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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

#151

Post by erroneousfunk »

elberto34 wrote: post #135

I have found that the best math teachers were from community college. One teacher explained the solution to a calculus problem I had developed out of curiosity , and it wasn't even on the curriculum. He didn't have to do that, but I appreciated he did

I took differential equations from a semi-retired Harvard PhD (this was in rural Washington State, so it was kind of a big deal) at my local podunk community college. He was also great, and started a math club for all interested students, where we'd sit around and work through high-level math problems and read math papers. He did this during his free time because he really loved math.

Some of the professors there were a little zany, and had questionable teaching credentials ("Oh! You're a local businessman? Come teach a course on business!"), but the enthusiasm and... interestingness... of the education hasn't really been paralleled in high school, 4-year college, or grad school, in my experience.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#152

Post by seanflyon »

rstupek wrote: post #110
aaron-lebo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, potential. It will also further devalue high school diplomas as well as make good high schools less of a priority across the nation (everyone is going to CC anyway, right?). It probably makes bachelor's degrees even more of a requirement for decent jobs, making people more likely to take on student loans and spend their 20 and 30s paying them back for a piece of paper, restricting their mobility and options. Thr…

Also raising the price of colleges everywhere because of the influx of additional money into the system.

Subsidizing community college would artificially increase the demand for CC and thus increase the price. This does not mean it will raise the price of traditional, expensive 4-year colleges and universities. CC does tend to feed into 4-year programs so it could cause some increase in demand (it could also decrease demand by acting as a substitute), but we are not talking about increasing our subsidy of 4-year programs.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#153

Post by danielweber »

smeyer wrote: post #131
danielweber wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Community college is already very cheap, and Pell grants often completely cover the cost if you are low income.

I still don't see your point about people who "just barely cannot get in". Most community college students did not need to do anything to get in. For the public community colleges in California, if I recall correctly, you just need to be 18 (or have a high school diploma or meet some other conditions.) Why do you think that funding community college would result in more students like the bottom 10% of those currently…

> As Reihan Salam of National Review notes, community college tuition is already low. In fact, it’s zero, on average, for lower-income families, after taking financial aid into account. Vox’s Libby Nelson wrote, “Community college tuition for poorer students is often entirely covered by the need-based Pell Grant.”

So making it free takes care of people who couldn't handle the paperwork of filing for a Pell Grant.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/upshot/obamas-community-co...

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#154

Post by danielweber »

jordache wrote: post #116
danielweber wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does the study of history have a direct economic impact to communities? In most cases no. I assume you recognize the importance of history for human culture? So in the context of an environment where we encourage extended education via monetary assistance, we strip away all forms of assistance for the study of history due to some qualifier. Is this wise?

If you just want more people to have a better understanding of history, produce some good history documentaries to show on TV.

They might not watch, but they might not attend college, either. Well, we can get them to attend college if use the college degree as a job credential so they can't get a good job without it, but that seems like a cruel policy, especially cruel to the least smart in society, so I don't think you'd want that.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#155

Post by [deleted] »

danielweber wrote: post #134
methehack wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wars in the middle east are not likely to make us more money than the cost. This is. It's an investment, like roads. It grows the economy. This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics. There are two very comparable super-relevant historical precedents: public high school education (yes that was someone's idea too) and the GI Bill. Both of these social programs (as they would be called today) have made…

This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics Oh, good. What does economics say about who captures the benefit of education? What's the rate of return on successful graduation from community college? (Hint: check Schenk Matsuyama 2010.) What is the graduation rate from community college? (And isn't that number a lot lower than you expected?) Now, given the fraction of benefits that is privately captured, a…

[deleted]

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#156

Post by bjwbell »

toxican wrote: post #12
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.

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

Mine was also stargazing etc, with no math. A math based one would have been very fun but probably wouldn't enroll enough students to avoid being cancelled.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#157

Post by Kalium »

jdhawk wrote: post #80
jesseclay wrote: post #64

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 f…

Not all community colleges are the same. If you live in close proximity to universities with high academic standards, most of the professors are going to be recent graduates of those programs, or educators picking up extra cash and some experience teaching at CC. BFE Community College will not have the same level of academic excellence.

Yup. It's all about proximity to strong universities. If there's one nearby, the local CCs will be excellent. However, this is not the typical case.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#159

Post by stolio »

danielweber wrote: post #149
stolio wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those numbers are dollars per student, if we start sending a lot of new people to community colleges our rank on that list might drop since community college is much cheaper than univeristy where many costs go towards things not directly tied to education: dorms, meal plans, sports equipment, stadiums, etc.

Isn't that bad? I just got told that spending money on education is magic: the more you do of it, the better your country.

If you're trying to make the argument of diminishing returns for spending on education, that's pretty non-controversial.

I don't think chart B1.1 helps you make that case, I think per student numbers are probably a wash to that end unless several other factors are taken into account. Of the countries in that study, we're number 5 for primary school spending per student, number 4 for secondary school spending, and number 1 for tertiary spending (and number 3 for total spending if we include educational "services"? Not sure what that means.) That data isn't painting a clear picture of America overspending on education.

We also attract a large number of international students and they bring some money with them, some of them bring a lot of it.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#160

Post by icebraining »

benihana wrote: post #113
markdown wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT: > irregardless regardless is fine.

so is irregardless. Can I ask why you take the time to correct someone when it was perfectly clear what the intent of the sentence was?

As a non-native speaker, I like when people correct me; it makes me sad to see them downvoted. On the other hand, it could be argued that since I already write well enough to be understood, I should disregard further improvements, but I just can't agree with that.
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