Page 2 of 6 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 53

Thread: Obama proposes free community college for first 2 years..........

  1. #11
    Senior Member flowerseverywhere's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    3,061
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say_Yes_to_Education

    here is a program that did just that for poor inner city kids. Some great results, some not so great.

    What at you really need is to have a fire in your belly, to really want it and be willing to work for it.

    Here is an interesting article about the decline in high school dropout rates. But of course we never hear the good news.

    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...panics-blacks/

    as as far as feeding kids goes, I am surrounded by kids who live in extreme poverty. People are stepping up to the plate as citizens to help these schools through giving supplies, books, mentoring and tutoring and the result is remarkable. I am starting to volunteer in one of the local schools that has 86% free lunch qualification. Their high school graduation rate is only 77% and as Bae pointed out, they have started bolstering their early education and there is a ripple effect up and the grad rate and proficiency rates are increasing each year.

  2. #12
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    863
    I don't have enough information at this time to give a good opinion on this current boondoggle, but "FREE" is never free. Higher education has almost become a "right", but what about the "rights" of everyone who has to pay for it. We paid for our higher educations, and the same opportunity to do so is there for everyone who is willing to work for it.

    This also brought to mind the WWII generation. The generation that literally built this country with their hearts, hands and minds. Most of them had an 8th grade education, and a much smaller number completed high school and college, and had just come through the Depression and a world war. They had a great work ethic. I just read yesterday that a large percentage of students leave high school and can barely read at a 7th grade level and have few skills --- unless texting with two thumbs is considered a "work skill". At this point, I think the money would be better placed in trade schools. Not everyone needs a higher education, but everyone does need the skills for a job. We've put the emphasis on college for too many years.

  3. #13
    Senior Member flowerseverywhere's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    3,061
    Lessisbest, WWII vets took advantage of the government programs for education, loans etc. almost 8 million of the 16 million vets took advantage of the education benefits.

    http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/history.asp

    also, read my post about high school dropout rates from the pew institute.

  4. #14
    Senior Member mtnlaurel's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    932
    Quote Originally Posted by bae View Post
    I think if you'll look at long-term data, you'll see that early childhood education gives you insane bang-for-the-buck. The earlier the course correction, the simpler it is to steer the ship, that sort of thing.

    http://www.highscope.org/content.asp?contentid=219
    I totally agree.
    Among 3-4 year olds you have a completely 'captive audience' and receptive.
    All those dear little ones want to do is please the adults in their lives (along with some occasional pushbacks and declarations of independence). Plus, in preschool, my kids learned skills that allowed them to assert their independence in a healthy way. They absolutely thrived in preschool and were ready to hit the ground running in kindergarten.

    If we were able to impact children earlier, it may lessen the load on grade school teachers, so they are not always playing catch up with students that are behind grade level.

    Not to mention it is helpful to parents to know that their child is in a solid beneficial program, so they can focus on their own careers.
    Both of our kids are now in fulltime public school. What a relief on the pocketbook!
    We had the good fortune of putting our kids in solid preschools, but it COST a lot.

    I agree with you Packy.
    It's a crime how slimy some of these so-called educational institutions have become.
    To leave college straddled with high interest loans doesn't seem to really help anyone (except the bankers).
    It is an apples to oranges argument to try to compare what college costs used to be to what they are now.

    At least with this measure, it's focused on community colleges.
    Don't community colleges also have a wide variety of vocational options that are specific to the workforce options in their area?

    To me that's the key, 'workforce options in their area'.... I live in a place that used to have tons of knitting mills, factories etc. a long time back.... We drive around and I ask my husband, "You're telling me that it is really cheaper for an American company to make things on the other side of the globe and ship it here than to do it right here in this area that desperately needs jobs?"

    The other little tidbit that stunned me was when they did the Immigration measures in the deep Southern state and the food rotted on the vine because they couldn't hire people who would/could do it, although the area was filled with the unemployed.

    I see it in my own kids that they are picking up that the only way to succeed in life is to 'go to college' and I quickly correct them that there is pride in all work.

  5. #15
    Senior Member jp1's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    9,802
    Quote Originally Posted by lessisbest View Post
    I don't have enough information at this time to give a good opinion on this current boondoggle, but "FREE" is never free. Higher education has almost become a "right", but what about the "rights" of everyone who has to pay for it. We paid for our higher educations, and the same opportunity to do so is there for everyone who is willing to work for it.

    This also brought to mind the WWII generation. The generation that literally built this country with their hearts, hands and minds. Most of them had an 8th grade education, and a much smaller number completed high school and college, and had just come through the Depression and a world war. They had a great work ethic. I just read yesterday that a large percentage of students leave high school and can barely read at a 7th grade level and have few skills --- unless texting with two thumbs is considered a "work skill". At this point, I think the money would be better placed in trade schools. Not everyone needs a higher education, but everyone does need the skills for a job. We've put the emphasis on college for too many years.
    I think perhaps the two biggest differences between now and the past are 1)college educations used to be much cheaper, and 2) after WWII a person without an education could get a good job in a factory and live a middle class lifestyle.

    That said, I agree with you regarding trade schools. If I had a kid nearing adulthood today and they were not especially interested in school I'd probably try to steer them towards trade school and a career that can't be outsourced like diesel mechanic, refrigerator tech, copy machine tech, etc.

  6. #16
    Senior Member Miss Cellane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    New Hampshire
    Posts
    1,495
    Speaking to the feeding the children part of the OP, because I have to do a lot more reading about the free college bit: There are kids who go hungry in my nice little city on a daily basis. Some of them have two parents who are both working. Some don't.

