I have just completed my 13th year of teaching at the college level, and the end of the semester is always bittersweet. While it’s a task sometimes to juggle teaching with my numerous other commitments, it’s also great to see a student who struggled at times work really hard to be successful by the end of the term. It’s been even more interesting this school year to watch the debate over “free” community college.
Bernie Sanders in his Don Quixote-esque campaign for the presidency has called for it, and President Barack Obama called for it last year.
As someone who is a strong believer in higher education, you would think I would be on board, right? It’s no big secret that the more education you have, the less likely you are to be in poverty. It does not have to be college, but everyone needs an education after high school to compete in the 21st century. The facts speak for themselves, right?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average unemployment rate for folks with a high school diploma or less was between 7.5 and 11 percent. Master’s degrees and above hovered below 3.4 percent. And that was in 2013.
So why can’t I get excited over “free” college? Why do I feel that when you get right down to it, “free” college is one of the worst things we could do?
First, there is no such thing as “free.” Someone has to pick up the tab. That someone is usually the taxpayers, but they foot the bill for a lot of things, so that’s not my main objection. Under the president’s plan, students would get the first two years of community college free if they go at least half-time and maintain a 2.5 GPA. It does not include books, transportation and other college living expenses. The Sanders plan is even worse; there are no restrictions.
My problem: I don’t think the folks who get the “free” tuition have enough skin in the game. When you have skin in the game — i.e. you’re picking up part of the tab — you tend to treat things a little differently. In other words, you take it more seriously. I also think a 2.5 GPA is a little low. I think it should be at least a 3.0. It doesn’t take a lot of brainpower and effort to walk away with a 2.5 GPA. Or, at least, the better grades you get and the harder classes you take, the more of the tab we pick up.
I also like the community service element of the Tennessee model, where students have to perform eight hours of community service per semester. When you have skin in the game, you show up for class, you study harder and you take things a lot more seriously. It’s been my experience that students who had to pay more of their own freight were usually more dedicated and worked harder than the ones who had someone else footing the bill.
And I won’t even start on the ones who only stayed long enough to get a financial aid refund check then dropped off the face of the planet — because guess who had to pick up the tab when the federal government couldn’t find the student? That’s right, the school.
There are a lot of ways we can bring down the costs of post-secondary education and make it more accessible. We can start by having an adult discussion about student loan reform and making more loans available. By making too many loans available and not enough accountability, we have had the perverse, yet unintended, consequence of making college even more expensive. That’s another discussion for another column, but giving it away for free, as a hooker once told me in an interview, is never a good idea.
Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is an attorney, political commentator and publisher of IndyPolitics.org. You can email comments to him at abdul@indypolitics.org.
