Community college should be free but not universities

[UglyCasanova]

I’d absolutely be for this. I’m watching last nights debate and one lady (not sure of her name) mentioned that and I think it’s a wonderful idea. We’d be incentivizing people for learning skills that will actually earn them money, not every is made for 4 year colleges. It would help on income inequality in my opinion, instead of simply having no marketable skills we would have the opportunities for them to change that.

Funneling people into 4 year colleges who don’t belong here don’t do anyone any good except for the pocketbooks of the colleges themselves. It lowers the caliber of the student base and strains resources at the universities. All for a misguided idea that they even need to be there in the first place. By going to a community college and learning practical skills and not wasting several years where many would eventually drop out and have lost that income earning time as well.

 

[Dulanic]

Agree. There is also nothing wrong with 2 years then transferring. It can save a lot of money.

 

[Greenman]

Isn't CC already nearly free? My daughter attended some years back and I recall it being very inexpensive.

 

[alcoholbob]

Or you can do it like in Asia. College is 100% free, but the standards are high, only the very smart or the very hard working get in. That way the government gets a high return on investment, since those people will earn more and pay more taxes. The rest of people can go into trades or going to community college.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Much cheaper than colleges but without support I imagine the costs could be prohibitive to poor people. Make it free so those barriers even though they are small aren’t there. They can still work at a gas station or restaurant or whatever they do and still can better themselves.

 

[senseamp]

I don't think we need too much college. Uneducated people are easier to manage and ask fewer questions.

 

[FirNaTine]

I don't mind 2 free years of community college for those unsure of what they're looking to do.

I also don't mind the equivalent of an public state college/university in qualified programs. Basically take input from Department of Labor on what areas are in demand and would return a net positive for everyone. STEM obviously would figure heavily, but not exclusively.

But, don't sleep on trade schools and programs either. I have a lot of vocational training roughly two years college with several professional certs, but outearn (by a significant margin) the average worker with a graduate degree, and I don't have student debt. Because I've spent a lot of time (18+ years experience) in a high stress, somewhat dangerous field (though much better than it used to be at traumatic death on the job, long term risk of death due to things we're exposed to on the job is still pretty high.)

 

[UglyCasanova]

But, don't sleep on trade schools and programs either.

Certainly, I agree 100%. Encourage and funnel people into educational training where they learn real skills. Things that make them marketable.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The first university was established in Spain -- the University of Salamanca. It was -- probably more or less -- a collaboration of the Spanish crown and the church. It's purpose was simple: to create an environment in an institution for the purpose of finding or discovering "The Truth".

Today, people demean the idea of degrees in the humanities, but those graduates can go on to get jobs as translators, employees of publishing houses, journalists, writers. Right-wingers tend to think that the only value of a college education is limited to graduates of engineering programs -- practical fields which deal with material reality and industrial production.

Well, how about "high energy physics"? I know a lot of people who are not too prosperous today, but who -- like myself -- fell for the Sputnik craze of the late 50s. "We're all going to be scientists". I could have finished my degree in Chemistry, and I would've been employed down the highway at Sunkist titrating orange juice. Or I might have gone to work for an oil company. Or I might have been chief metallurgist at Kaiser Steel, until the day I refused to approve some defective steel beams as meeting a required spec, and I would've been fired.

The latest college scandal -- you've all read about it -- is almost a straw breaking the camel's back. On the surface, we have standards for admission, and supposedly aspiring students of limited means can find a seat in a good university if they have a good high-school record, good SATs, and a range of other attributes. But? No. They get sidelined, with the favor going to some movie actress's daughter and a bribe of millions to a college official.

We wanted to seek the Truth? That's the Truth.

I think millennials today deserve the same opportunities I had in California during the 1960s. My undergraduate and graduate education at UC was almost free, except for a couple hundred dollars per semester after then-governor Reagan imposed his "tuition" plan. Robert McNamara, Kennedy's Defense Secretary, went to Berkeley for $25 per semester in the 1920s. My tuition in 1967 was only about six times that amount.

So -- sure -- free community college. But I look at UC tuition today, and wonder how we got to this state of affairs. These kids are paying something between $4,000 and $10,000 per year to attend a UC campus. This isn't the America that was so "great" when I was young and full of beans.

 

[FirNaTine]

The first university was established in Spain -- the University of Salamanca. It was -- probably more or less -- a collaboration of the Spanish crown and the church. It's purpose was simple: to create an environment in an institution for the purpose of finding or discovering "The Truth".

Today, people demean the idea of degrees in the humanities, but those graduates can go on to get jobs as translators, employees of publishing houses, journalists, writers. Right-wingers tend to think that the only value of a college education is limited to graduates of engineering programs -- practical fields which deal with material reality and industrial production.

