Michael Hilzik of the Los Angeles Times reminds readers that public higher education in California used to be tuition free. It was also tuition free for qualified students at the City University of Néw York.
“President Obama’s proposal unveiled Thursday to provide free community college education to all “responsible” students is garnering immense attention. That’s as it should be, although the details still need to be fleshed out and individual states will have to agree to shoulder a share of the costs.
“But the proposal fails to address one glaring flaw in the nation’s overall system of public higher education: It should all be free. That’s the way it is in Germany, for instance, where there is a long tradition of low-cost university study. In 2014 the last German state holding out against free university education threw in the towel; now anyone, including foreign students, can study at a German university at public expense.
“Free higher education to qualified students was also the rule in California, where the University of California had no tuition for state residents until Gov. Ronald Reagan demanded it in the early 1970s. Once the door was cracked open for tuition charges, it swung wide; a Berkeley or UCLA education was pegged at $12,192 for state residents in 2014-15, plus myriad other fees….
“Free tuition has since come to be viewed as an anachronism, charming to contemplate in the abstract but simply incompatible with modern life. But the numbers don’t support that conclusion. The real obstacle to reinstating it is that it represents a path to social mobility for the working class and the poor–that’s the aspect that’s anachronistic in our grasping modern world.
“Consider this: When the corporate plutocrat Meg Whitman was running for California governor in 2010, she had no trouble proposing the elimination of the state’s capital gains tax, which brought in more than $10 billion in a decent year. Eliminating all in-state tuition, according to a UC report issued around the same time, would have cost only $3 billion.
“Which option would be an investment yielding a greater, broader return to the state? Unmistakably the latter. The roll of distinguished Californians educated for free at UC before the 1970s is a long one. It includes former Governor and U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren; Ralph Bunche (the first black Nobel Peace Prize laureate); author Maxine Hong Kingston; the discoverer of plutonium (and later Berkeley chancellor) Glenn Seaborg; and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In all these examples of “free” education, I assume teachers are getting paid with State tax revenues, and in most cases via a more socialist gov’t. Has anybody done an economic study of these older socialistic free systems, and how much more tax money the state had to collect from its citizens to make it work? Does this system actually convert to a higher GDP, so the increased benefit of “free” education is seen in more productivity by the citizens, stimulating economic growth, providing higher revenues which the state can tax to fund the free system?
How sustainable are such systems, or do market forces cause them to eventually become bankrupt? I’m not agreeing that capital should dictate all we do, but the market does have its needs.
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Mr. Lapworth–see the study by Lavin and Hyllegass on the economic benefits of City University’s Open Admissions/Free Tuition model, which was forcibly shut down in the 1970s by the State, at a time when the State was providing $100mil/yr in aid to private universities in New York. The goal you insist on that free college should make grads more productive is debatable not transparent. In the last 40 years, as higher education and HS diplomas spread throughout the American population, “productivity” zoomed up while wages barely moved, so all those millions of high school and college grads along with their co-workers in the corporate economy were unable to claim their share of the great wealth they produced while at work. Insisting on “productivity” ignores the gross inequities of the corporate economy while overlooking the civic and humane goals critical learning can provide an accomplished citizenry. The market system has been a great boon to the 1% for sure and a burden to the bottom 90% for sure.
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“. . . but the market does have its needs.”
NO!
The “market” doesn’t have any needs. The market is not a person or living being, it is just a not very good description of some human interactions (mainly of the economic type). The “market” doesn’t decide anything, it doesn’t allocate anything, it doesn’t do anything at all. It is a fictional entity used to describe human economic activity, nothing more nothing less.
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Your free market god is a delusion. Breathe & let it go.
Here’s a dose of reality -how private equity works in a rigged market:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/20/huge-wall-street-story-one-talking/
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I’m all for free tuition for public institutions, but not if (as I suspect) it’s all just a Trojan Horse to NCLB/RttT higher education and transfer more public dollars to private pockets. I fear that state schools and community colleges are going to be faced with the same glut of government mandates, standardized tests, VAM, edutech products, etc. that K-12 is currently faced with. The only way to get a true liberal arts education will then be to pay to go to a private university (the prices of which will explode as the quality of the free universities craters).
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Don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe.
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By the way, as someone who left teaching shortly ago to begin a graduate degree in a totally different field. I must add that these Corporate crooks already have their greasy meat hooks all over Higher Education. I have already taken 12 courses thus far and 11 of the 12 classes have had a mandatory online Pearson Mastering component that cost 60 dollars per course and is rife with errors and bugs. They have already gouged me for 660 dollars and let’s not even discuss the textbooks. Highway robbery at its finest people!
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“Trojan Ends”
Trojan horse
Is at the doors
To endorse
A gratis course
But our source
It says, of course,
That the horse
Is evil force
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Bingo. Free Higher- Ed, Community College, & PreK means free from public-private partnerships. Free does not mean this: http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/universal-for-profit-pre-k-dfer-and-the-suits/
or this:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/08/07/37preschool_ep.h32.html?tkn=PZNF%2Fyi60RsoRgtRpL%2B2b5ASuLpkqFuFzg6n&print=1
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We may be getting close to the date where the notion that government funding comes with conditions is properly seen as an inviolable law. And I have a hard time imagining a future where those conditions aren’t enforced in large part through quantitative data analysis.
