Free College for most?

[Hibush]

It's been a while on this thread, but we have apparent resolution on the bill under discussion.

President Biden's plan to make two years of community college tuition-free nationwide is going nowhere in Congress at the moment.

The proposal was for two years of free college at a cost of $109 billion. (There is still about $40 billion of new money for higher ed in the bill.)

I expect that the big bump to two-year colleges was particularly sweet to Jill Biden, but that may also be the reason the provision was especially targeted for elimination.

The full revitalization bill hasn't passed the Senate, but once negotiators drop this piece it is not going to get back in.

[Aster]

Big Urban College has already experimented with "free college".

The results are exactly what one would expect for any free service.

In our case,  we got an uptick in enrollments. But student performance and attendance took a nosedive. Withdrawals are way up. I have some classes where the failure rate has doubled.

If students don't have any skin in the game, why should they care? And apparently, many of them don't care.

[quasihumanist]

If students don't have any skin in the game, why should they care? And apparently, many of them don't care.

This works the other way too.  In much of Continental Europe, universities are almost free and basically mandated to admit every potential student, but, of course, they have limited budgets.  They're basically forced to try to fail as many students as they reasonably can in order to keep their workloads reasonable.

[dismalist]

If students don't have any skin in the game, why should they care? And apparently, many of them don't care.

This works the other way too.  In much of Continental Europe, universities are almost free and basically mandated to admit every potential student, but, of course, they have limited budgets.  They're basically forced to try to fail as many students as they reasonably can in order to keep their workloads reasonable.

No, in Europe entry to university is restricted in non-monetary ways, such as one has to have a school diploma of a certain kind. Rationing wherever one looks! Only the ration tickets differ.

[Aster]

If students don't have any skin in the game, why should they care? And apparently, many of them don't care.

This works the other way too.  In much of Continental Europe, universities are almost free and basically mandated to admit every potential student, but, of course, they have limited budgets.  They're basically forced to try to fail as many students as they reasonably can in order to keep their workloads reasonable.

The primary distinction between continental Europe and the U.S. is how one defines "potential student".

In the U.S., anyone with a pulse and a high school diploma would qualify to enter a community college. Or in many cases, just the pulse is sufficient. Most community colleges have zero academic pre-requisites besides the very low bar of the american high school diploma.

It doesn't work that way in much of Europe. The trade school track kids don't much qualify compared to the dedicated college-track kids. Or, the kids have to perform well on national tests and/or meet other academic per-requisites (which are usually only incorporated into the college-track kids' programs).

Heck, I don't even know if Europe even *has* the equivalent of community colleges. I thought this was mostly just a U.S. invention...

[quasihumanist]

If students don't have any skin in the game, why should they care? And apparently, many of them don't care.

This works the other way too.  In much of Continental Europe, universities are almost free and basically mandated to admit every potential student, but, of course, they have limited budgets.  They're basically forced to try to fail as many students as they reasonably can in order to keep their workloads reasonable.

No, in Europe entry to university is restricted in non-monetary ways, such as one has to have a school diploma of a certain kind. Rationing wherever one looks! Only the ration tickets differ.

Actually these rules have been relaxed at least in France and in some German states, so that one is effectively allowed to enter university with any school diploma.  In addition, the examinations for academic school diplomas (the kind that traditionally allowed university entrance) have been made significantly easier over the years.  However, most students without a diploma of the right kind (or who barely obtained a diploma of the right kind) do realize that they aren't prepared for university and will simply fail.  This means that the ration tickets are now handed out based on the end-of-first-year exams, although many people realize they won't get a ration ticket and don't try.  But it also means the universities have every incentive to make sure not too many students pass the end-of-first-year exams since, for the most part, their funding does not vary based on their number of students.

[dismalist]

If students don't have any skin in the game, why should they care? And apparently, many of them don't care.

This works the other way too.  In much of Continental Europe, universities are almost free and basically mandated to admit every potential student, but, of course, they have limited budgets.  They're basically forced to try to fail as many students as they reasonably can in order to keep their workloads reasonable.

No, in Europe entry to university is restricted in non-monetary ways, such as one has to have a school diploma of a certain kind. Rationing wherever one looks! Only the ration tickets differ.

Actually these rules have been relaxed at least in France and in some German states, so that one is effectively allowed to enter university with any school diploma.  In addition, the examinations for academic school diplomas (the kind that traditionally allowed university entrance) have been made significantly easier over the years.  However, most students without a diploma of the right kind (or who barely obtained a diploma of the right kind) do realize that they aren't prepared for university and will simply fail.  This means that the ration tickets are now handed out based on the end-of-first-year exams, although many people realize they won't get a ration ticket and don't try. But it also means the universities have every incentive to make sure not too many students pass the end-of-first-year exams since, for the most part, their funding does not vary based on their number of students.

So there's rationing, just not with money, as I said.

[quasihumanist]

So there's rationing, just not with money, as I said.

