Many of our younger voters were enthused by the proposal of tuition-free and debt-free college plans by Bernie Sanders. And since Sanders’ concession to and endorsement of Hillary Clinton, she has adopted the tuition-free college position. The much older proposal for affordable higher ed receded into the background and pushed free-tuition at two-year programs to the top of the agenda.
President Obama gave his endorsement to the idea in January 2015 and announced America’s College Promise, a federal matching grant program to spur the development of free community college across the country. However, free community college is being primarily pursued at a grassroots level because there hasn’t been much of a federal policy framework to guide that work.
So far, a number of states and local communities have put in place some version of free community college and it will be years before we have any data on efficacy. So, is it worth it? As a community college educator and businesswoman, I am an advocate of tuition-free community colleges.
Education matters – and we should try to make it both accessible and excellent. American colleges under-serve minority and low-income students, many of whom would struggle to pay for any amount of post-secondary education, and college tuition in general is unreasonably high, often costing more than it’s worth. In California, community college tuition fees are in the $1,100 range per year — among the lowest in the nation. But, adding in housing, transportation and books can bring the bill to $18,000 or more.
While tuition is only a portion of the total cost, removing it from the bill would be a positive step forward. But making this shift without addressing the systemic social equity barriers would be a mistake. As a social equity advocate, I see tuition cost as only a small issue in the broader context of minority and low income student struggles. We need to address the basic education gap in high school graduates. We need to ensure all students are supported in developing, critical thinking, analytical writing, and creative problem-solving and a mastery of fundamental academic skills. That requires social support, access to relevant resources, and programs to help them navigate the post-secondary and higher ed systems.
This in conjunction with free-tuition will give students the tools they need to actually pass their classes and persevere as a college student. In fact, if their experience in the education system does not provide a holistic support structure, making college tuition-free may just put our marginalized students further down the ladder of success. And that I do not want to see.
– Danielle Davenport is a candidate for Area 6 Gavilan Community College Trustee.