Free Community College is a Bad Idea

[Ogbin]

It is a bad idea.. but after all it's not his money he's spending, so what does he care as long as he and the democratic party look good. All he seems to be good at is bribing the American public (and illegal immigrants) for votes by giving everything they want, or at least everything that they want to hear. Quite pathetic really, and sad because the public seems to fall for it.

[questionmark]

There are programs like that already. I had nothing left to do my senior year of high school after noon, but they wouldn't just let me go home either, so I took a three hour elective learning automotive mechanics down the street. Some students did this for two years, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to just add a 13th grade and give them a six hour school day instead of a three.

Where it is done and how seems quite irrelevant to me, if it gets done.

[spartan max2]

Community colleges do get an unfair stigma.

But as for free college my main concern is the degree becoming worthless. If 4 years are free then wouldn't it just become as useful as a G.E.D from highschool? Making everyone have to go for a P.H.D to be vauled .Simple supply and demand.

And the unfair fact that if someone does not want to go to college you are now paying for everyone else for the rest of your life. Good luck affording to live off that. Talk about income inequality.

And our debt would just rise even more become of all the new buerocrats we would have to pay and the fact colleges would increase cost all the time because they know it is garuntieed to be paid for. Plus new corruption of goverment offical siphoning off funds.

Plus the added taxes making it even harder to run a small business making it harder to find a job

Edited January 14, 2015 by spartan max2

[BiffSplitkins]

My daughter went to community college for free, in fact she got 'paid' to go to school.

How did she do that you ask? She applied herself throughout her prior schooling and earned a few scholarships doing so. She searched for grants and got those as well. Between the scholarships and grants she actually had more funding than the actual tuition costs. Free community college education is nothing new, you just need to know how to get it.

Edited January 14, 2015 by BiffSplitkins

[Rafterman]

My daughter went to community college for free, in fact she got 'paid' to go to school.

How did she do that you ask? She applied herself throughout her prior schooling and earned a few scholarships doing so. She searched for grants and got those as well. Between the scholarships and grants she actually had more funding than the actual tuition costs. Free community college education is nothing new, you just need to know how to get it.

Exactly. And there are other methods as well. It's been a few years since I saw the article that had the numbers on this, but there are millions in unawarded grants and scholarships annually.

[DarkHunter]

Exactly. And there are other methods as well. It's been a few years since I saw the article that had the numbers on this, but there are millions in unawarded grants and scholarships annually.

There may be millions of dollars in unawarded grants and scholarships but it isn't that easy to get most of it. First you got to go through all of the ones for minorities and special interest groups, which is time consuming on its own. Once you find out which ones you actually qualify for you then either got to start writing essays, getting letters of recommendations, or whatever they require. After you do all of that it normally ends up being around $500 to $1000. I am only talking for myself and some close friends, but it simply ain't worth the time or energy to get the money.

Of course I never really needed the money, got around $80000 in scholarships that I didn't even try to get that where just awarded to me.

[F3SS]

Well aren't you the lucky one. The way Biff put it is legitimate. When freebies are just an automatic it is bound to delegitimize all that it encompasses.

[Michelle]

At least community colleges teach trades like welding, carpentry, plumbing and electrical so people can make themselves useful, if nowhere but their own homes.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Michelle

[aztek]

back in a days when i went to college, it was not hard to get a pal and tap grants, if you qualified, there was a financial aid dept right in school that would do all the paperwork, and there was many who got grants, not only their college bill was paid, but they got about $800 back since grants combined to greater amount than the bill, the refund was just in time for spring brake cancun trip, you would think people that got free college and even got paid another 800 once a year would study, yea right, lol, you could see all those people sitting in coffeteria all day long, like they never went to clases, same faces playing cards all day long. funny those "poor kid" drove nicer cars than those that were "too rich" for financial aid.

Edited January 14, 2015 by aztek

[Yamato]

We're already suffering from degree fatigue in this country. I can only imagine how much worse free college would make the problem

[Gromdor]

I was always a big fan of the idea of having high school graduates doing 2 yrs of community type service or the military if they didn't pursue higher education.

[F3SS]

I was always a big fan of the idea of having high school graduates doing 2 yrs of community type service or the military if they didn't pursue higher education.

That's not a bad outlook to be a fan of so long as you don't mean federally enforced.

[Yamato]

Health clubs teach people how to exercise and live healthier lives, why aren't they free? There's a million service organizations that add value to society, the question is whether or not they should be valued as free of charge, or whether their value should be priced according to free market principles.

[F3SS]

All of which should be left up to the free individual. Not each and every thing that is thought of or intended to be of benefit to ones life is going to be as important to each and every one. Make it free because it's important to me has no ending in a giant country.

[Yamato]

That's another way of saying the exact same thing, so yeah exactly.

In theory it's infinite. In practice there are limits. Education is free to an extent already because it's politically popular. Conversely, if you don't like anything that's politically popular, you're not going to get anything you like for free.

But then I pondered even more deeply and questioned why Education in particular is so politically popular to provide for free, especially when the provision of other important things in society like food and health care are so reviled. Whenever a politician gets up on a podium and starts talking about the plight of our poor dear children, that's a plug that's hard to ignore. I'm not surprised that the political excuse being used in marijuana reform today is using the exact same politics, of our precious little children having seizures. As if adults don't have seizures? What about that 55 year-old over there who's been having seizures his whole life? Pfft, nobody cares about him. The bureaucracy has been using our children as the reason not to legalize for generations now. So little wonder that it would take using the children as the scapegoats once again to change their minds the other way. Whenever they preach to us about our "education" it's the exact same pc shtick.

