The Obama Community College Plan: Wealthy students’ tuition covered by poor taxpayers

As a Community College Adjunct Instructor (Tidewater Community College since 2014, Germanna 2007-12), I should be happy with the president’s plan to make Community College tuition “free.” Trouble is, I teach economics, so I can spot the flaws fairly easily. What the president would like to be called “free and universal” (NBC) is actually poor taxpayers covering the cost for more well-off students. Moreover, the president is actually moving away from the global consensus on higher-education funding, which is eschewing “free and universal” for means-tested funding.

Perry Bacon, Jr., notices this (somewhat) in his description of the plan (see last link):

It would probably benefit middle-class students more than the very poorest, who qualify for federal Pell grants that usually cover the cost of community college.

In fact, grants cover tuition for a lot more than “the very poorest.” The College Board found that grants covered tuition and fees for households below $65,000 as of 2011 (just above the median of $62,273 – Census Bureau).

In other words, the benefits will go to the minority of wealthier Americans…admittedly, not quite “the 1%”, but less than half.

As for the cost, according to Fox News

The White House said the federal government would pick up 75 percent of the cost and the final quarter would come from states that opt into the program…

Compared the federal government, state governments rely more heavily on regressive sales taxes to fund their budgets. So in states that participate, the 25% of cost covered by their taxpayers will impact poor taxpayers more (this assumes the feds will keep to their 75% promise, which is far from certain).

Thus will poor Americans (including more than a few community college students) end up paying for their well-off fellows’ tuition.

It should be noted that the rest of the world is actually moving in the opposite direction. Just recently, the province of Quebec attempted to raise tuition fees – sparking angry protests and a newly elected government…which went ahead and raised tuition fees anyway. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, tuition-free education was ended by…Labour in 1998. Both realized that “free and universal” actually meant help for poorer students were constricted by the subsidies going to wealthier ones.

Sadly, the president didn’t get the memo. Hopefully, Congress will stop this upward redistribution policy cold.

@deejaymcguire | facebook.com/people/Dj-McGuire | DJ’s posts

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