CONVERSATIONS ABOUT LIFE
This past semester I enrolled in the honors seminar “Conversations About Life”. We met every Wednesday night at Stratford Heights, one of the dorm complexes on campus. There were about twenty of us in the class coming from a wide variety of majors as well as being in different years of college. I was one of the younger students because I was a first year. For the first half of the course, we were expected to bring different topics to class that we would discuss. These topics were supposed to be controversial or thought provoking in order to have a good, quality discussion. Before the discussions took place, we would read the topics brought in that day and vote on the ones to discuss for the next class. The topics we discussed during the first half included police brutality, gun control, love, and the existence of God. Some topics were much better than others. After spring break, we started to discuss the topics of our term papers. The reason for this was twofold. The first was so that we had more topics to discuss. The second was so that each individual would get 19 other perspectives on the topic they were writing about. This was extremely helpful in looking for resources and different sub-topics in the term paper. My term paper was over both President Obama’s America’s College Promise and the Tennessee Promise.
Throughout the course, it became easier to express your own opinions about topics that sometimes seem either too taboo or just plain weird to talk about in normal conversation with friends. It was also really nice to have these discussions with other honors students. This allowed the conversation to be taken much more seriously and thus allowed us all to grow in our ability to discuss difficult and/or delicate topics.
What I hope to do with what I learned in this class is as follows: be able to talk about an important issue with people with differing opinions and still remain civil, express my own opinions more clearly in discussions, and make arguments that are much more logically sound.
Artifact
The artifact that I am choosing to publish here is the term paper that we had to write during the second half of the course. It was a culmination of what we learned in the class, mainly how to talk about what you believe without being overly agressive. If you want to read this paper as a downloadable document, please click here. I will also put the text of my paper here down below. I apoligize for some formatting issues because they did not cross over very well.
In America today, it is expected of those that graduate from high school that they then go on to college. In fact, the amount of people that attend college has increased by 5.7 million since the year 2000.1 Despite the increased growth in attendance of colleges, the United States keeps falling in percentage of adults between the age of 25 to 34 that hold degrees.2 Several states and President Obama have realized that we, as a country, need to work on increasing the amount of people that are able to attend college and complete a degree. Tennessee’s Governor, Bill Haslam, is leading the way for free community college with his new plans for Tennessee.
The Tennessee Promise is one of a three part initiative known as the Drive to 55 Alliance. The alliance was instituted by Governor Haslam in order to increase the amount of degree holding adults in the state to 55 percent by 2025. Currently, the amount of degree holding adults in Tennessee is close to 32 percent. The reason Governor Haslam decided to start this project is because he wanted the jobs that are in Tennessee to stay in Tennessee. Haslam also wanted to encourage economic growth of businesses and the state’s citizens.3
The plan President Obama has proposed, America’s College Promise, is inspired by the Tennessee Promise. The plan that the president is proposing calls for one fourth of the funding to come from each individual state and the remaining will come from the federal government. With the plan being projected to effect 9 million students with tuition costs of roughly $3,800, the entire promise could cost about $34 million.4 Even though both the federal and state governments will be funding this program, the promise is not a handout. Students participating would be required to attend at least half-time, have a minimum grade point average of 2.5, and make progress to completing their degree.5
Since the announcement of America’s College Promise, there have been many debates on whether or not a program like this would actually be beneficial for the country. They argue that it is a bad investment because out of ten students, only three of them will graduate within three years.6 Those that are against this plan tend to think about the same set of issues, including: existing programs that already help those that need it, how much it will cost, and the possibility of hurting four-year institutions. Some people against the idea even went so far as to say that this was “... typical Obama blather…”.7
Some of these issues do raise big concerns. The biggest of these concerns is the cost. America’s College Promise is predicted to help nearly 9 million students a year. Fully covering tuition costs for the predicted 9 million a year will cost nearly $36,000,000,000 a year. These projections also assume that many more people would switch out of four-year institutions and transfer to free two-year colleges. In order to make this promise affordable, President Obama has asked that the states cover one-fourth of the cost while the federal government covers the rest of it. So instead of 36 billion dollars, the federal government only has to scrape up 27 billion dollars.
This can be quite concerning for those that are already not happy with how the federal budget is looking. The real question is, where will this money come from? Several people find this question ridiculous. On twitter, some users are outraged at how much people in the government are complaining at the cost of community college. One user, My Two Cents, had this to say, “If (you) want to spend $600 BILLION A YEAR on war and bombs, I’m (going to) say ok $60 billion (for community college).”8
The whole idea that we are unable to even think about taking the money for education out of the defense budget is ludicrous. The United States currently spends just under $600 billion. The next closest country, China, spends less than $130 billion on defense.9 It makes sense that we should be able to pull whatever amount we need for the promise to be funded and still have plenty for the military.
