Posted on 01/11/2015 11:32:49 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
As someone who has spent over 15 years teaching at community colleges, I cannot think of a worse idea than President Obama’s proposal for the federal government to provide “free” community college tuition nationwide. Here’s why:
Nothing in life is “free”: The lesson we should be teaching our students is that nothing of value is free. “Free community college” for students translates into “a tax increase for somebody else.” Who is going to pay for the billions of dollars it will cost to provide “free” tuition at community colleges, which are heavily subsidized by taxpayers already? College should be affordable, but students need to responsibly shoulder most of the cost.
The federal government has no business in education: Article 1, Sec. 8 of the Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government. Education is not one of them. The 10th Amendment stipulates that all powers not granted to the federal government belong to the states – and this includes education from kindergarten through graduate school. States are perfectly capable of maintaining community colleges without interference from federal bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and all the strings they will invariably attach to the “free” program.
You get what you pay for: If community college becomes “free,” it will attract even more unserious students than the ones already enrolled in community colleges. Anecdotally, I’d say that about half the students in community colleges are not ready for college-level work. (I worked at one community college in which the department that offered the most course sections of any department on campus was the remedial education department.) Many students enroll in community colleges simply because they were handed a high-school diploma based on grade inflation and social promotion and have no clue what to do next. Fall semesters tend to produce the worst students...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Obama’s Free Community College = Strings that strangle
Why not just give some people other people’s money to invest in the stock market? Same principle.
Just another thing to federalize. Jeb and Boner will go for it.
Personally, I think we already waste too much money on people who have no business going anywhere near a college campus. Just give them a diploma and call that good.
FTA: “Many students enroll in community colleges simply because they were handed a high-school diploma based on grade inflation and social promotion and have no clue what to do next. Fall semesters tend to produce the worst students; many simply disappear without a trace after a few weeks.”
I saw this happen in CA around 1980 when tuition was almost free. Kids didn’t know what to do after high school, so they just enrolled in community college. They didn’t study and they hung around until they took their mid-terms. When they saw their flunking grades, they dropped out. About 50% had dropped out by midway through the Fall term. What a waste!!
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/obama_free_community_college_proposal_is_ridiculous.html#ixzz3OXnBsaWL
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The Germans shunt many of those folks to trade school and apprenticeships. Seems to work. Ever met a poor plumber? Or they could go into sales and make more than most professionals, if they work hard.
My late father had to pay his own way through Chaffee College in his late forties. Did so well (without a high school diploma) that he was hired by an instructor.
You are DEAD on. I am one of those!
I agree. The DemocRATS are idiots. College IS NOT for everybody. Many people have no business being there. All Barry wants is to provide two more years of programming for the young skulls full of mush by the DNC’s Marxist programmers.
Trades has always been a decent living, and something that isn’t easily outsourced to the third world.
But these days most youts are really honed in on a white collar career mentality - at least the ones who don’t immediately join the entitlement army out of hs.
I think it’s because they’re playing computer based games instead of doing hands-on stuff.
Free or subsidized Community College will drive the cost over the horizon. When the feds started putting money out for college attendance either through grants or student loans, the cost of going to college went out of sight. The schools and the profs climbed aboard the gravy train as the students had more money for college. In 1964, it cost me about $1200 a year to attend Colorado State university. Can’t do a quarter or semester there now for that.
Much of what auto and diesel mechanics do, for one example, is computers in these times. I think they have the somewhat mistaken notion that “white collar” pays better when in fact, the reverse is true in many cases. Or maybe they worry they’ll be looked down upon by their peers.
I’d like to view this as a call to arms, sotospeak, for conservatives to obtain/renew their teaching credentials and flood into our CCs in adequate numbers to combat the liberals waiting with open arms to indoctrinate young adults into socialism. It may be a golden opportunity in disguise to reclaim our education system, handed to us on a silver platter by Zero.
The problem with that system is that it locks people into rigid tracks based off of few test scores. If your talents go one direction but your test score falls one point on the wrong side, forget about it. While one does get to catch up, but not without great amounts of time and pressure not to do so.
In the US system, honors tracks generally consider performance over time as admission criteria. This provides a failsafe against a bad measurement taken at a given time (whether good or bad).
As for the trades path in the US, how well is that being sold as a line of good skilled work with upward career development opportunity as opposed to being seen as choice of reluctance with not much advancement? Doing that well would be more preferable than relying on the government to shunt people over.
You know, if people went to trade school and worked during their twenties, then deciding on university in their thirties I believe most universities would revert to their original purpose and would weed out those who go husband hunting and it would weed out those who go just to extend their high school glory years.
The students entering the community college system around here are mostly being remediated. What we need are high school diplomas that mean something!
I’d like to view this as a call to arms, sotospeak, for conservatives to obtain/renew their teaching credentials and flood into our CCs in adequate numbers to combat the liberals waiting with open arms to indoctrinate young adults into socialism.
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Interesting idea but the liberals control hiring and won’t hire conservatives (interview questions and web searches etc. to weed us out) and then have gone on record as snickering that conservatives are underrepresented in academia because conservatives are not intellectually inclined and are indifferent learning and adverse to science etc.
My step-daughter went to college. Step-son had no interest, wouldn’t have taken a free trip to Harvard if it has been offered. She is a veterinary assistant. He is a damned good auto mechanic. Care to guess who makes more money?
I have a Libertarian bumper sticker “Just because you didn’t pay for it doesn’t mean it was free”. In this case, I will get to pay for it and it damn-sure ain’t “free”.
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