Community Colleges Should Be Free

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Every day in the United States, millions of children wake up each morning and attend some form of school. Whether it is a home school, private school, catholic school, public school, or vocational school, children everywhere receive an education. For twelve years each child travels through the education system. After those twelve years they are free to decide what they wish to do with their life. Some may choose to go straight into the workforce, while others choose to pursue further education and attend college. To make the general education end with a college level status in the United States is not feasible for the economy; tax rates would become outrageously high, the waiting lists to get into universities and even community colleges would …show more content…

They point to national statistics indicating that public community colleges are often dead ends for students. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, only about 20 percent of first-time, full-time students at public two-year colleges earn associate's degrees, diplomas, or certificates within three years of starting, and only 15 percent of them go on to earn bachelor's degrees within six years. In contrast, 54 percent of students at private, nonprofit two-year schools -and 63 percent of students at private, for-profit two-years schools- graduate within three years (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017). Making community colleges free could have some negative consequences for non-traditional students who often benefit from attending private colleges or vocational schools. If the U.S. government diverts more funding toward making community colleges tuition-free, then students attending private schools could potentially lose access to federal financial aid since that could possibly be one of the tradeoffs. Those individuals would then need to decide whether to attend free public schools that would potentially be much more crowded and/or provide less effective (and less convenient)

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