I Owe It All to Community College • Hacker News Board

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#61

Post by zanny » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:20 PM UTC

ryanackley wrote: post #53

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.

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.

I know most of my peers (myself included) could have gone to Penn State local campuses for 2 years and then 2 years at State College for free, only having to pay room board and food (and overpriced books). I went with a private liberal arts college that gave me nearly a whole boat though.

I think even if you are under a 2.5GPA in high school Penn State subsidizes 80% of tuition and the state does another 10%, so each semester of courses would only be at most a few hundred dollars.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#62

Post by marincounty » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

I had a great experiences at the two community colleges I attended. The teachers really seemed to care. Now, my two years at a state college were a waste of time. I only got the BS degree because I wanted something from this state school. To the teachers, and guidance counselors at Indan valley college, and College of Marin; A huge thank you!

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#63

Post by SEJeff » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

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…

Serious question. What funds Policemen, Fire departments, Emergency Medical people like EMTs and Paramedics? If we didn't pay taxes, and we didn't have any of those, it would be pretty lousy.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#64

Post by jesseclay » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:26 PM UTC

Another anecdote on the power of community college:

Back in 2009 I enrolled at Community College of San Francisco. I was 19 and had no idea what I wanted to do career wise, so I took broad and rigorous curriculum focused on transferring to UC-Berkeley.

The 2 years I spent there were some of the best of my life. I was frequently pushed and challenged by excellent professors who had true passion for their subjects (a few even had Ph.D.s). I grew a passion for learning Spanish (a subject that I had found painful in high school) among many others and got involved with several extracurricular groups. By my second year I was an elected student government senator and president of the business club. I was amazed by all the school had to offer hungry students and I took advantage of every opportunity. Not to mention I met some of my closet friends in life geeking out in study groups.

When it came time to apply to 4 year universities (fall and spring of my second and final year) I decided to apply to Stanford in addition to my originally intended UC-Berkeley. Just a few months later I was shocked to accept Stanford’s offer of transfer admission to complete my undergraduate degree. Going to a place like Stanford would have been unthinkable for me just a few years earlier in high school, back then I had pretty average grades (around a 3.4) and mediocre test scores. Community college let me re-invent myself as a student and start with a completely fresh slate.

When I got into Stanford I eventually started to focus in on a major and skill-set, taking a ton of CS classes in the process. While I hadn’t studied CS in community college (although I think they do offer it), I strongly feel the high level of general curriculum I took prepared me to major in nearly anything I would have liked at Stanford. I now work as a full-time software engineer, something I had no knowledge of whatsoever when I first started community college.

No doubt my admission to Stanford is an outlier for community college students (only a tiny percentage are admitted), however a ton of very intelligent and eager students transfer to 4 year universities every year, including several of my close friends. They have now entered the workforce and are highly contributing members to society and the tax-base.

I could go on forever about the benefits of community college (and in some ways how certain things were better than at a place like Stanford), however the short of it is that indeed, I also owe it all to community college, too.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#65

Post by danielweber » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:27 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #44

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…

> instead of taking it out of the federal govt. budget Why is education for the citizens of a country considered something that a countries government should have no part in in the US? If education really is something important for the country, would it not make more sense for the country to prioritize and fund it as opposed to leaving it to the whims of whomever feels like funding it that day?

If food really is something important for the country, would it not make more sense for the country to prioritize and fund it as opposed to leaving it to the whims of whomever feels like funding it that day?

Most of the benefit of food is private: when I eat, I am no longer hungry. That means I take care of my food myself.

Most of the benefit to education is, as well, private. If I become a lawyer, I capture most of the benefit.

It's when the benefit cannot be internalized that you need government involved. A public good is one that is non-excludable and non-rivalrous. National defense and most environmental causes are examples there. Education is a private good, since it is both trivially excludable as well as (if you listen to any NEA paper about student-teacher ratios) rather rivalrous.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#66

Post by danielweber » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:28 PM UTC

snake_plissken wrote: post #56

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.

If we just buy everything that is cheaper than the Iraq war, we will very soon be bankrupt.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#67

Post by k-mcgrady » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:29 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #52

smacktoward wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And when you can't afford the insurance for the fire department? How are these people taken care of by such a system? I'm sure we all know people who've hit very hard times at some point in their life through no fault of their own. As much as I like the idea of Libertarianism it can't see how these people would make it through those times.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#68

Post by danielweber » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:32 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #42

I am an instructor at a community college, and I have to say that I had earfuls of embarrassing pessimism from my colleagues yesterday. You'd have thought that Obama himself was taking the tuition directly out of our salaries to fund it.

Maybe they are thinking of the bottom 10% of their class, and then imagining more students like that in the classroom.

We're talking about expanded community college for the marginal student: that is, the student who just barely cannot get into community college today but could with a little more help.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#69

Post by mmanfrin » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:36 PM UTC

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…

> How would you fund ... fire departments

Well you'd just wait for Marcus Crassus to come down with his fleet of slaves to offer you a rock-bottom price for your home in exchange for his firefighting services -- so you can at least get your possessions out before it burns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#70

Post by romaniv » Wed, Jan 14, 2015, 8:37 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #54

smacktoward wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compassionat…

FAFSA documents are not complicated to fill out, but the overall process require you to spend some amount of time on jumping through various hoops. Also, it has prerequisites and conditions you need to keep track of. For people who are short on money (and therefore time) all of that has significance.