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Free Community College: Obama Heeds Scientific American’s Advice—Kind Of

It took awhile. But President Obama finally decided to take us up on the editorial we published last summer on making community college free.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


It took awhile. But President Obama finally decided to take us up on the editorial we published last summer on making community college free.

What kept him?

Kim Jong Un? John Boehner?


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Actually, beats us if he actually read it. But the idea of making community college free is one whose time has come. “Great minds…"

Free two-year colleges would serve as a concrete measure directed toward giving people the skills for better jobs—many of them in the science and technology arena. It would also be a small step to help narrow economic disparities, an issue that consumes so much political and academic debate.

Obama’s move is clever for a reason that we delineated in the editorial: the original idea of making community colleges free came from the Republican governor of Tennessee and so could maybe—a big maybe—gain some traction in the new U.S. Congress. Here’s the editorial again so you can decide whether the whole thing is a good idea. Let us know.

Why Community Colleges Should Be Free

To bolster the nation's high-tech labor pool, some higher education should come without a tuition bill

Aug 19, 2014 |By The Editors

Tennessee does not immediately come to mind as a progressive force in science and technical education. Even today the legacy of the infamous 1925 Scopes trial persists: a relatively new state law invites teachers to criticize mainstream science, be it evolution or global warming.

Yet the antediluvian “Monkey Bill,” as opponents call the 2012 legislation, has not prevented the state from taking the national spotlight as an educational innovator. In May, Republican governor Bill Haslam signed a bill that will make Tennessee's two-year community colleges and technical schools free to any high school graduate starting in 2015.

Community colleges are pillars of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education. They train technicians for jobs in leading-edge industries and grant associate's degrees that let students finish the last half of their higher education at a four-year institution. While the gap in economic well-being between college graduates and those with only a high school diploma grows ever wider, community colleges serve as gateways for the underrepresented and the working class. Nationwide, 40 percent of community college students are in the first generation of their families to attend college, more than 55 percent of Hispanics in college are enrolled in community colleges, and 40 percent of community college students hold down full-time jobs.

The National Science Foundation has long recognized the importance of two-year schools as training grounds for high-tech industries such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. It devotes more than $60 million annually to its Advanced Technological Education program, which develops curricula to immerse students, for instance, in the nuances of cell cultures and standard deviations. Graduates of these courses go on to careers in the laboratories of Genentech and the command centers of nuclear power plants. Veterans returning to the workforce receive training for technical careers in the aerospace industry.

The Tennessee law will enable students to attend the state's 13 community colleges and 27 technical schools tuition-free in hopes of raising the number of college graduates in the state from 32 to 55 percent by 2025. (The national average is now 42 percent.) The program will be funded largely by lottery money and will also somewhat reduce scholarships at the state's four-year institutions. If a trade-off has to be made, this one may be worth it to upgrade a workforce judged in one survey to be of low quality. Other states—and the private sector—are watching closely. Oregon has plans to make community college free, and Mississippi may try again after the death of a bill this year. These efforts should be viewed as models for other states to emulate. To succeed, though, the two-year schools will need a lot of help.

Community colleges have long wrestled with the responsibility of having to offer remedial education for entrants who arrive at their doors without a proper grounding in basic skills. The educational deficits are one reason only 32 percent of Tennessee's students finish at state-run community colleges, which is why Haslam's program appoints “mentors” to ease the transition.

To ensure that the newly enrolled reach graduation day, administrators of community colleges must emphasize accelerated remedial programs to get students through the basics and into career-related classes quickly enough to avoid the frustration and despondency that lead to elevated dropout rates.

The two-year colleges should also give serious consideration to new teaching methods that could maximize the time teachers have to interact with their students. Bill Gates, whose foundation has contributed tens of millions to remedy the failings of two-year schools, recommended in a speech last year that community colleges experiment with “flipped classrooms.” Students watch lectures from MOOCs (massive open online courses) at home. In class, instead of getting lectures, they complete homeworklike exercises, with personalized instruction from professors and teaching assistants.

Two-year college students face an obstacle course of personal and academic challenges on the path to a diploma. Many must hold down a job or two while attending courses. The renewed spotlight on community colleges is essential for transforming these vital institutions into gateways to the tech-oriented skills that serve as the foundation for vibrant economies.

This article was originally published with the title "Free Up the Two-Year Colleges."

Image Source: Ross McDonald

Gary Stix, Scientific American's neuroscience and psychology editor, commissions, edits and reports on emerging advances and technologies that have propelled brain science to the forefront of the biological sciences. Developments chronicled in dozens of cover stories, feature articles and news stories, document groundbreaking neuroimaging techniques that reveal what happens in the brain while you are immersed in thought; the arrival of brain implants that alleviate mood disorders like depression; lab-made brains; psychological resilience; meditation; the intricacies of sleep; the new era for psychedelic drugs and artificial intelligence and growing insights leading to an understanding of our conscious selves. Before taking over the neuroscience beat, Stix, as Scientific American's special projects editor, oversaw the magazine's annual single-topic special issues, conceiving of and producing issues on Einstein, Darwin, climate change, nanotechnology and the nature of time. The issue he edited on time won a National Magazine Award. Besides mind and brain coverage, Stix has edited or written cover stories on Wall Street quants, building the world's tallest building, Olympic training methods, molecular electronics, what makes us human and the things you should and should not eat. Stix started a monthly column, Working Knowledge, that gave the reader a peek at the design and function of common technologies, from polygraph machines to Velcro. It eventually became the magazine's Graphic Science column. He also initiated a column on patents and intellectual property and another on the genesis of the ingenious ideas underlying new technologies in fields like electronics and biotechnology. Stix is the author with his wife, Miriam Lacob, of a technology primer called Who Gives a Gigabyte: A Survival Guide to the Technologically Perplexed (John Wiley & Sons, 1999).

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