{"id":346,"date":"2015-01-21T13:14:54","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T18:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/?p=346"},"modified":"2015-01-21T13:14:54","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T18:14:54","slug":"free-community-colleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/2015\/01\/21\/free-community-colleges\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Community Colleges"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2012, in the heat of a presidential election campaign, President Obama made the apparent mistake of wishing out loud that all of our nation\u2019s children could have the opportunity to go to college. That would seem like a fairly innocent, \u201cAmerican as apple pie\u201d kind of wish, but not in this highly divided nation, and certainly not in the midst of a political year. He was attacked by his opponents as a \u201csnob\u201d and an \u201celitist\u201d\u2014and colleges, by the way, were also attacked as being a flagrant waste of money.<\/p>\n

So here we are, three years later. President Obama\u2014re-elected despite his elitism\u2014has turned his wish into a concrete proposal to make community colleges tuition-free<\/a> throughout the nation. The basic outline includes a $60 billion investment over the next 10 years to cover tuition for students who maintain a 2.5 GPA. While Washington would pay for the majority of the costs\u201475 percent\u2014the states that participate would cover the rest. The president projects that the program, if enacted by Congress\u2014a very big \u201cif\u201d of course\u2014as many as nine million students would benefit.<\/p>\n

Naturally, this proposal has been greeted with skepticism; many political observers simply say it is dead-in-the-water given the general polarization in Washington. But this is really a big idea\u2014a visionary idea\u2014one that may have enough strength to influence the national conversation about the role of higher education today in America, its role in our globalized economy and in any attempt to reach equity for so many of our nation\u2019s underserved populations. As one economic analyst said, \u201c\u2026nothing may have a greater effect on the future of living standards than education policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of observers have pointed out that what the president really wants to do is make two years of college the norm for students today\u2014the same way that four years of high school became the norm for American students at the start of the 20th century\u2014a time when the country was rapidly evolving out of its agrarian roots. His wish\u2014his vision\u2014should come as no surprise. Throughout his presidency, he and Mrs. Obama have aggressively promoted higher education both through their thoughtful presentations and their on-the-ground programs. While the naysayers are already nit-picking details of the president\u2019s plan (many of which have yet to be revealed), they are not\u2014I am pleased to note\u2014being vitriolic in the way that they were during the 2012 campaign. I am sure there will be plenty of opportunity and even legitimate reason, once the plan is fully unveiled, to debate its details. But I hope that it is a serious debate\u2014one that does justice to the power of this vision\u2014a vision that reinforces the optimism of our sometimes elusive American dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2012, in the heat of a presidential election campaign, President Obama made the apparent mistake of wishing out loud that all of our nation\u2019s children could have the opportunity to go to college. That would seem like a fairly innocent, \u201cAmerican as apple pie\u201d kind of wish, but not in this highly divided nation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":436,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9545],"tags":[35544,35562],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-education-2","tag-white-house"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ycDS-5A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}