{"id":9597,"date":"2015-01-09T13:57:19","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T21:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=9597"},"modified":"2019-12-24T07:22:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T15:22:10","slug":"somebody-has-to-pay-for-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2015\/01\/09\/somebody-has-to-pay-for-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Somebody has to pay for &#8216;free&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:2820,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.politicususa.com\\\/2015\\\/01\\\/09\\\/facts-president-obamas-freecommunitycollege-proposal.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.politicususa.com\\\/2015\\\/01\\\/09\\\/facts-president-obamas-freecommunitycollege-proposal.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:2821,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/seattletimes.com\\\/html\\\/education\\\/2024604594_higheredbudgetsxml.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20150216204942\\\/http:\\\/\\\/seattletimes.com\\\/html\\\/education\\\/2024604594_higheredbudgetsxml.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-05 18:17:02&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-05 18:17:02&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been seeing a lot of excitement about Obama&#8217;s announcement last night of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politicususa.com\/2015\/01\/09\/facts-president-obamas-freecommunitycollege-proposal.html\" title=\"Politics USA: The Facts on President Barack Obama\u2019s Plan for Free Community College\">his proposal to make community college free<\/a> for as many students as possible. And yes, in many ways, the excitement is warranted. Higher education is a great thing, and absolutely should be made more accessible to as many people who are interested in it as it can be. So on that level, I entirely approve of his proposals.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, I&#8217;m\u00a0<em>highly<\/em> skeptical that it is likely to do much good for people here in Washington State.<\/p>\n<p>The part of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politicususa.com\/2015\/01\/09\/facts-president-obamas-freecommunitycollege-proposal.html\" title=\"Politics USA: The Facts on President Barack Obama\u2019s Plan for Free Community College\">Obama&#8217;s plan<\/a> that stands out to me is the requirement for states to share the burden of picking up the tuition costs for students (emphasis in the following quotes is mine):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  This proposal will require everyone to do their part: community colleges must strengthen their programs and increase the number of students who graduate, <strong>states must invest more in higher education and training<\/strong>, and students must take responsibility for their education, earn good grades, and stay on track to graduate.<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  Ensuring Shared Responsibility with States: Federal funding will cover three-quarters of the average cost of community college. <strong>States that choose to participate will be expected to contribute the remaining funds necessary<\/strong> to eliminate community college tuition for eligible students. States that already invest more and charge students less can make smaller contributions, though <strong>all participating states will be required to put up some matching funds<\/strong>. <strong>States must also commit to continue existing investments in higher education<\/strong>; coordinate high schools, community colleges, and four-year institutions to reduce the need for remediation and repeated courses; and allocate a significant portion of funding based on performance, not enrollment alone. States will have flexibility to use some resources to expand quality community college offerings, improve affordability at four-year public universities, and improve college readiness, through outreach and early intervention.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s perfectly reasonable, really. But here in Washington, higher education is not a current funding priority, and is <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.com\/html\/education\/2024604594_higheredbudgetsxml.html\" title=\"Seattle Times: What would 15% cut mean for state\u2019s colleges?\">constantly facing more cuts<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Double-digit tuition increases. Class cuts that would make it harder to finish a degree in four years. Enrollment cutbacks that would make it more difficult to get admitted to a state university.<\/p>\n<p>  Washington&#8217;s public college and university presidents, warning that a hypothetical 15 percent cut to higher education would be devastating to public colleges and universities, are in a standoff with the state Office of Financial Management (OFM) over fiscal planning for the next two years.<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  About two-thirds of the state&#8217;s budget is protected by constitutional and federal requirements &#8212; categories such as K-12 education, pensions and mandatory Medicaid. Budget cuts must come from the remaining one-third of the budget, which includes higher education, state prisons and social services. And some of those categories &#8212; prisons, for example &#8212; are very difficult to trim.<\/p>\n<p>  Since the beginning of the recession in 2008, one of the hardest-hit segments of the state budget has been higher education. It&#8217;s the principal reason why state college tuition has increased so fast.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In this financial climate, I&#8217;m extremely skeptical that Washington will be participating in this program, should it move forward. We simply don&#8217;t have the money, and won&#8217;t until the voters realize that we actually need to be willing to <em>pay<\/em> for all these services that we think we should have.<\/p>\n<p>I think Obama&#8217;s general idea is a good one, and I support it and the thinking behind it. I just wish I could be more optimistic that students in Washington would actually have a chance to take advantage of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I think Obama&#8217;s general idea is a good one, and I support it and the thinking behind it. I just wish I could be more optimistic that students in Washington would actually have a chance to take advantage of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-9597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}