“Free” college

No rational person can oppose education for all. In addition, it is clear that few Americans can afford the cost of higher education without some assistance be it loans or grants.

Many years ago I attended two different community colleges and then a state college. I was not a kid, I was in my 30s married with children. My education from those institutions was pathetic. The instructors were horrible and many displayed a “who cares” attitude. In short, it was pretty much a waste of time and money ( your money by the way since I received VA benefits for some of the tuition) except I ended up with a piece of paper saying I had a Bachelor’s Degree. Interestingly, after all these years the first county college I attended remains near the bottom of the ranking list with only a 21% student success rate. That doesn’t say much after forty years and it also doesn’t say much for the motivation or qualifications of the students either. Score one for inequality.

First, do we really want to encourage free anything? Affordable based on circumstances sure, but free to anyone seems to open the door to people with no skin in the game so to speak. Somewhat along the lines of free health care where we are going in the opposite direction.

Where this idea has been implemented there is a very high utilization rate, but that doesn’t mean success? The President’s proposal contains several caveats to assure serious students and to some extent better quality colleges. That is important because getting even a modest 2.5 GPA at a school like those I attended is meaningless. Saying there will be quality measures is not making them work.

Not all community colleges are equal so it is important not to just throw cash at a goal and walk away assuming success. Here is an evaluation of the Nation’s community colleges; it doesn’t appear too encouraging. Let’s hope we do not throw good money after bad.

I am always leery of government projects such as this because of the bureaucracy involved, but this initiative is worth a try. We can only hope it’s done right. But there is more to be done. As with health care, subsidizing the cost of a service is only part of the equation, we also need to address the reasons for the underlying costs, in this case tuition costs.

We seem to live in a world of “free” stuff for everyone. I sure hope we don’t run out of other people’s money.

In a recent Rasmussen poll, voters tend to like President Obama’s idea of free community college for millions of students – as long as it doesn’t cost them anything.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a new government program that would make community college tuition-free. Thirty-nine percent (39%) are opposed. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided.

Say what? As long as it doesn’t cost them anything? Are people really that stupid? Really?