    1. Some parents on SNAP (the food stamp program) and WIC (Women, Infants and Children) sell their SNAP and WIC cards to get money for drugs or alcohol.

    2. Some parents on SNAP have spouses/SOs who steal the SNAP cards to sell them.

    3. SNAP is a supplemental program--it is not designed to pay for a family's entire food costs for the month, just give them some extra money.

    4. In some families, even working two jobs does not pay the daily expenses of the family. There are still a lot of minimum wage, part-time jobs out there, with no benefits and crap hours, which require the families to pay for child care.

    I work with a lot of temps in my job. I get to hear the conversations as they talk about struggling to find money to keep the 14 year old car going so they can get to their permanent, part-time night job, their permanent, part-time weekend job, and the temp, 8-5 jobs that my workplace provides. They share tips on what programs to apply for and how to get emergency help when there's no money and no food in the house. These people are not slackers. They work hard, because they rely on my company for a large part of their income. They are tired, they are worn out, but they keep trying.

    I work with moms who eat one meal a day, so their kids can have enough food. I work with people who use the free hot chocolate our company provides to sweeten/cream their coffee--because the sugar in the chocolate gives them a few more calories to get through the day. I work with people who fall asleep at their computers because they have put in a 70 hour week, for weeks on end, trying to make enough money at $7.25/hour to pay the rent and feed their kids.

    5. We have entangled our school systems into doing a lot more than teach our children. After the age of three, all children with disabilities get their therapy through the local school system--physical, occupational, speech, etc. Using the schools is not necessarily a bad idea--the kids go there on a regular basis anyway. So using the schools to feed the kids isn't that far a stretch.

    6. They are kids. They can't get jobs and feed themselves. Or they may have parents who would steal their money to buy drugs. They are kids. They shouldn't go to bed hungry. I have all sorts of issues about using schools for all the services other than education, but I don't have an issue with using the schools to feed kids.

    I mean, in an ideal world, those kids would be getting fed at home, sitting down to a steaming hot plate of pot roast, green beans and mashed potatoes for dinner. But until that day comes, if my tax dollars get spent anywhere, feeding kids who can't feed themselves is a good place for the money to go.

  7. #17
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Boston, MA
    Posts
    2,175
    One facet of government paying for school - I remember getting Pell grants when I went to a 2 year school (all I could afford and my parent did not have a lot). I also remember getting a much better paying job afterwards. It didn't take long for the extra taxes I was paying into the system to offset what I had gotten in grants. In that respect it was not a bad investment for the government.

  8. #18
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    15,489
    Quote Originally Posted by creaker View Post
    One facet of government paying for school - I remember getting Pell grants when I went to a 2 year school (all I could afford and my parent did not have a lot). I also remember getting a much better paying job afterwards. It didn't take long for the extra taxes I was paying into the system to offset what I had gotten in grants. In that respect it was not a bad investment for the government.
    Yes--more enlightened countries consider education--including vocational training--an investment, not a burden. Well-paid citizens pay more taxes, after all, and aren't so likely to require aid. Not to mention contributing more fully to the common good. Community colleges were practically free when I went to University, and my four-year tuition and books probably amounted to $500 a year. Adjusted for inflation, that probably works out to $2000. Students today are just considered cash cows--who cares if they actually learn something. No wonder some of them cynically use the system.

    As far as feeding needy children, surely we can divert some money from the banksters and our endless wars to throw a crust to Tiny Tim. Unless your role model is Ebenezer Scrooge.

  9. #19
    Senior Member gimmethesimplelife's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Posts
    6,686
    I am all for two years of community college being free - this is how things work in much of Europe and I firmly believe that if you want a civil society, you have to give people chances in life (such as through education). Drowning students in student loan debt doesn't really help anyone other than perhaps bankers as many of these loans are government guaranteed - do we really need to be helping the bankers any more than we already have? (Yet another class of Americans immune to the consequences of their actions, how to forgive for this?)

    All that having been said, I agree that this money might be better spent on getting these young people into trades - there just are not going to be enough job openings in the future for English majors or even MBA's. Maybe even some program teaching entrepreneurship or even soloprenuership - there is a one semester block of classes at Phoenix Community College with a long waiting list covering entrepreneurship. Covering that one semester would not cost as much as two years of community college and some young people seem to have the fire to go out on their own - there is no job security these days anyway, why not go out on your own? I'm not sure covering two years of prereqs to a four year degree is a great investment in society these days. Maybe we'd be best off teaching young people how to fish so that they could eat vs. paying to provide them fish. Rob

  10. #20
    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    9,116
    Children should definitely not go hungry. I am just wondering if this allows some of the slacker parents to slack even more. DH told me that they recently started sending home food for the weekends for these children.

    We just seem to be throwing bandaid upon bandaid on situations that should be dealt with in a different way. Seems like we're not even trying to deal with anything but bandaids any more.

    Now kids have all-day preschool. No matter how much is tried to give these kids support/food/encouragement, etc., they still have to go back to their dysfunctional/irresponsible homes. Maybe if you don't live near a big city that has big problems like this, you can't imagine it. This city has a huge public school system that has been struggling for years and years. The problem being, they can't change the homes that these kids go home to.
    And as far as college........I, too, believe it's just big business now and there are lots of better ways to learn a profession. I was mostly responding to the frustration of DH's friend in that none of his pupils there any more (at least in the remedial classes) have any intention of learning or changing or making a go at a better life.

    I think this country is a bit nuts. We send all our jobs overseas and then complain that there's no jobs to be had. We have a very expensive culture.....yet we won't pay a minimum wage that can keep some people afloat....even when they are working 2 jobs.

    Seems like this country gets more and more dysfunctional all the time.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •