WHAT IS BEHIND THE OBAMA COMMUNITY COLLEGE PROPOSAL

Richard Reeves in a January 9, 2015 Wall Street Journal opinion piece What We Can Gain From Obama’s Push of Community Colleges (reprinted in his blog) argues that Obama's attention to community colleges is well founded.  According to Obama, free college or at least the first two years of college will enable the United States to catch up and pass other industrial economies. According to the President free community college is "something we can accomplish and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.”

Why focus on community colleges?  First, because by any standards they are cost-effective open enrollment institutions whose goal is teaching, not research.  Second, because they have such broad reach 8 million students. 

Community colleges are the point of entry for the majority of first time college students.  As seen from the chart below, poor students and those whose parents did not finish high school overwhelmingly begin at community colleges. 

Source: Richard Reeves in the Wall Street Journal, January 9, 23015

Obama's proposal draws inspiration from Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam's Promise program. That initiative provides for last dollar support - funding to augment financial aid - so that every Tennessee community college student pays no tuition at the state's community colleges.

The United States once was a leader in education for the common citizen when 100 years ago free high school became the norm in our country.  Now for most, college is the passport to economic viability.  However, our education policy and practices have not caught up with this new reality.  The Tennessee promise program and the Obama proposal are a recognition of this fact.