What Works — and What Doesn’t — about Obama’s Free Community College Proposal

[unrepentant progress]

The author, a professor of English at Georgetown specializing in working-class studies, spends a considerable amount of time noting what she likes about Obama's proposal. These are just the two paragraphs of overt criticism.

tl;dr: She likes it, but it's not enough.

First, as Jack Metzgar and I have written here several times, while higher education usually does improve the economic opportunities for working-class individuals, it’s an inherently individual fix that ignores the larger problems that drive economic inequality: low wages for the majority of jobs, which require little or no education, and declining wages for almost everyone, including college grads. A College Board report touting the economic benefits of higher education includes a chart showing that for most workers, regardless of their education, wages have declined in real dollars since 1971*. In a few categories – women with Bachelor’s degrees and men with advanced degrees – wages in 2011 are about what they were in 1971. Everyone else has seen a drop, including about a $10,000 fall for men with four-year degrees. So while Obama, the College Board, and others are right that people improve their earning potential by getting a degree, such aspirational rhetoric too often distracts us from the larger and more challenging discussion of how to ensure that all workers earn a decent wage.

The other problem is simpler and more significant: the proposal will probably never become policy. It will cost an estimated $60 billion over ten years, and one-fourth of funds must come from the states. Neither the current Congress nor state legislatures will allocate that kind of money to higher education. According to the American Council on Education, state funding of higher education declining, and if the trend they traced starting in 1980 continues, “average state fiscal support for higher education will reach zero by 2059.” So much for making college free, or even affordable.

More: https://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/what-works-and-what-doesnt-about-obamas-free-community-college-proposal

*Chart referenced above. From the somewhat ironically named 2013 College Board report Education Pays.

[Blanks]

1. The thing that I wonder about...

Is whether this is a step toward creating a national college education policy.

Similar to federal funding on highways having an effect on the states drinking age. If the Feds are writing the check for tuition, they might influence curriculum by NOT funding programs that do not create employable people, and having a say over tuition bumps etc.

[unrepentant progress]

4. Double-edged sword, eh?

That's certainly a concern as I see it. It's also one of the reasons I oppose Common Core. I don't like the idea of a national curriculum. Communities and states should be able to determine how they want their children educated based on their values and needs (within reason). Yes, sometimes that results in idiotic or even harmful curricula but I think as long as one keeps a strong wall between church and state that outcome is minimized. Besides, we see how varied the curricula and pedagogies are which result in successful, well-educated young people including the many left wing home and un-schoolers.

[Starry Messenger]

2. I'm a critic of the Obama administration's education policy-but I'm having a hard time seeing

a downside to this proposal. Yes, college doesn't create jobs or translate into higher earning power, necessarily. But not all CC students are there to just get a degree or transfer.

[unrepentant progress]

5. Well, the two paragraphs I quoted are good reasons to dislike the proposal

But as the author notes, it's a step in the right direction. It's just too bad it will never come to pass.

[CK_John]

3. Without almost any more union apprenticeship we need CC to train the trades.

We need quality training so that we can start rebuilding our infrastructure, welders, electrician, plumbers, carpenters, etc.....