There are also plenty of ways in which we would be able to fund this promise without even touching the defense budget. It would involve reorganizing our currency. All we would have to do is do away with the penny, nickel, and quarter, and switch to a three coin system: a ten cent piece, a half dollar piece, and a dollar coin. The dollar coin could replace the dollar bill and save us lots of money just because of how long coins are able to stay in circulation compared to the bill counterpart. There are also plenty of dollar coins already minted, so we really would not have to make that many more.10 It would be a radical idea, but it is one that would be able to fund the plan for free community college.
The states would also have plenty of ways to fund their share of this plan. Tennessee’s governor chose to fund the Tennessee Promise through the lottery. Governor Haslam’s plan does come with one drawback. It is going to pull over $300 million from the state’s Hope Scholarship reserve and transfer it to the Tennessee Promise fund. Several students that receive the Hope Scholarship were asked about what they think about Haslam’s plan. One Memphis College student , Kristen Ayers said, “It could benefit the community college student, but it is also going to be taking away from students like me and I had to pay for four years of school. It’s kind of like a Catch 22. It can help, but it can hurt too.”11 Several people feel the same way as Ms. Ayers. Governor Haslam has promised that there will still be plenty of money left in the reserve for scholarship students while still being able to fund his plan.
Another question about America’s College Promise is if it will end up hurting four-year institutions. In response to taking Hope Scholarship funds, a congressman from memphis said the following about its impact to four-year institutions. Congressman Cohen said, “This is a death knell for the hope scholarship. It is going to hurt four-year colleges. It will hurt the University of Memphis, which is already losing students to community colleges and people not being able to afford it and it will hurt LeMoyne Owen because they are encouraging people to go to community colleges.” The congressman makes a decent point, but the whole idea of both the Tennessee Promise and America’s College Promise is to provide education for those that cannot afford to go to four-year institutions. If anything, it is extremely possible for people to transfer back into these four-year colleges in order to continue whatever degree they completed at community college and then have two less years of student loan debt to pay. The first few years for four-year colleges might have a slight loss, but it community colleges are just unable to provide the degrees that universities are able to provide.
The third issues that a lot of people have with free community college is that there are already programs in place that allow those that need help to go, the help that they need. For example, Missouri has a program called the A+ Scholarship Program. This program was designed to help the students that truly wanted an education and were willing to work for it. There are several criteria that need to be met in order to qualify for the scholarship that is provided through this program including 95% attendance throughout high school, a minimum 2.5 GPA, and 50 hours of unpaid/volunteer tutoring/mentoring.12 A+ does the same thing that America’s College Promise will, but actually makes the student work for it. If President Obama’s plan is taken into action, then programs like A+ will be obsolete. The difference between the programs is subtle, but it can make a difference. It would be much more beneficial in the long run for the promise to have requirements similar to that of A+. If it did, then the country would only have to fund those that are actually serious about getting an education instead of just going because it is free. Even if there were no programs, there is an argument that those who cannot afford to go to college are able to go to community college for almost nothing by using Pell Grants.
The issues people have with free community college feel more like excuses at this point. We can definitely afford to pay for whatever it will cost us, whether that be by cutting defense and military spending or by using more radical ideas. It will not really hurt four-year institutions because the people that will use the community college plan either cannot afford to go to a four-year college or will end up transferring to accomplish a higher degree. Finally, there are not very many other programs to help with paying for community college. They are starting to get more common, but they still are not enough. It would be a great idea though to incorporate ideas from existing programs into America’s College Promise.
Those that are for the idea of free community college have lots of positive things that are able to come from the promise. These benefits of free two-year and technical school training include an increase in the skills of America to compete on a global stage, lowering the student loan debt, a greater likelihood of a thriving economy, and people who take advantage will be able to make more money.
One of the biggest reasons that people want this promise to go through is because it will help decrease the skills gap that is arising. In a study done by Georgetown University, by the year 2020 at least two-thirds of all jobs in the United States will require some post-secondary education.13 This is one of the main reasons that Governor Haslam instituted the Drive to 55 Alliance and the Tennessee Promise. He wants the jobs that have the potential to be in Tennessee to remain in Tennessee and the best way to do that is to have people that are educated and able to do those jobs.14 It allows us to keep the jobs in America and be more competitive on the global stage.