Well, how about "high energy physics"? I know a lot of people who are not too prosperous today, but who -- like myself -- fell for the Sputnik craze of the late 50s. "We're all going to be scientists". I could have finished my degree in Chemistry, and I would've been employed down the highway at Sunkist titrating orange juice. Or I might have gone to work for an oil company. Or I might have been chief metallurgist at Kaiser Steel, until the day I refused to approve some defective steel beams as meeting a required spec, and I would've been fired.

The latest college scandal -- you've all read about it -- is almost a straw breaking the camel's back. On the surface, we have standards for admission, and supposedly aspiring students of limited means can find a seat in a good university if they have a good high-school record, good SATs, and a range of other attributes. But? No. They get sidelined, with the favor going to some movie actress's daughter and a bribe of millions to a college official.

We wanted to seek the Truth? That's the Truth.

I think millennials today deserve the same opportunities I had in California during the 1960s. My undergraduate and graduate education at UC was almost free, except for a couple hundred dollars per semester after then-governor Reagan imposed his "tuition" plan. Robert McNamara, Kennedy's Defense Secretary, went to Berkeley for $25 per semester in the 1920s. My tuition in 1967 was only about six times that amount.

So -- sure -- free community college. But I look at UC tuition today, and wonder how we got to this state of affairs. These kids are paying something between $4,000 and $10,000 per year to attend a UC campus. This isn't the America that was so "great" when I was young and full of beans.

I would not recommend most humanities fields to any student coming out of high school right now, especially if you think of that as leading to translation/publishing/media as a career field.

Those areas are rapidly dying due to technological changes. As machine learning is focused more on natural language, a fair bit of routine (non-critical) translation work is being handed over to Google, etc. And media outlets are consolidating and/or dying at a rapid rate. I personally know several reporters/photojournalists that were downsized right out of the field into other industries.

I'm not saying everyone has to have a technical degree, or something related to production. Just that you need to focus on something that will likely still be growing and developing 10-20 years down the road.

I don't mean that to be demeaning at all of humanities. In fact after watching the Democratic debates tonight, I'd love to see everyone have a little more training in classical rhetoric/philosophy. If I played a drinking game of doing a shot every time a logical fallacy was used, I'd have been drunk in minutes (and I'm not saying only Democrats do that, as I find most politicians in general do that. Some *individuals* more than others but I don't wish to make it a partisan thing.) I'd love the general public to be able to critically analyze what they're listening to instead of just "feeling."

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I would not recommend most humanities fields to any student coming out of high school right now, especially if you think of that as leading to translation/publishing/media as a career field.

Those areas are rapidly dying due to technological changes. As machine learning is focused more on natural language, a fair bit of routine (non-critical) translation work is being handed over to Google, etc. And media outlets are consolidating and/or dying at a rapid rate. I personally know several reporters/photojournalists that were downsized right out of the field into other industries.

I'm not saying everyone has to have a technical degree, or something related to production. Just that you need to focus on something that will likely still be growing and developing 10-20 years down the road.

I don't mean that to be demeaning at all of humanities. In fact after watching the Democratic debates tonight, I'd love to see everyone have a little more training in classical rhetoric/philosophy. If I played a drinking game of doing a shot every time a logical fallacy was used, I'd have been drunk in minutes (and I'm not saying only Democrats do that, as I find most politicians in general do that. Some *individuals* more than others but I don't wish to make it a partisan thing.) I'd love the general public to be able to critically analyze what they're listening to instead of just "feeling."

But my point was that we now consider a university degree and its educational experience as merely a form of job training. That had never been part of the original idea of a university. A university degree in any number of fields -- science and engineering, social science, the humanities -- is supposed to prove that the graduate has become a self-learner. A self-learner should also be someone who can show progress in sorting out the Truth. But it is an attribute that employers across the board would value in a prospective employee.

It just seems to me that as a culture, we have more and more come to value only the material -- material acquisitions, the latest automobiles, the bigger house, the bigger salary. These are things that drove me myself for a good part of my life. And these are the things that have also frustrated those Americans who leaned toward the Trump candidacy. In their frustration and anger, they were blind to their responsibility as citizens and the common sense that must inform that responsibility.

I just finished a post over at the "Garage" forum, about the problem of finding a "master mechanic" you can trust for the long term. But I find that everyone is motivated by the quick buck -- to sell unnecessary service, to fall short of doing quality work. This is "The Age of Trump" -- with phony universities and Trump's own "university scam". We have a neurosurgeon turned politician and appointed to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He knows nothing -- absolutely nothing of the agency's mission, programs and the statutory basis of those programs, and he's shown his venality by using government money to lavishly furnish his office. His testimony before congress in recent months was an embarrassment and a disaster. He's totally out of his depth. What good is he? He went to school to become a neurosurgeon, and now he's just an albatross hanging around the neck of the taxpayer.

