What are your
thoughts about Barack Obama promising two years of “free community college” for
any student who maintains a “C” average?
The results of this promise comes at the expense of the tax payers? My first thought was “What is he
thinking? He has real nerve to ask me to
pay college expenses for anyone who desires the community college
experience!” My husband and all six of
our children paid their own college expenses by scholarships, grants, loans, or
work. Each of them has great appreciation
for what they accomplished and the knowledge they did it by themselves. In spite of all this, each of my children
plans to help their own children and do so by helping them save money for
college.
Lindsey Burke of The Heritage Foundation is not in favor of Mr. Obama’s
idea: “The administration’s proposal
begs certain questions. Low-income
students already have access to federal Pell Grants, which can be used to
finance their tuition obligations at a community college. Indeed, the number of Pell recipients has
doubled since 2008. So the proposal will
serve as little more than a federal handout to the community college system.
“And it’s a system that hasn’t
exactly produced stellar outcomes. Just
20 percent of students who begin community college each year complete their
program within 150 percent of the standard time, according to the U.S.
Department of Education….”
Ms. Burke quoted Neal McCluskey
at the Cato Institute: “According to the
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, only 20 percent of community
college students transfer to four-year schools, and only 72 percent of those
will have finished or remained enrolled four years later. So, from what we can tell, we are looking at
completion for just around 34 percent of community college students.”
These two quotes show that most
of the students at community colleges fail to complete their education for one
reason or another. If the public is
paying the cost of community college, how many people will go for the “college
experience” without any intention of getting an education? I
simply do not like the idea!
I thought this administration
was all about “fairness.” How can Mr.
Obama consider this idea to be fair when millions, possibly even billions of
students have paid their own way through college only to have to turn around
and pay the college costs for other people?
How will it help today’s college students when community college costs
began to soar simply because the government got involved in education?
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