: we get NOTHING from the 7.1 million students (79% of 9 million) who receive "free" tuition amounting to $27.02 billion each year (79% of $34.2 billion) who don't complete an associate degree.
Obama is the master of "sound bite" politics. Those who oppose Obama's latest community college proposal will be chastised in the MSM as "against education." The MSM will ignore all this provided information (that they could find) that demonstrates that Obama's latest "free tuition" scheme does not support education at all.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
If you think tuition is expensive now, just wait until it’s “free.”
There is a hook in there somewhere.
It’s a sop to all those who can’t find jobs. Throw all of them into what will become an attenuated high school for two years.
Good entry level jobs are not out there anymore. Apprenticeships require competence in math and English. While community colleges provide excellent training, using them as a dumping ground to try to avoid the consequences of bad economic policies (almost 95,000,000 not in the work force), will destroy the two year degrees and certificates making them meaningless bits of paper.
And then, where will all these people work? And for whom?
The jobs are still missing, small businesses are not being created due to the onerous regulations and fees.
The students getting this so called “free tuition” should have a B average and be expected to buy their own text books and supplies..
That way the loafers and those that wont or cant do the work and graduate will be weeded out..
some work study would be good to..
From what I’ve seen of our local community college, its already just another welfare scheme for a good part of the student-body.
Obama just wants to take it to the next level.
I can't speak for all community colleges. However, I served a 6-year term as a Trustee of our local community college. It was anything but a welfare scheme.
In Ohio, all community college credits are transferable to state-run colleges. This means that a student can spend the first two years at a community college, living at home to reduce expenses, then transfer directly to a 4-year college. Many of our students did that.
Like many community colleges, ours taught some skilled trades. Graduates were ready to step into fairly well paying jobs.
In particular, well over half the nurses in our tri-county area had received their training at our college.
Community colleges are helping a great many students who don't want or need a 4-year degree. The last thing the colleges need is "help" from Obama. Look how the government messed up the student loan program for 4-year colleges. We don't need Obama ruining the community colleges, too.
What were graduation rates at your community college?
How many students were provided free books, room and board (yes, ours in Upstate NY has it) and free tuition?
Not doubting that CC’s offer a good start to many students. I am saying, that I have found many who were students for quite some time beyond 2 years, and already had someone else paying all their bills.
Let’s face it. The two years of a community college may just barely take the education level of the students up to that of a high school diploma in years past.
Having taught at the regular university level around 2000 I can tell you that many students were grossly under-prepared for any college level work at all.
I doubt thinks have gotten better in the intervening years.
Many didn't intend to get a certificate, but took a few specific courses for their jobs. We didn't count those against the "graduation" rate. We counted only those who started out with the intention of getting a certificate of some kind.
Tuition was low.If they were getting free books, the money came from somewhere else. We didn't provide books. Room and board were not an issue. Almost all lived at home. This was especially true of those who had jobs and wee taking job-related courses.
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