Tennessee begins free community college plan

There's been a general decline in California's willingness to fund the UC system, which is mostly what ended that. Surprisingly, the UC system doesn't seem to have had significant cost-per-student growth (unlike many universities), so it should still be able to provide free education if it were funded at the same levels as in the '60s. But it isn't: adjusted for inflation and population, it's had about 50-70% of its support cut compared to the peak years (depending on what you take as a starting point), which has been mostly made up for by tuition. Partly also by expanding cash-cow programs, like professional masters programs, and by admitting a smaller proportion of in-state students, since out-of-state students pay much higher tuition.

I collected some numbers on that a few years ago: http://www.kmjn.org/misc/uc_funding.txt. That table shows total and per-student support; the latter is partly impacted by the growth in student numbers. But if you convert the numbers for each year to percent of state GDP, or support per resident, there's a large decline in those terms as well (in GDP terms, from roughly 0.3% to 0.1%).

Interestingly there's no real correlation between partisan politics and the numbers. Funding was generally high under both Republican and Democratic administrations in earlier years, and has been cut under both administrations in more recent years. My guess is that as a "discretionary" line in the budget the UC is just relatively easy to chop, when someone making up a budget needs to close some holes, so it ended up bearing the brunt of the recent budget crisis that was caused by other parts of the budget.

I live in Québec and we have extremely low tuition fees. A 3 years program in any university will be around $1500CAD per semester, so $9000 in total. There are some variations between different universities, but of a few hundreds dollars only. It is the same tuition fee for engineering programs, political science or med school.

When my province came out of what we call the Révolution tranquille (Quiet Revolution), we had one of the lowest postsecondary education population rate in Canada. By creating a bunch of public universities with extremely low tuition fee, we have a whole different picture 40 years later with a well educated population.

Ronald Reagan did that (sigh). For anyone curious about why college tuition hurts the economy in the long run, it has to do with endowments. The idea is that it's more productive to pay during and after a career (when one has money) than before a career (when one is broke). Long term thinking like this built American into an industrial superpower, but short term thinking is giving us.. well, something else.

For example, land grant colleges were set up so that farming profits paid for the next generation's education. We've largely replaced that with student-loan debt based education, which sets graduates back for years or even decades. Now we have a stagnant economy where most people are struggling to get by instead of making meaningful contributions that increase their wealth and ability to pay/donate down the road. The founding fathers knew why public education was so important, yet at every turn we see people constantly attempting to privatize and marginalize it. It frankly disgusts me, which I know I’m not supposed to say on HN, but there it is.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/210543351304022855/

It's so sad that the generation that benefited from the free/low tuition is the same one that has voted it out of existence for the next generation. Just another example of the boomers pulling up the ladder behind them. Their stories of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps generally leave out the free world-class education.

This is one of the reasons community colleges exist. I went to a community college for 3 years before transferring (had a kid @ 19), ended up working there, and had my first startup born out of that job.

Almost all of my comp sci courses were at night because the students worked and so did the professors. Our professors were DoD Ada/C programmers at Vandenberg Air Force Base (which was quite awesome having professors with real-world experience).

Community college is a great option for working adults. That's why they have so many night classes (and now online classes). In California it's not free but it's extremely affordable and there are plenty of grants available. Like a University, there are also plenty of on-campus jobs that can work around your schedule (I ended up with a campus job that was funded by a grant and paid 3x minimum wage).

There's also plenty of vocational options as well–the nursing programs at the CCs near me are often impacted because people are getting jobs as soon as they graduate.

My point is, I don't really agree with your premise (granted, the system isn't perfect). If you work full-time, you might not be able to transfer or graduate in exactly 2 years but you can definitely do it.

I went to community college for 12 hours each semester and 6 in the summers while working 40 hour weeks. It was rough but I would stack all my classes on Tuesday/Thursday or Monday/Wednesday and then work the other 5 days at a grocery store.

I did this for over a year and it was definitely rough. I think that's why so few people leave community college for universities. Work and bills and responsibilities stack up and school is usually the easiest one to cut out to make room for others. No one can stop working lest they will not have a place to live or food to eat.

It is very unfortunate because the people that would benefit most from the education end up dropping out while those with family support can push through because they're working less, have financial support, and can afford to take classes over again.

I can't think of an easy solution to this other than offering a stipend for lower income students. Free classes will definitely help though, I think this is fantastic.

I just graduated from Western Governors University. 100% online. It was created for the purpose of allowing those that work full time (hopefully getting real life experience) while working on their education. One thing that helps is that each student has a 'mentor' that calls them every week and holds them accountable to study. Community colleges could do the same thing with some online classes, accountability programs, night classes for those that need face to face. Better programs for gaining credit for work experience. Being able to test out of classes would help a lot (if you read the textbook halfway through the class and feel comfortable, pass a test to prove you know material.) This way you can have more time between classes/semesters, and lets the professor spend more time helping other students.

The community college I'm doing sysadmin work for has night classes, internet classes (do at your schedule), and self-paced in-building classes (computerized instruction with an instructor in room) to help folks with full-time jobs and family get their classes done. Also, an on-premise daycare.

I think we should be striving to equip students with the skills they would get at a community college while they're still in high school. You can definitely teach more efficiently, and expecting adults to both support themselves and study full time isn't reasonable.

That problem will always exist. But this does elevate one issue, working full-time to support yourself AND pay for education at the same time. The other issue is a tough one. It really depends on their life circumstances. Maybe if people will start living minimalist lyfestyles and be more conservative with their spending, things can change.

This is the biggest issue for me. I went to ITT (not getting into that discussion). I have a good job right now and need to work full time. I find that I get filtered out of a lot of job searches for not having a B.S. Since the credits don't transfer to anywhere I would consider attending I'm not sure what to do. I guess the only option is that some universities and local colleges offer online undergad programs. Other than that I don't know where you can go for actual in class learning if you work a standard full time job. The entire "need to work full time and go to school" is how I ended up at private nationally accredited program in the first place and I spent way more money than it would have cost me to go to a community college for 4 years.

In Denmark, students get a sizable stipend (I heard 1000EUR a month).

We're in desperate need of financial aid programs to fill that gap. Perhaps loans with a forgiveness guarantee sponsored by privates companies?

E.g. go to community college, learn a particular skill set, join a company, and that company pays your loans in the event some set of conditions are met (2 years successful employment at the company afterward, GPA minimum, etc.)

Paying people to pursue an education but they must work for a set number of years for the government or the business that funded their education after they graduate?