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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

#51

Post by es09 »

Domenic_S wrote: post #25
brohoolio wrote: post #4

$95 dollars a semester. It shows you how society used to provide resources for people to bootstrap their lives. The same individuals who benefited from this investment have not decided to pay it forward. They argue for lower taxes and support for education.

Today, the cost is somewhere around $50/unit, not too bad. If I could allocate my tax dollars toward programs like Community College and other non-University options (Coursera?) I would be all about higher taxes for education. But I get fatigued and resentful when public institutions cry poverty and then we see things like this: > UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison retired with a lump-sum package of $2.1 mill…

The 95$ per semester figure is for the State University at Sacramento - not for the community college. The current fees work out to ~5500$ per semester[1] for the same university.

[1] http://www.calstate.edu/budget/student-fees/fee-rates/sacram...

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#52

Post by pavel_lishin »

smacktoward wrote: post #40
mindcrime wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

I imagine that fire services would work more like insurance companies, most (all?) streets would be come toll roads, etc.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#53

Post by ryanackley »

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.

A lot of states already heavily subsidize the tuition of public community colleges and universities for residents. Where I live, in FL, 75% of the cost is paid for by the State of Florida.

I don't know about you, but 75% of the cost seems like a pretty sweet discount. Seems reasonable if you want more, you should have to go through some kind of application process.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#54

Post by danielweber »

smacktoward wrote: post #35
brohoolio wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sympathetic to this view. In general, I tend to favor flat programs that no one prices out of instead of need-based programs, because it gets rid of the marginal tax that happens when you earn more. (Every program that is just "for the poor" is a marginal tax on the person climbing out of poverty.) Also, I view the financial aid merely as price discrimination. We wouldn't consider another industry as compassionate for looking through our finances before deciding what we could "really afford."

However, all that said: the FAFSA really isn't that hard to fill out. If a person cannot fill out the FAFSA, why are we sending them to college? Will we fill out their college application for them, too?

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#55

Post by xacaxulu »

Rapzid wrote: post #46
toxican wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just impressed that a community college level astronomy course had math in it. Mine was nothing but familiarizing students stargazing and terminology.

You mean college level? My stellar astronomy involved quite a bit of computation for orbits, determining the mass of stars, etc.

I recall astronomy being mostly physics. It was one of the most interesting classes I ever took.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#56

Post by snake_plissken »

The initial proposal from The President costs $60 billion over ten years or $6 billion per year. For some perspective, conservative estimates have put the cost of the war in Iraq at $500 million a day. This proposal would cost 72 days of war.

It's difficult to comprehend how our politicians could have any issues supporting such an initiative.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#57

Post by [deleted] »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #27
tentakull wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhh, I hear STEM people with an embarrassing grasp of writing/social interaction/the humanities wear that as a badge of honor. At least Hanks if self-effacing.

Those guys are idiots. I figure they turned a shameful weakness in high-school into a badge of belonging in college and real-life. It's also a lack of humility. I'm ashamed to be associated with them.

[deleted]

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#58

Post by danielweber »

jordache wrote: post #41
mindcrime wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Good point. Paying for somebody to get a degree in, say, Medieval History, so they only job they can get post-college is "Barista at Starbucks", seems suboptimal to me.

narrow-sighted logic. Diversity is what makes life. If you attach future earning potential qualifier to the free education, then you'll have a disproportionate amount of people attempting fit their square potential into a round hole. Over a long period of time, you loose out the natural diversity that would otherwise exist in the general public - of people each dedicated to skill set they are best match for. Not ever…

Not everything human produces ought to have an economic component.

This is great. But then we need to stop talking about "investment" in college education. This is instead "consumption," like taking a ski trip to Aspen.

How much should the US pay for people to take ski trips to Aspen? I promise you they'll enjoy it.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#59

Post by danielweber »

es09 wrote: post #51
Domenic_S wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, the cost is somewhere around $50/unit, not too bad. If I could allocate my tax dollars toward programs like Community College and other non-University options (Coursera?) I would be all about higher taxes for education. But I get fatigued and resentful when public institutions cry poverty and then we see things like this: > UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison retired with a lump-sum package of $2.1 mill…

The 95$ per semester figure is for the State University at Sacramento - not for the community college. The current fees work out to ~5500$ per semester[1] for the same university. [1] http://www.calstate.edu/budget/student-fees/fee-rates/sacram...

Probably not a coincidence, at all, that $5500 is just under the Pell grant amount.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#60

Post by arenaninja »

Domenic_S wrote: post #25
brohoolio wrote: post #4

$95 dollars a semester. It shows you how society used to provide resources for people to bootstrap their lives. The same individuals who benefited from this investment have not decided to pay it forward. They argue for lower taxes and support for education.

Today, the cost is somewhere around $50/unit, not too bad. If I could allocate my tax dollars toward programs like Community College and other non-University options (Coursera?) I would be all about higher taxes for education. But I get fatigued and resentful when public institutions cry poverty and then we see things like this: > UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison retired with a lump-sum package of $2.1 mill…

Is that average? Median? In Los Angeles, I think it's around $44/unit, whereas in NOVA it's about $110/unit
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