Should community college tuition be free? Walter G. Bumphus, the President/CEO, American Association of Community Colleges, believes so. According to him, “The Obama administration's proposed America's College Promise plan stands to increase access to these educational opportunities and is a crucial investment not only in the future of these students, but in the country's future… America's College Promise proposal for “free” community college is not a handout. Rather, it is an investment in education and would have substantial economic and social benefits.” Bumphus states the cost for investing in this proposal would be less than 10 percent of the Department of Education annual budget, and “less than 3 percent of all annual federal expenditures”. …show more content…
One of his reasons is college tuition is never free because someone [taxpayers] will have to foot the bill. He also brings up the point “Students from moderately affluent middle-class families attending community college can usually afford the generally modest tuition. Why should a sophomore who is attending a four-year college have to pay tuition, but a similar second-year student at a community college not have to?” He argues “The three-year graduation rate of full-time students is 31 percent; that figure may be understated because of data limitations, but the true dropout rate is almost certainly greater than the graduation rate.” He suggests that if community colleges already have such a high dropout rate, why should it be funded, it would be a waste of taxpayer’s money. Furthermore, according to The New York Federal Reserve Bank and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, as well as utilizing data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vedder says, “Half of four-year college graduates are underemployed — doing jobs requiring only a high school diploma.” Lastly, “Very-low-income students currently have no major obstacle attending community college — indeed, Pell Grants often will cover the entire tuition”, says …show more content…
No, I wasn’t. First off with Bumphus, he does not bring up a counterargument. He should have addressed Pell Grants, and how they are already helping students who wouldn’t normally be able to afford college, but, aren’t helping enough. His article was not fully developed, and I think this is because the America's College Promise is still its brainstorming phase. There is no hard evidence showing that free tuition will benefit the economy. For the most part, all Bumphus has to work with is speculation, and as we know, speculation does not win an argument. Vedder, on the other hand, is on the winning side because he has the evidence to show how community colleges are not doing well. However, he never goes into as to why this is happening to community colleges. Instead, he sets up his article by stating his reasons, then follows up with a question. Vedder claim, reasons, and evidence are not strong enough to do this, largely in part because he hasn’t back himself with strong reasons and solid evidence. An example of this is what he says in his first paragraph, “Students from moderately affluent middle-class families attending community college can usually afford the generally modest tuition. Why should a sophomore who is attending a four-year college have to pay tuition, but a similar second-year student at a community college not have to?”. That’s all the reasoning Vedder’s gives to support himself and then he moves on, and he
Dale Stephens argues that college isn’t right for everyone. He acknowledges that he left college because he believed that higher education isn’t everything. Dale clarifies that college is expensive. He refers to College Board Policy Center because tuition is about 3.6 times higher today than it was 30 years ago. He brings up good points but bases his ideas off his own opinions not facts. This is a strong argument because when the tuition is higher, it will be harder for and more people to pay for it. This encourages others to look for an alternative path to follow.
people agree with the state that Liz borrows from Thomas Jefferson, "Everybody should have an education proportional to their life,"(Addison 256). Unfortunately, the average income between rich and poor in America is not accurate, everyone supposed to become somebody in life; college gives opportunity to everyone who wants to do so, to become whatever they want, and at any age with a low cost. as much as the income level between rich and poor in America stays unbalanced; college will always be there to gives opportunity to people who want to learn, but cannot afford to attend university. Liz Addison points out an example in the article. It describes “a college application essay workshop for low-income students” (Addison 256). This is suitable for low-income students, but it doesn’t mention an education at universities. People who go to community college have a lot trouble to find jobs which can allow them to pay their debt after graduate. However, in university you are more likely to find and job and be able to pay your
David Wood once said, “College is the best time of your life. When else are your parents going to spend several thousand dollars a year just for you to go to a strange town and get drunk every night?” The costs of college are escalating at an all time high, which is why Richard Vedder went out and looked for a reason as to why this is and what, if any, solutions to this ongoing problem could be. Vedder talks about four main reasons why tuition continues to rise: third party providers and the amount of funding and spending that goes on, there is no market discipline when it comes to universities, price competition, and also government regulation. However, in order to combat these rising prices, Vedder came up with a number of solutions that could be used to control the cost of tuition, despite some problems with these ideas, his idea of using a voucher system is the best solution that he presents.
While most people want college to be free, the U.S. should not make tuition free for all citizens. There are a number of reasons like taxing families who already have it hard, quality in education, rationing, and if people see that they do not have to pay it may lower the value in which they won 't take school seriously. Tuition free college is impossible because at the end of the day someone will have to pay for all those students attending. For example, “In college I was invested, I was paying,” The former student said, “Once it entails a cost, it’s not easy to just say, Oh, let’s not go to class today. You’re just hurting yourself” (qtd, in Make College Affordable, but Not Free). Student who barely made it
As you can see, there are more drawbacks than benefits to free college tuition once you look past the surface of it. Like I said before, at a glance, it seems perfect, flawless. However, take a deeper look and see all of the things that would need to change in order to sustain nationwide tuition-free higher education. It is not as simple as it sounds, student debt may go down, but how many other people are we putting in debt to make up for the loss of funding going to schools through the tuition that we have
According to Trade Schools, Colleges and Universities “Many of America's top-performing high school students never apply to the most challenging colleges and universities even though they have the ability to succeed at them. They often come from minority and low-income households and end up pursuing more affordable, less-selective schools instead.” College can be a burden to many students in a variety of different ways, but the most common reason is due to funds. Making college free for students will help this problem by increasing jobs in the work industry that require degrees, they should be affordable to all people at all cost, as well as the funds should be completely cut off because it would increase jobs and help America's economy grow.
