Vice President Biden:Weekly Address: Tuition-Free Community College

[cal04]

Source: White House

In this week’s address, the Vice President laid out his and the President’s plan to make two years of community college free for responsible students.

Access to higher education has a tangible impact on a student’s success: Those with an associate’s degree earn 25% more than folks who graduated high school, and those with a four-year degree make 70% more. Not only that, but a better educated citizenry is necessary to ensure that the United States continues to out-compete the rest of the world.

Making two years of community college free is good for workers, good for companies, and good for our economy. And this proposal is part of the President’s broader vision for middle-class economics: that everybody who works hard deserves their fair shot and the chance to get ahead.

Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/04/11/weekly-address-tuition-free-community-college

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Transcript
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/10/weekly-address-tuition-free-community-college

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Joe Biden and I’m here filling in for President Obama, who is traveling abroad.

And I’m here with a simple message: middle-class economics works.

(snip)
If two years of community college are free—and credits can transfer to a four-year university—that means the cost of a four-year degree will be cut in half for a lot of working families struggling to send their children to college, qualified children.

And under our plan, students from low-income families will be able to keep the benefits that flow from other financial aid, like Pell grants, to cover childcare, housing, transportation—costs that often keep them from attending class and completing a degree in the first place.

But here’s another key point. Not every good-paying job will require a two-year or four-year degree. Some of these jobs will require just a training certificate that can be earned in just a few months.

For example, you can go to an 18-week coding bootcamp—with no previous experience in computers—and become a computer programmer making up to $70,000 a year.

There are other jobs in fields like advanced manufacturing and energy that pay $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year—jobs you can raise a family on.

It’s a simple fact that community colleges are the most flexible educational institutions we have. I’ve traveled all over this country, from New York to Iowa to California, to see how community colleges create partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and local businesses to generate jobs; support apprenticeships with organized labor, and prepare hardworking students for good-paying jobs in the areas in which they live.

Making community colleges free is good for workers, it’s good for companies, and it’s good for our economy.

Here’s what we propose: Close loopholes for the wealthiest investors and levy a .07% fee on the biggest banks to discourage the kind of risky behavior that crashed our economy just a few years ago.

Doing just that would pay for free community college—and provide a leg up for working families through tax credits to cover necessities like childcare.

That’s what middle-class economics is all about—giving folks a fair chance to get ahead. A fair tax code. No guarantees. Just a fair chance.

It’s simple folks, two years of community college should become as free and as universal as high school is today if we’re to make this economic resurgence permanent and well into the 21st Century.

So I want to thank you all for listening. I hope you have a great weekend and God bless you all and may God protect our troops.

[jtuck004]

1. "For example, you can go to an 18-week coding bootcamp...

—with no previous experience in computers—and become a computer programmer making up to $70,000 a year.

There are other jobs in fields like advanced manufacturing and energy that pay $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year—jobs you can raise a family on.
..."

Yet too many continue to swell the ranks where they serve french fries and clean hotel rooms and call people to offer them purses made from exotic leathers.

Stop, damn it. There's another way...just follow Joe.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. K&R and thanks for posting!

Listened this morning and what was good about the presentation is that Joe provided some additional detail on the Community College initiative (the different options and pathways for it and where the funding would come from). The key being that for those who want to consider 4-year matriculation, he emphasized that this program would essentially cut that cost "in half" by having 2-year Community College (free) and then transfer to a traditional college for the remaining 2 years.

I also think that more funding needs to go to the local schools so that the high schools can partner with the Community Colleges to provide a clear path to a career - whether in the trades or to white collar positions.

[Igel]

3. I keep thinking this is a good idea.

Then I look at the kids that they're talking about--it's not "middle-class economics" because while the proposals start off including everybody, the funding discussed is eventually lowered to exclude a lot of "middle class". What's important is to include enough middle class to keep their support. It's really working and lower-class workers that are targeted.

Yet I look at the low SES kids I see every day and there's a horrible skew. My school offers pharmacy tech, welding, auto mechanics, etc., etc. Do auto tech for 3 years and when you graduate you can do a lot of routine mechanic work. Do the pharmacy tech internship your senior year and you get hired by pharmacies. It's a path to decent wages (after a few years on the job) that doesn't require going to a college or university.

Most kids in them are middle class or non-urban working class. Some of them have room for 20 kids and have maybe 5-8 kids signed up. Some courses have one class offered but the teacher could easily offer more. They're not in demand. And they're free.

And every year I have kids who were in my high-school classes coming back to say that they loafed in high school and now are in remedial ____________ in community college. One kid said she'd taken a year's worth of remedial classes so her 2-year degree would take at least 3. "Remedial classes should be free." And my response is that not only are they free, but there's a teacher who's job is to push you to learn the stuff when it is free. Instead, some of the students who complain the loudest after graduation were the disruptors in class when it was free.

And I'm still "out" on the entire issue of how to handle personal choices. A lot of problems some people have are choices; a lot of advantages others have are choices. It's one thing to provide equal opportunity. It's another to give second, third, fourth chances. Consequences matter; as soon as you decouple effect from cause, you've entered unpredictable territory. Not only do you subsidize bad choices, but the net perception is that you're penalizing good choices. (There's no point arguing reality at that point; for a lot of social effects what matters is entirely perception, with a deep-seated psychological need to pick and choose the data that support perception. Right or left, economic or societal, that's just how it works in a post-rationalist America.)

Another point worth making is that not all community college classes transfer credits. Nor should they. My first "real" college had in place a good system of vertical alignment: It wasn't just "what you learned in calculus you needed later", it was "what you'll need later will certainly be included in your calculus class." They rejected community college calculus credits because of this.

That screws up "the first two years transfer" blather. It works for some schools; it doesn't work for other schools. Depends on the quality of the community college and of the 4-year school and how it's organized its curriculum. What'll happen is that the students with the fewest opportunities will go to the weakest community colleges and there'll be a political fight over whether they can transfer to good schools. When they're allowed to, they'll suffer astronomically high drop-out rates (many do already), and that'll be another big political dust-up on the high-schoolification, standardized testing, politicization and federal control over colleges and universities.

[Larry Engels]

4. All community colleges used to be free.

And the problems you worry about were not serious.

[riderinthestorm]

5. Big K&R!!!! 100% spot on nt