I’m sure many students around the United States have heard the recent news that President Barack Obama intends to offer two years’ tuition of community college for free. Maybe you’re ecstatic that such a thing could happen; maybe you’re beyond frustrated this could happen because you’ve already graduated or are halfway done with your postsecondary education. Whichever emotion you’re experiencing, you first have to know the facts in order to state which position you hold on this free college debate if you plan on having an intelligent debate on the topic.
There should be guidelines for an idea as revolutionary as this one. One guideline I would suggest is to look at a student’s high school transcript and weed out any student who has maintained a GPA below 3.0. However, the program only requires students to maintain a 2.5.
The White House’s official website states that, “America thrived in the 20th century in large part because we had the most educated workforce in the world. But other nations have matched or exceeded the secret to our success. Today, more than ever, Americans need more knowledge and skills to meet the demands of a growing global economy.”
Really, who can blame Obama for wanting to give us the upper hand? People who earn college degrees should be making more than someone who works at a lower-skilled job.
The website also declares that “the America’s College Promise proposal would create a new partnership with states to help them waive tuition in high-quality programs for responsible students, while promoting key reforms to help more students complete at least two years of college.”
These community colleges will also have to offer programs that will completely transfer or are “occupational training programs” that will end up with the student attaining a degree with high demand. Other types of programs will not be eligible for free tuition, but the website does not specify which programs exactly.
This free college thing doesn’t sound so bad. Right? There’s a slight problem.
Who is supposed to pay for this?
The federal government will provide three-quarters of the “average cost” of community college. What about the other quarter? The states who will have free community college will be paying the remaining cost, while also committing “to continue existing investments in higher education,” and a whole other slew of investments in other scholarly matters. NBC News reports that the Obama administration estimates the cost of America’s College Promise to cost about $6 billion a year, a “small part of the…federal budget.”
In a country where our debt is over $18 trillion, according to the U.S. National Debt Clock, how does the government expect to pay for free college?
Obviously nothing in life is free. So who is paying for free two-year colleges?
