DEBATE Q for SBS: Wouldn’t his free tuition plan INCREASE inequality, while HRC’s would REDUCE it?
The White White House and HRC have an affordable $6-billion a year proposal to make community college free.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-white-house-unveils-america-s-college-promise-proposal-tuitio
Though the proposal is not limited by family income, the vast majority of the $6 billion would go to poor working people, since most of the wealthy and upper middle extend the adolescence of their offspring by boarding them at 4-year schools to which the output of struggling urban public schools cannot readily gain admission.
Doing free CC, but not free 4 YC, would be the 21st Century equivalent of making high school free decades ago.
The Harvard economic historian Claudia Goldin has showed how that effort was a highly cost-effective way to spur economic growth by allowing human capital to keep up with technological progress in industry. But here comes Bernie again, ignoring all the subtleties of policy to "buy" a large voting block.
Look at the numbers
The Atlantic says, at
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/the-genius-of-obamas-two-year-college-proposal/384429/
“wealthy students outnumber poor students at the most selective four-year colleges by 14 to one, while community colleges educate twice as many low-income students as high-income students”
And costs per year at 4-year public colleges average twice what they are at community colleges:
“The annual tuition at public community colleges is $3,260, less than half the $8,890 average in-state tuition at public four- year institutions. Obama’s initiative would reduce community-college tuition costs to zero for students across the economic spectrum—a plan that would cost the federal government $60 billion over 10 years.”
These figures are just for tuition, not including unaffordable room, board, and transportation back home costs for poor students. Community college students are unlikely to go to school away from home and thus do not incur those costs.
IMO, Bernie’s proposal for free tuition for four year colleges is unaffordable, would increase income inequality, and just doesn’t add up. Why isn’t anyone calling him out on his apparent cynical effort to “buy” well-off white millennial votes with tax money Congress never will appropriate?
= new reply since forum marked as read
I say, "Berniesplain this!"
I'm assuming that SBS's plan is just cynical hot-air milennial-bait, while the Obama-HRC APC is entirely feasible at $6 bilion a year. Further, IMO APC would withstand the same scrutiny for effect on economic growth Claudia Goldin and her husband gave to free high school: (see their "The Race Between Education and Technology"
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Even if Bernie's plan somehow got enacted, takeup of four-year public college would be much lower for poor students than for the wealthy because (1) they don't have money for clothing, room, board, and transportation, needed unless their parents happen to live in one or two public college towns; (2) their inadequately funded urban high schools don't prepare them to be admitted at remotely the same rate; (3) even if they do somehow get in, they are likely to be snubbed by their peers, stereotyped and discriminated against by their professors, and never graduate. No diploma, no big buck salaries.
Did you click through the link in the OP? Here's a relevant snippet:
"Today, there is an enormous degree of economic stratification in higher education. According to research by Anthony Carnevale and Jeff Strohl of Georgetown University, wealthy students outnumber poor students at the most selective four-year colleges by 14 to one, while community colleges educate twice as many low-income students as high-income students. Moreover, their research finds that, between 1982 and 2006, the proportion of students from the richest quarter of the population attending community colleges has declined, while those attending from the poorest quarter has increased."
The Atlantic article is not entitled, "The Genius ... " for nothing
re:
"Would you at least agree with me that such a development would Ted to worsen the income gap between children of the non-poor and children of the poor?"
First thing I'll note is that, in your other posts to me, you talked about poor vs. "rich" or "wealthy" -- and here you're talking about poor vs. "non-poor" which is a slightly different scenario (as there are many "non-poor" who also do not qualify as "rich" or "wealthy" . The reason this is relevant is that I do not believe that free college affects the behavior of the rich AT ALL, since cost is simply not a factor in whether or not their kids go to college. This made it very simple to show that free college would not worsen the income gap you had been talking about, because the increase in earning potential to the rich from this program is pretty much non-existant. In that case, even if only one poor person increases his income from free college, you've already reduced the income gap between children of rich and poor!
Talking about "non-poor" rather than "rich" or "wealthy" means the conversation requires slightly more nuance, since there are many people in the middle whose decision about college may indeed be influenced by cost. In short, free college (both in its 2 year and 4 year varieties) would reduce the income gap between the rich and the poor, and it would also reduce the income gap between the rich and the middle class. How these things would affect the gap between the poor and the middle class would require detailed statistical analysis. Even if free college helps the middle class more, I would expect it to produce its greatest benefit among those in the lower range of the middle class. As you start looking at people of more means, it is increasingly likely that their kids are already going to four year schools, and a free college program does not further increase the earnings potential of those who are going to college anyway.
I would say that anything that increases the earnings potential of the poor AND of the middle class (with more benefit to the lower than upper strata of the middle class) is a good thing.
The issue at hand is that the ratio of rich kids on campus to poor kids is 14 to 1.
1. He doesn't accept that, given living expenses, no tuition is better than tuition.
2. He doesn't accept there are opposing forces at work: more students applying to 4-year college vs. class size limits (i.e., a university only admits 1000 of the 15,000 students that apply). Only admissions policy will mete this out.
3. His central theme is "poor people can't afford" living expenses; he repeats it throughout the thread, so let's entertain this. He doesn't accept that, to improve the 14 to 1 ratio given above, the admissions office will be the driving force behind moving the ratio in the direction of 1 poorer kid for each rich kid. The rich kids, who can afford to relocate, will attend schools further from home whereas the poorer kids will be able to stay closer to home.
When all is lost, he pouts and says something pissy 
Where you whine like a little about the state of DU.