[Einsteinium]

We need more emphasis on technical education and apprenticeships, make college more affordable not free. Free will just lower the standards for everyone and make college the next high school diploma, university the next community college, masters degrees the next bachelors...etc

'Free' is never truly free.

[Stubbly_Dooright]

But as for free college my main concern is the degree becoming worthless. If 4 years are free then wouldn't it just become as useful as a G.E.D from highschool?

Good question. And I wonder if the G.E.D. will even exist in the future. I believe that it's not going to help you, if you want to enlist, well for some branches, I think. I was helping a customer the other day, that was looking for the HiSET, saying that his state doesn't except the GED as credible.

My daughter went to community college for free, in fact she got 'paid' to go to school.

How did she do that you ask? She applied herself throughout her prior schooling and earned a few scholarships doing so. She searched for grants and got those as well. Between the scholarships and grants she actually had more funding than the actual tuition costs. Free community college education is nothing new, you just need to know how to get it.

The community college I went to, I learned a lot. I had an adviser there who had some great advice. Told me, one is alright when they change their career fields more than once in their life, and taught me that it's ok to not be totally sure in what you want to do. I have also come to figure out, college, like anything, is what you make out of it. I think anyone who works and learns in anything they do, will be successful in it.

[Yamato]

When passions change, why shouldn't careers? Should college be free the 2nd time too when they want to change careers?

[F3SS]

That's a good question. Would this type of thing also make community college government institutions? And the staff government employees? I honestly don't know. I am afraid they'll set the curriculum though.

[F3SS]

To add to your question I would ask if community college would be free indefinitely. Not just as a second go around for a career change but what about people who will drop out and want return more than once? You know, the extremely indecisive or free spirited types. Or what about the guy who will change majors every year for a decade? Those may not be huge considerations but considerations nonetheless. They will exist.

[aztek]

just heard on the radio, according to Forbes, 50% of college graduates are working in fields that do not require college degree.

[Yamato]

edit;

I would be interested to see what this charming peach has to say about socialized capital punishment....which is not really free, as the tax payers have to pay to incarcerate, put on trial and then foot the bill just to kill a man. Outrageous! The executed should finance their own execution and trials! If our society wants you dead for your crimes, you should pay for your fair share! All of it.

No more socialized capital punishment!

She's not against "free" community college because society wants it, a supposition on your part that hasn't even been established yet. She's not even against "free college" for that matter. I'm sure she'd support scholarships, raffles, honoraries, audits, et al. This is about "free" community college from Washington DC.

Why would this Genius of a charming peach Julie Borowski of all people accept the logic that individuals should be forced to do what society wants them to do? She wouldn't. And because your supposition is so mistaken, so is your conclusion. She doesn't even support capital punishment period. I've been wondering about the cognitive dissonance in American voters for a long time, particularly conservatives. They can't trust the government to do much of anything, but decide on matters of life and death, well sure why not? Gotta be tough on crime I guess huh?

People do pay their share, either in taxes or out of their own pocket. Unless you're going to complain about people paying for things themselves or minutia in the tax code, that's just rhetoric. Other people argue that we should 86 the current tax system altogether in favor of a "fair tax". How "fair" is that?

[charmcph]

Ok here's an ideal, why not put vocational trades back into public schools? We use to have this when I went to school, long time ago

Now public schools don't have or can't afford keeping these, like auto mechanics, carpentry, computer, secretary, electrical, .. these are just a few.

But teach our children a trade before they leave public schools, giving them a chance at a trade before they become an adult and thrown out into the world and told ither go to college or get a no end job for the rest of your life. Not all parents can afford to send their kids to college or not all kids are "Equal" in those ... scholar ship programs!

Our schools can't even keep music, or art classes open! Yes I know bigger cities still may have, but not all schools do!

Just seems that teaching our kids a trade before they leave public schools (which we already spend taxes on) would out way the bill for building new "free" college, "cough" like free health care ...coughhhh!!

Just an old women thoughts, ..... yes old girl, spelling and or grammer not the best .. but sure can be read and understood .. without a college degree! ;P

[Yamato]

They don't have any vocational courses in public high schools anymore? I was taught a trade before I finished high school (two semesters, three hour days). Granted this was over a decade ago but why would present-day curricula not have room for such courses? I took shop every chance I could it was by far the funnest class I ever took in high school and I learned a lot too. We designed jet powered cars one semester from drawing board to racetrack and raced them as part of our final exam. I learned how to use (at least had my first contact with) pretty much every basic shop tool a carpenter will use to work with wood.

It'll be pretty sad if high schools don't offer this anymore. Maybe someone who's in the public education system now or who has kids currently enrolled can clear this question up. Have our school systems eradicated trade skills from their curricula or not? If they have, that'll be really sad and I can only guess why. ---> Made in Japan/China/Korea/Taiwan/Malaysia/Indonesia/Philippines/India/Vietnam etc. etc. etc. An American's real job in the economy these days is to consume. To consume and obey, should be our motto.

[Guest Br Cornelius]

Vocational training when carried out properly is a full time apprenticeship over 3-5 years. At the end you are that rare thing, a fully qualified engineer or specialist in your chosen field.

A vocational course slotted into high school isn't going to cut it in the modern world.Vocations are highly specialized jobs where to even become a car mechanic requires a level of knowledge equal to a degree.

This is how Germany does vocational qualifications and this is why Germany still has the best engineering and manufacturing sector in the world. This is a sector which has consistently grown as part of the economy despite economic recessions and why Germany rules the world in terms of heavy engineering, car manufacturing and consumer goods manufacturing.

The mentality that vocational education is something you can tag onto a normal school education is the reason why the USA is falling behind in everything technical (other than military hardware).

Br Cornelius