One aspect of the plans being presented seems to get overlooked as well. Not only is it free two-year community college, but also free technical school. This means that all training for most blue-collar jobs will be free, a job market that is in desperate need of people. As the times have gone on, a stigma against blue-collar work has arisen. The basis for this bias is a bit far fetched because blue-collar jobs, like plumbing and being a mechanic, have a pretty decent salary. Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, is a huge supporter of community college and technical school. He thinks Americans need to move past this negative connotation of blue-collar work and roll up their sleeves and get a little dirty. There are over 500,000 jobs in manufacturing that need to be filled alone and programs in technical school and community college will help people be ready to fill those jobs which will not only help the individual, but also help the economy.15
Another way that President Obama’s plan would help the economy is that it has the potential to greatly decrease the amount of student loan debt. By allowing people to go to community college for free, it gives students the option to not have to pay for two years of schooling, which means two years less of student loans. These two years less of loans would not only help the students to not have thousands upon thousands of dollars in student loan debt, but it would free up that money that is being loaned to help fund America’s College Promise, or something else entirely. Currently, the total student loan debt is more than $1,200,000,000,000. That is 6% of the overall national debt in America. Not only has the debt reached an all time high, but so has the amount of people that are defaulting on their loans; it is not just students either. Some parents of students, hoping to give their kids the best chance of success possible, have taken on their children’s debts and defaulted because of how much it costs.16
Four-year institutions have gotten far too expensive for students to be able to just be able to go and not worry about what it will cost them. Since the 1970’s, the total cost of college has soared by over 1000%.17 In hopes to deflate this ever-growing bubble of debt, President Obama wanted to give people an option of free two-year schooling to get rid of those two years of student loans. This plan is one of the only recent proposals that can help decrease the student debt crisis.
With an increase in people working and a decrease in student debt, the likelihood of our economy thriving is even higher. More people working means that more people will have money to spend. The lower the amount of debt means that those people will be able to spend the money they are using on paying off debt sooner to be used in buying things. The flow of money from person to person will help the economy.
Even if you ignore the increased workforce and decreased debt, you can still see benefits for the economy with America’s College Promise and the Tennessee Promise that are promoting vocational training as well as two-year colleges. A great example of using vocational training to help the economy is Switzerland. Switzerland has one of the lowest unemployment rates. The unemployment rate for just their youth is close to 3%. Switzerland also has a highly trained workforce. Other European countries that have healthy economies all have vocational training as an integral part of their education system. In Finland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, anywhere from 40-70% of students decide to go for vocational training instead of traditional school.18
Another great thing about the promise is that those who take advantage of this program will be able to make more money. Even with just two years of community college, a person’s earning potential increases from close to $650 a week to $750 a week.19 There are even extremely well paying jobs that you only need an Associates Degree or vocational training in including commercial pilots ($98,410 a year), elevator technicians ($76,650 a year), and air traffic controllers ($122,530 a year).20 It is also beneficial for people who take advantage of the promise because these are all jobs that need workers.
It is understandable why people are hesitant about giving out free two-year college and vocational school. It goes against many of the things that have been ingrained in the older generation for so many years. Ideas such as: if you want something, then you need to work for it. These concepts have been a little lost on the younger generation, or at least it feels that way. Many more people today appear to be more entitled and demand things be given to them. That is why America’s College Promise is concerning. It seems like another step towards people being entitled to things. It is understood that that is not the intention of the promise by any means, but it is hard to see it in any other light. For those in the younger generation that had to work hard for everything they have earned, this program is fantastic because those that have worked have earned it.
The promises, both America’s College Promise and the Tennessee Promise need to be earned by those using them. It cannot be just some handout in hopes that people will take what is given to them and use it. Forbes put it well, “(you need to have) skin in the game”.21 Skin in the game basically means that you need to be invested in what you are trying to participate in. It is essentially putting your money where your mouth is. Individuals are much more likely to try at something if it cost them something in return. If they were just given it, there would be no incentive to push through the hard times because it cost them nothing to start it.
The saddest part about this promise is that it seems to be sitting dead in the water in a Republican majority congress. This makes little sense because President Obama’s plan is based off of Republican Governor Haslam’s own plan. Even though the likelihood of the America’s College Promise passing through Congress right now is slim, it has stirred up many people already. In fact, the plan has bipartisan support, both Republican Tennessee and Democratic Chicago have similar plans. At this point, it seems like the question is not a matter of if it happens, but when it happens. The reasons for not approving the promise seem more like excuses at this point instead of legitimate reasons that raise questions.