Going to college and getting a degree is a very important factor in succeeding in the 21st century competitive world. Nonetheless, many people do not go to college because of how expensive col-lege has become and the fear of being in debt. Sometimes college does not work out for every-one. President Barack Obama has proposed a plan to make the first two years of community col-lege free to encourage people to go to college, get a degree, and make the United States the most educated country or at least catch up to the rest of the countries like Russia and Canada. Howev-er, Obama 's action of reducing the costs of community college will not significantly increase the number of students who will graduate with degrees. Instead of making college
As Bernie Sanders, a presidential candidate for the 2016 presidential elections, claims he can make college free, the subject of tuition for secondary schooling has become a “hot” topic. The New York Times, on January 20th, released a “Room for Debate” titled “Should College be Free?” where many journalists such as Andrew P. Kelly and Sara Goldrick-Rab voiced their opinions on college tuition. “Just one-third of students from the bottom income quartile, who started at a community college in 2003 finished with a degree or certificate by 2009,” wrote Kelly, showing that the poorer find it hard to finish college with a degree. He believed that indigent students would likely not graduate with a degree due to college cost and because they are not motivated enough to get through six years of college. Although it is unpractical to create an educational system where college is absolutely free, creating organizations dedicated to encouraging the needy to get through
When hearing the words “free” and “college” in the same sentence, that is exciting to anyone who is interested in not paying those thousands of dollars for their pursued education. However, when it comes to Obama’s free community college idea, for the first two years, many people skip over the many factors that go into this issue. Some may agree with President Obama’s plan fighting for a fair chance for all student to get a degree and not go into debt receiving an education, and others argue that community college already being inexpensive will only make the system difficult to work with. While making community college free for everyone is considerate, the students with low incomes already get the aid they need without this program and the
"Parents with incomes below $40,000 were much more likely to say they couldn 't afford college compared to those with higher incomes. The unsettling aspect of this poll is that in all likelihood, these parents ' perceptions mirror reality," says Tamara Draut, author of "Strapped”. She talks about how most middle class families can 't afford to put their children into college. The highest education they can get is a high school diploma, which we all know in this modern world it cant get you a lucrative job to maintain your whole life. Most American don 't get the chance to develop their full capabilities through higher schooling due to lack of resources like funds to enable them see their full potential. People will say that education is meant for people who can afford to go. And already the government has made schooling from pre-k to high school free for all public school, so making community colleges free will cost the state about 60 billion dollars as said by the white house spokesman Eric Schultz . Education must not be limited to only privilege people,it should be universal for anybody willing to educate themselves to make their life better and help grow Americas economy reducing
A $60 billion plan is being invested by Barack Obama for two free years of community colleges for American citizens in order to help with financial need. That means Obama is trying to get community colleges to be free to students that need extra support as they are living or growing up in an unstable house. Yet, community colleges being free would cause problems for many students that do not belong there. Money then would be given to all the students that are attending a community college, even though some of the students do not need extra support, nor want to be there in the first place. By doing research, it shows that community colleges are affordable to those that put forth an effort and universities would be shied away due to the price
I’m currently enrolled in Montgomery College, located in Maryland. Montgomery College is a community college. Community colleges are different in comparison to four-year universities. I had a choice of either getting a job or going to college. There are many reasons why I choose to go to Montgomery College. I chose to go to college because I want to pursue a degree in Psychology. When choosing a college, there are a lot of decisions to make and you have to choose what’s best in your interest. In today’s society, community colleges take up a lot of the students going to pursue their education. President Obama has proposed to make all community colleges free for all Americans and I agree with this statement. People have different perspectives
In conclusion, in order to keep this country functioning in proper way, community colleges in America should not be free. For starters, not everyone can have the privilege to receive a college education for the soul reason of scarcity. Next, free community college will affect our economy in means of higher taxes, and an increased national debt. Finally, junior colleges will plummet in terms of value. The cost of higher education is without a
What if one day the tuition of your community college was to become free? If you couldn 't afford college would you go? That’s exactly what President Obama is trying to propose in his State of The Union speech on January 20th 2015. In his words he claims “to lower the cost of community college, to zero”. I am a community college student freshman at Frederick Community College. Being a community college student I value my education and feel if this new proposal is to be put in place there will be people who don’t want to be there just like high school. Community college is something that runs in my family as my two cousins have attended a junior college in the past. I am in my first year at community college and can say that it is a lot different from high school as far as the expectations and work load. There are essentially some problems with this new proposal. Once I heard that President Obama
Fact Sheet, a website article, discussed President Obama’s plan to put forth to congress a possible bill related to free community college: " Earlier this year, the President unveiled his America’s College Promise proposal to make two years of community college free so students can earn critical workforce skills and the first half of a bachelor’s degree at no cost, as well as a new American Technical Training Fund to expand innovative, high-quality technical training programs" (Fact Sheet). This plan would allow students to continue their education beyond high school for those who may not be interested in acquiring a four year degree. This would allow them to attend a technical and vocational school to earn the necessary work skills to cement a position in the work force. Offering two years of community college would certainly increase the employment rate among Americans and it would give college students the chance to earn an associate’s degree. Giving college students the opportunity to earn a higher degree would promote economic efficiency and help reduce unemployment by a large amount. Hillary Clinton has been outspoken as of late on having young college students enter community college free of charge throughout her 2016 presidential campaign: “Clinton