A collaborator of mine is Italian but works in France.  He (and his Italian wife) wanted to get their son into a special (public) French-Italian bilingual school.  Naturally, the kid had to take an admissions exam with both a written and an oral component, at age 6.

[dismalist]

So there's rationing, just not with money, as I said.

A collaborator of mine is Italian but works in France.  He (and his Italian wife) wanted to get their son into a special (public) French-Italian bilingual school.  Naturally, the kid had to take an admissions exam with both a written and an oral component, at age 6.

I'd rather do it with money! :-)

[mamselle]

That's not so unusual, or at least it didn't used to be.

In Jr. Hi, a couple of us were considering attending the local girls' private high school, for which an exam was also required.

They offered partial scholarships, but neither of our families could afford the difference. My folks also pointed out that they'd want to be able to do the same for all four of us, and they knew that was unlikely, so I ended up not going for that reason as well.

M.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

I'd rather do it with money! :-)

Using money to "ration" post-secondary education has many drawbacks. Many due to obvious conflict of interest between considering students to be clients one should strive to retain and the need to honestly evaluate their performance.

Besides, using "Continental Europe" as yardstick is pointless as it inevitably leads to overgeneralisation. The equivalent would be to make general statements about post-secondary education "in the Americas". For example, my personal opinion is that [nearly] open access [nearly] free universities in some Romance-speaking countries essentially serve as a safety valve for the labour market by reducing apparent youth unemployment (and by providing them with cheap places to live). However, even countries that do have such institutions also tend to feature [elite] competitive access institutions as well.

[dismalist]

I'd rather do it with money! :-)

Using money to "ration" post-secondary education has many drawbacks. Many due to obvious conflict of interest between considering students to be clients one should strive to retain and the need to honestly evaluate their performance.

Besides, using "Continental Europe" as yardstick is pointless as it inevitably leads to overgeneralisation. The equivalent would be to make general statements about post-secondary education "in the Americas". For example, my personal opinion is that [nearly] open access [nearly] free universities in some Romance-speaking countries essentially serve as a safety valve for the labour market by reducing apparent youth unemployment (and by providing them with cheap places to live). However, even countries that do have such institutions also tend to feature [elite] competitive access institutions as well.

Yup, best to have it all. I, too, want more. :-)

[marshwiggle]

It doesn't work that way in much of Europe. The trade school track kids don't much qualify compared to the dedicated college-track kids. Or, the kids have to perform well on national tests and/or meet other academic per-requisites (which are usually only incorporated into the college-track kids' programs).

My understanding is that, in addition to this, the number of spaces in programs is sometimes determined by their usefulness to the economy. So the total number of underwater basketweaving spaces available is a lot less than the number of electrical engineering spaces. This would solve the adjunct problem discussed here a lot since that would mean the kinds of fields where the only jobs requiring a particular degree are within academia itself would have extremely few spaces.

[arcturus]

It doesn't work that way in much of Europe. The trade school track kids don't much qualify compared to the dedicated college-track kids. Or, the kids have to perform well on national tests and/or meet other academic per-requisites (which are usually only incorporated into the college-track kids' programs).

My understanding is that, in addition to this, the number of spaces in programs is sometimes determined by their usefulness to the economy. So the total number of underwater basketweaving spaces available is a lot less than the number of electrical engineering spaces. This would solve the adjunct problem discussed here a lot since that would mean the kinds of fields where the only jobs requiring a particular degree are within academia itself would have extremely few spaces.

I am confused by the examples here. Underwater basketweaving is of tremendous importance for the future. With climate change, an even higher percentage of the Earth's surface will be covered by water. Baskets are critical entities for collecting and moving goods. Thus, underwater basketweaving provides students with skills that are integral to the future economy. In contrast, those that are trained as electrical engineers are likely to have a very bad end, as electric circuits short-out during the incoming deluge of ocean waters.

/snark

[Hibush]

It doesn't work that way in much of Europe. The trade school track kids don't much qualify compared to the dedicated college-track kids. Or, the kids have to perform well on national tests and/or meet other academic per-requisites (which are usually only incorporated into the college-track kids' programs).

My understanding is that, in addition to this, the number of spaces in programs is sometimes determined by their usefulness to the economy. So the total number of underwater basketweaving spaces available is a lot less than the number of electrical engineering spaces. This would solve the adjunct problem discussed here a lot since that would mean the kinds of fields where the only jobs requiring a particular degree are within academia itself would have extremely few spaces.

There is less strategic planning of national education needs in the US, but some of this is possible at the institution level. If an institution has a clear mission, and knows well its sources of revenue and cost of education, then it is possible to figure out how many slots to open in each major. The school can adjust if the mission becomes misaligned with societal demand, revenue changes or student supply.

The UBW faculty will of course make Arcturus' argument, but a clear and reinforced mission statement from those disparaged administrators will get the majority of faculty on board with the general priorities.

One example of the principle in action is when public schools see a 10% cut in state support, they should make a >10% cut in enrolment an immediate and automatic consequence. But that option seems to be buried in the appendix of a long-abandoned strategic plan.