U.S. President Barack Obama has big plans for the future of higher education during his last two years of presidency, and not everyone is happy about it.
The proposal, called “America’s College Promise,” was highlighted in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech. Under the plan, community college would be made free for students so long as they attend the school at least half-time, maintain a grade-point average of at least 2.5 and make “steady progress” toward graduation. It would benefit an estimated nine million students annually.
Students, college presidents and advocates of higher education are praising the plan.
In addition to benefitting students, the proposal could provide an economic boost by strengthening the middle class, according to supporters such as John O’Donnell, the president of Massachusetts Bay Community College. Although Massachusetts is home to some of the best private universities in the country, data shows that graduates from public colleges are more likely to stay and work in Massachusetts than those graduating from private schools. It is due to this, O’Donnell told The Boston Globe, that the state will eventually move to this model.
“For economic and social justice reasons, it’s absolutely necessary,” he said.
With the national average annual cost of attending community college hovering around $3,800, making community college free would certainly help many people gain access to higher education. It sounds ideal. However, the plan is more ambitious than may be reasonable in our country right now.
The United States faces a deficit of $564 billion this year, and the plan is expected to cost about $60 billion per decade. States would have to pay roughly 25 percent of the cost, and with Massachusetts facing a deficit of $765 million, many are questioning how this proposal will be funded.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is one of those who are less optimistic about the realism of the president’s plan. He declined to take a side on the issue, saying in a statement to the Globe that he is looking forward to reviewing Obama’s proposal “to consider the educational as well as budgetary impact it would have on the Commonwealth.”
Baker has said he wants to make higher education more affordable and improve connections to the workforce, but perhaps this is not exactly the right way to do it.
Philosophically, of course, free higher education for all is a great idea. Minimum wage is nearly unlivable, and providing free community college would decrease the number of people who have no choice but to depend on minimum wage. We have public school systems from kindergarten through 12th grade that are covered by taxes, so why not add two more years of education on to that? It sounds like a perfect plan. In the long term, having a more educated middle class would be a great economic boost. But that’s in the long term. In the short term, it seems like a plan that is a little too ambitious to be realistic.
The theory of universalizing education is great, of course, and tuition-free universities work in some other countries, such as Norway, Sweden and Germany. But the money for that comes from taxes, and their taxes are much higher than ours. It’s unrealistic to think that Obama will be able to get this initiative through Congress when he’s also pledged to tax the middle class less and the wealthy more. The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress and the president do not exactly get along, and getting them to agree on this will likely take longer than the two years Obama has left in office.
There’s always going to be a reason to tax people more, whether it’s universal healthcare, better infrastructure or education. It’s no secret that the United States is falling behind in education, and while this is a great way to propel us forward, it’s extremely idealistic. This plan, as good as it is, is happening at a bad time. Obama sees his time running out, but realistically, this plan cannot happen in the next two years. It’s going to take a long-term initiative to get this to work federally. Perhaps this is a plan better left to the states. States such as Florida and Louisiana provide lessened public higher education costs for students who keep their GPA above a certain level and score to a certain threshold on standardized tests.
Strengthening the education system in the United States may sound like the best path for the country, but while free education would be nice, the numbers simply don’t add up.