A true education provides a lot more in value that cannot be measured in dollars, and we have lost a sense of that fact. If we provide some direction toward "almost free" access to a college education, it would seem a shame that the only purpose of such a goal would be to simply make it a job-training program.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I have no problem with starting local, and if choose to go on then state uni's free also. I also agree to not neglect the trades, as those are what we rely on for much of our lives.

 

[BoomerD]

I'd support serious aptitude and interest testing. (not the couple of hours crap currently done)
Then, if the testing indicates/supports it, free 2 years of community college or trade school...
College and office-type jobs aren't for everyone.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I'd support serious aptitude and interest testing. (not the couple of hours crap currently done)
Then, if the testing indicates/supports it, free 2 years of community college or trade school...
College and office-type jobs aren't for everyone.

I mean, you're kinda saying two different things here IMO, by lumping trade school in with college.

 

[dank69]

Assuming someone goes to CC for 2 years and then a university for 2 years, making CC free will save that student maybe $6,000 out of a total bill of $100,000.

 

[BoomerD]

I mean, you're kinda saying two different things here IMO, by lumping trade school in with college.

Re-read my post. College OR trade school IF the testing supports it. No sense sending a kid to college if that's not his thing...same with the trades.

 

[woolfe9998]

Any school system wanting federal funding should have a required high school level course in critical reasoning and logic. Like the one I took in college.

Yes, I agree that community college and trade schools should be free. Tuition at community colleges is "low" - like $1,000-$1,500 per year, but even that is a hardship for the poor.

As for universities, there are many things we can do to help short of paying the full freight which is too expensive.

 

[K1052]

Tuition is only one relatively small part of it. The rates of housing and food insecurity for community college students are quite high.

The government would need to let (by overriding local zoning control) CCs and trade schools build high density dorms and provide the funding to do so.

 

[nakedfrog]

Any school system wanting federal funding should have a required high school level course in critical reasoning and logic. Like the one I took in college.

Yes, I agree that community college and trade schools should be free. Tuition at community colleges is "low" - like $1,000-$1,500 per year, but even that is a hardship for the poor.

As for universities, there are many things we can do to help short of paying the full freight which is too expensive.

The main community college here is $4,000 plus $2,000 for books. For a year, 45 credit hours.

 

[woolfe9998]

The main community college here is $4,000 plus $2,000 for books. For a year, 45 credit hours.

That's quite high for community college. Our local cc's here in California are $50 per semester unit. So a typical load of 12 units would run $600 for the semester, $1200 per year.

Books are another matter, however. Those texts run about $150 apiece on average. So for three courses that's another $450 per semester.

 

[nakedfrog]

That's quite high for community college. Our local cc's here in California are $50 per semester unit. So a typical load of 12 units would run $600 for the semester, $1200 per year.

Books are another matter, however. Those texts run about $150 apiece on average. So for three courses that's another $450 per semester.

That's why I looked it up, I saw you quote the $1,000-1,500 number, and I remembered it being quite a bit higher here from when my older kid was taking classes.

 

[BoomerD]

That's quite high for community college. Our local cc's here in California are $50 per semester unit. So a typical load of 12 units would run $600 for the semester, $1200 per year.

Books are another matter, however. Those texts run about $150 apiece on average. So for three courses that's another $450 per semester.

When I went to community college in CA, (2007-2009) tuition was $20/unit, textbooks were still $450-$600/semester...and some books were required...yet never used once during the semester.
Having a "book loan or rent" program would help with those outrageous costs. Make each student responsible for replacement costs if the textbook is lost, stolen, or damaged. (most of mine weren't "resalable" at the end of the semester because I'm a prolific "highlighter.") I STILL have all my accounting textbooks and a few others.

 

[JSt0rm]

I don't think we need too much college. Uneducated people are easier to manage and ask fewer questions.

yeah. The last thing I need are educated white southern racists. Too hard to manage like that.

 

[alcoholbob]

When I went to community college in CA, (2007-2009) tuition was $20/unit, textbooks were still $450-$600/semester...and some books were required...yet never used once during the semester.
Having a "book loan or rent" program would help with those outrageous costs. Make each student responsible for replacement costs if the textbook is lost, stolen, or damaged. (most of mine weren't "resalable" at the end of the semester because I'm a prolific "highlighter.") I STILL have all my accounting textbooks and a few others.

I'm sure $5 trillion of quantitative easing had some effect on the prices of so many things rising. When I bought my condo in 2012 it was around $280,000. It's now worth over $800k. I remember a ton of stuff was super cheap back then.

 

[Azurik]

There's no such thing as free. If you want community college to be free, it has to be paid somehow (more taxes).

The other risk you run into is that everyone goes to CC after graduation, even those who are not even serious about school and just wants to coast by (it's free, so why not).

I agree that higher education is expensive and we need to find solutions to make it affordable for folks. We also need to have programs out there for high school drop-outs and graduates who don't want to go to college - learn skill-sets that they can build a respectable career from.