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I Owe It All to Community College

nytimes.com

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Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#31

Post by gajomi »

brohoolio wrote: post #15
danielweber wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you think community college costs these days after a Pell Grant?

Is it more efficient to have a whole complicated financial aid system or just provide discounted access to everyone. Time is money.

I want to second this point. The percentage of young adults (this is the demographic that represents most fo the current community college population) living below the poverty level is about 40% [1]. So even in the absolute worst case scenario where the Pell grant only applied to those below the poverty level and all those above that level started taking advantage of the free community college your efficiency could drop by a factor of two. In reality, there is a significant fraction of those below the poverty level who don't know about such Pell grant opportunities and the complexities of federal student aid and would never apply, but would jump at the opportunity for a free education. Also, a more realistic assessment of the efficiency question would require a better picture of how many people below the target of the Pell threshold would start taking advantage of the program. I would suspect that only a small fraction of people from the top 10% income bracket would pursue this, since they have other opportunities available. So lets say that we actually have something like a 50% reduction in efficiency to get the money to the target audience, and a side effect of a few tens of millions of people outside the target audience getting their education subsidized. There is obviously room for improvement, but I would support that scenario.

[1]http://www.ihep.org/sites/default/files/uploads/docs/pubs/br...

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#32

Post by derekp7 »

stiles wrote: post #7
fatjokes wrote: post #3

> classes I dropped after the first hour (astronomy, because it was all math) Yet another cultural figure stating without embarrassment how bad they are at math.

He never states he is bad at math. It sounds like to me he was much more interested in subjects like art, literature and film. Which, given his career makes a lot of sense.

Also, there is a difference between math and computation. If the course only required 9'th grade algebra level, I personally would rather drop it and take additional calculus courses.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#33

Post by rhc2104 »

mindcrime wrote: post #9

I have issues with the Obama plan, not because I'm against community colleges, but because I have issues with how this will (probably) be funded (read: taxes). As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That said, I'm a community college grad myself, three times over. I have an A.G.E. (General Education) from Brunswick…

I would like to point out that under the BCC program you mentioned, the donor was paying in-state tuition for students, so most of the funding still came from taxes.

http://www.brunswickcc.edu/new-page-453/

While in-state tuition is $1152/semester, out-of-state tuition $4224/semester, or quadruple.

So if community colleges are not paid for by taxes, benefactors would have to pay quadruple.

And I'm guessing you would want K-12 schools to be free too, so if those have to be funded by philanthropists too, then the bill would skyrocket.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#34

Post by eddie_31003 »

When I started at my Local Community College, Bakersfield College, in 1997 it was $11 a semester. I think it's up $46 a semester now. I took my C/C++ courses from George Driver. I've recently returned to B.C. as an Adjunct Professor in the Computer Science Dept.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#35

Post by smacktoward »

brohoolio wrote: post #15
danielweber wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you think community college costs these days after a Pell Grant?

Is it more efficient to have a whole complicated financial aid system or just provide discounted access to everyone. Time is money.

Not to mention that the more complicated the financial aid system becomes, the less likely the people who need educational help from a community college will be able to actually get it. By requiring you to already have the skills to navigate it, the complexity forms a barrier to entry that just discounting the cost does not.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#36

Post by mindcrime »

rhc2104 wrote: post #33
mindcrime wrote: post #9

I have issues with the Obama plan, not because I'm against community colleges, but because I have issues with how this will (probably) be funded (read: taxes). As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That said, I'm a community college grad myself, three times over. I have an A.G.E. (General Education) from Brunswick…

I would like to point out that under the BCC program you mentioned, the donor was paying in-state tuition for students, so most of the funding still came from taxes. http://www.brunswickcc.edu/new-page-453/ While in-state tuition is $1152/semester, out-of-state tuition $4224/semester, or quadruple. So if community colleges are not paid for by taxes, benefactors would have to pay quadruple. And I'm guessing you would…

It's definitely not an easy problem to solve, I'll say that.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#37

Post by hsitz »

Shivetya wrote: post #20
mindcrime wrote: post #9

I have issues with the Obama plan, not because I'm against community colleges, but because I have issues with how this will (probably) be funded (read: taxes). As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That said, I'm a community college grad myself, three times over. I have an A.G.E. (General Education) from Brunswick…

Libertarian here as well. I am more of the opinion that the government should set rules on the cost of education for any school accepting government aid or any school who accepts students who pay with government loans. Want to get the price of education back in line, drop the open checkbook. The issue I take with taxing to pay for everyone's college is that apparently there is no determination what constitutes a good…

As in, I do not want to see money thrown at majors that can never pay back the investment or require such skill and luck to achieve pay back relative to the cost.

Sounds to me then like you're in favor of "government planning" of the economy, which is essentially what it is when the government is picking and choosing which majors (and which people!) to subsidize. Strange libertarian position.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#38

Post by matthewmcg »

fatjokes wrote: post #3

> classes I dropped after the first hour (astronomy, because it was all math) Yet another cultural figure stating without embarrassment how bad they are at math.

Hmm--is that why Jim Lovell asks Houston to double check his arithmetic for the course alignment in Apollo 13?

Kidding aside, he has at least tried to promote interest in space exploration, so that's a plus.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#39

Post by mindcrime »

thoth wrote: post #30
mindcrime wrote: post #9

I have issues with the Obama plan, not because I'm against community colleges, but because I have issues with how this will (probably) be funded (read: taxes). As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That said, I'm a community college grad myself, three times over. I have an A.G.E. (General Education) from Brunswick…

>As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That's pretty hard core. How would you fund services like police/fire departments or infrastructure improvements (roads, electricity), basically anything where its existence benefits many (as opposed to say redoing education to require parents to pay for individual tutoring o…

This is, unfortunately, not something where I can easily give you a short, sweet and concise answer. There's a massive body of literature (and much debate) on the answers to those questions. I guess the most concise answer I can give here, without having to write a huge essay, would be to say "a combination of all of the above" (that is, "voluntary tipping", "usage fees", and "other").

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#40

Post by smacktoward »

mindcrime wrote: post #39
thoth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That's pretty hard core. How would you fund services like police/fire departments or infrastructure improvements (roads, electricity), basically anything where its existence benefits many (as opposed to say redoing education to require parents to pay for individual tutoring o…

This is, unfortunately, not something where I can easily give you a short, sweet and concise answer. There's a massive body of literature (and much debate) on the answers to those questions. I guess the most concise answer I can give here, without having to write a huge essay, would be to say "a combination of all of the above" (that is, "voluntary tipping", "usage fees", and "other").

> voluntary tipping

"Looks like 341 Maple Street is burning down."

"Eh, let it burn, they're terrible tippers."

> usage fees

"We'd be happy to put out your house fire, sir. Just swipe your MasterCard here."

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