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The Daily Signal
Why Free
Community College Is Anything But Free
Lindsey Burke
January 09, 2015
The Obama administration announced Thursday that it will propose two
years of “free” community college, paid for by taxpayers, for students
maintaining a “C” or better average. The federal government would
finance three-quarters of the costs, and the administration says it
hopes the remainder would be financed by states.
The White House claims the proposal will save students $3,800 per year
in tuition costs. When asked about the cost of the proposal to
taxpayers, the administration said it did not yet have a price tag, but
that the cost would be “significant,” according to Politico. President
Obama is expected to share more details of the plan in his Jan. 20
State of the Union address.
The administration’s proposal begs certain questions. Low-income
students already have access to federal Pell Grants, which can be used
to finance their tuition obligations at a community college. Indeed,
the number of Pell recipients has doubled since 2008. So the proposal
will serve as little more than a federal handout to the community
college system.
And it’s a system that hasn’t exactly produced stellar outcomes. Just
20 percent of students who begin community college each year complete
their program within 150 percent of the standard time, according to the
U.S. Department of Education. And, as the Cato Institute’s Neal
McCluskey found:
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, only
20 percent of community college students transfer to four-year schools,
and only 72 percent of those will have finished or remained enrolled
four years later. So, from what we can tell, we are looking at
completion for just around 34 percent of community college students.
And what is to prevent community colleges from escalating tuition and
fees once the federal government – via taxpayers – begins paying the
tab? The White House says the federal government will pay
three-quarters of the costs of “average” tuition at community colleges,
but we’ll most certainly see that “average” increase in the years to
come thanks to this new federal largesse.
Then there is the impact on the K-12 system. More than one-third of
students have to take remedial courses when they enter college, as they
leave high school unprepared for university-level work. Free community
college would put even less pressure on high schools to produce
graduates who are prepared for college-level work, as they could expect
the new free community colleges to fill in what the high schools are
failing to do. The proposal is more likely to produce a six-year high
school system than a two-year gratis workforce preparation experience.
The administration’s proposal is another step toward the White House’s
goal of a “cradle-to-career” education system, starting with free
preschool and now free community college. And then, even if a student
does accrue debt in this new federally funded free-for-all, the
administration has capped loan repayments at 10 percent of
discretionary income, and any remaining balance is forgiven by the
taxpayers after 20 years. And those benefits are even more generous for
individuals who work in “public service,” largely defined as government
jobs.
Once again, the administration is pursuing initiatives to subsidize
rising costs, instead of working with Congress on policies that
actually would address the driver of college cost increases: the open
spigot of federal student aid. Over the past several decades, college
costs have risen at more than twice the rate of inflation, thanks in
large part to federal subsidies.
Allow markets in higher education to work by limiting federal subsidies
instead of increasing them, and costs will fall for students attending
colleges of all types.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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