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we will never have a competitive nation again unless we offer an excellent, well-rounded, and free education to all our citizens from pre-K through college. Easy to pay for: cut the military spending and tax the corporations who do business in this country, but ship profits overseas and have massive tax loopholes.
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One other thing: Our Coalition to Restore Democracy (and its 25 member organizations) is having a rally in Chicago on the 5th anniversary of the Citizens United.decision by the Supreme Court It’s on January 21st starting at 11:00 a.m. at the Federal Plaza but we’re starting to congregate around 10:30. Is there anyone of the many experts out there who would like to come and speak for a few minutes as to how Citizens United has negatively impacted education in our country. Everyone is encouraged to come, though. We need a large crowd in order to get the media out. I’m sure you all know that this was one of the worst decisions made by a corrupt, extremist majority of the Supreme Court. You can emal me at sharsand@aol.com if you would like to speak although we can only have one speaker in each of the areas because so many people have been impacted in so many different ways and we want representatives speaking on different aspects or issues related to the decision..
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Yes, several years ago when visiting Portugal, one of the poorest nations in the European Alliance, i was told that tuition was free. A few years ago when visiting, it cost students $100. Some difference from us where students graduate with staggering debt.
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If a student goes to a community college and a state college they would not have overwhelming debt. Unfortunately so many youth feel entitled to going to expensive prestigious colleges. They are told from an early age that prestige means everything which is a big lie. Consequently they take out enormous loans before they understand how money and wages work. Many are totally unaware that their liberal arts degree will not help them pay back their eighty thousand dollar loan debt in twenty years or less. Instead they will be paying on that loan for most of their adult life.
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Yes higher ed should be free as it is throughout most of Europe. In Europe universities are no frills. In the US many now look like country clubs (thinking of dorm room amenities and such as just one small but rather pricey endeavor). But if we look at what the new Obama-directed “free” means in American education… IT COMES WITH A HIGH PRICE. Obama’s new “free community college” initiative is a strategy closely aligned with the strategies used to make inroads with RTTT. Federal money made cash-starved public secondary school districts in state after state beholden to RTTT initiatives if they wanted much needed federal money. I strongly suspect that “free” community colleges will be beholden to whatever “corporate ed reform” whim is desired by the likes of Gates and Pearson to the point where professors will no longer have any professional autonomy over what they teach, where every community college in every state will teach a core group of classes which use the same Pearson published books, where finals are no longer written by professors but are written by Pearson to ensure there is control over exactly what is taught so that those in power are profiting… a bleak scenario…
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Anything free is rarely appreciated! We are a messy multicultural experiment which comes at a high but worthwhile cost. There are still many affordable education options. I’d much rather see our tax dollars spent on infrastructure and social service programs which help mend the frays of our multicultural fabric. And don’t forget the millions of children with disabilities who are seriously lacking the social and psychological support due to meager government funding. I’d much prefer my tax dollars go to those children as opposed to able bodied young people who have the mental and physical capabilities to work for their education. Free college will create yet another generation who feel entitled.
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There is a caveat to the “free tuition in Germany” argument: Students are screened and tested in what area of study for which they have the highest aptitude. So if you test high for photography, but you want to be doctor, you’re out of luck.
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Cuba does this and the not so bright go to the fields to labor and pick sugar cane.
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Yes, public higher education (UC, State Colleges and Community Colleges) was tuition free up to the year 1971. That was 43 years ago.
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And?
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First, as some people have pointed out, in the countries where the state pays for college, not everyone gets to go to college. They are tracked at age 14, 15, or 16, and only the academically talented go to college. Veterans don’t go to college. Older people don’t go to college. Disabled students don’t go to college.
Second, community college students already have high subsidies in the form of federal and state benefits for tuition, cost of books, and cost of living. A student where I teach has been hanging on for 8 semesters with an average of less than .2, failed remedial writing 4 times, but stays “because it’s a free ride.” We have a one-application system for scholarships (about 50 scholarships) at my college, but the majority of students can’t be bothered to fill out the one-page form.
Third, people value what they pay for. A young friend just came back from a semester in Australia where college is free and students hang out for years, not valuing their education, just enjoying the ride.
Finally, where is this money coming from? Has anyone looked at community college salaries–not just faculty but staff–and seen how little the people there make, given their qualifications? Yes, sure, cut the military and tax the corporations, but do that FIRST before shoveling more money into education-welfare.
Oh, one more thing: the one thing that might actually help is if we stopped telling students they have to finish college in 3 years (community) or five years, and encouraged them to take what they can afford and can manage to do. What’s a college degree worth when someone storms through in 2 years (community), graduating with a .2 average and no idea how to do anything but take multiple-choice tests?
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