Sara Goldrick Rab is a professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
In this paper, she explains the likely effects of President Obama’s plan for tuition-free community college. She explains how the plan would affect students who receive Pell grants, how it is likely to affect community colleges, how the plan differs from the Tennessee program, and other frequently asked questions. She seeks to allay the fears of critics. She does not, however, address the question of whether the plan is an effort to impose Race to the Top metrics on this sector.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Okay, I get the author’s arguments that there might be modest, positive gains to be had for low-income students by making CCs tuition-free. I am not convinced however this plan will lead to an improvement in current faculty hiring practices at community colleges, where the majority of courses are taught by poorly paid, part-time adjuncts. The author seems to believe the system will experience greater efficiency and the instructors won’t be as burdened with having to deal with the problems that low-income students tend to bring along. This is a highly speculative assumption in itself, and I have serious doubts this plan will improve the faculty situation.
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This paper is pure propaganda. The effects of this are simple: Community College education for the masses and top tier education for the elite. Controlled curriculum as we have in now in Public Schools with RTTT and CC will be implemented in Community Colleges but not at the University level. It is a shame how the Professors in Community Colleges are treated. For example, when I was taking my per-requisite courses for PA school I did so at a Community College; one which is noted as one of the best in the Country. I had some top tier Professors with Doctorate’s who were excellent educators. One day after class, I stayed and chatted with one of my Professor’s I began to ask her about her education and such and she stated that she had a Doctorate but was paid so miserably that she had to teach in another community college and work part time as a Dental Hygienist. She also mentioned that her job in the Community College was part time and offered zero benefits. This is the sole reason why the reformers are trying to tout this free College BS because the faculty in most Community Colleges are not full time Unionized personnel and therefore they are easy to manipulate and control. Furthermore, within the paper it is stated that the major reasons Community Colleges have such low graduations rates are primarily financial. This is utter nonsense! The reason graduation rates are so low in Community Colleges is because these schools have zero entrance requirements other than having a GED or or a High school diploma. In many of these Community Colleges you will find a ton of unmotivated and lazy students who barely show up to class, do not study, and in many cases are fidgeting with their phones and texting during a Professor’s lecture. I have had classmates show up to an 8:00 am class wearing pajamas. There is also an abundance of fraud at these schools via financial aid where students get awarded money with no intention of ever attending class only to drop their classes shortly after and pocket a couple of grand. As a graduate of a Community College I am not saying that they are not viable assets educationally speaking but to just lump the majority of people and push them strictly into Community Colleges based on their income levels is simply unacceptable. How about we give each person a set amount of money to use at whatever College they desire. Oh wait this sounds like vouchers but politicians only like that idea when the school of choice is a privately managed profit centered corporate racket.
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Thank you, The Real One. I too have many, many questions about this. I can’t help but have great suspicions. Is it a BACKROOM DEAL made to DEFORM education even more? If Gates $$$$$ is attached to this one, well…SHAME.
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I don’t think it’s propaganda. Professor Goldrick-Rab sincerely believes in this proposal to provide free access to community colleges to reduce financial barriers to enrolling in and completing community college. She is one of the major proponents of this approach. She has always seemed to me to be sincere and progressive. She is no elitist.
The faculty compensation picture at community colleges is mixed. Here in Wisconsin, part time adjuncts in the technical college system are paid less relative to full time faculty and this has been a point of strong contention between adjuncts and the technical colleges. Full time faculty are more appropriately compensated. There are full-time instructors at Madison College who have higher salaries than Professor Goldrick-Rab at UW-Madison. I don’t know what the situation is in other states.
I agree with you in part regarding completion rates. It’s partly due to the open access, but it is also partly due to financial barriers as Goldrick-Rab suggests. Even more so for students who are placed into remedial non-credit bearing courses in their first semester.
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Stiles wrote “She has always seemed to me to be sincere and progressive. She is no elitist.”
Sara Goldrick-Rab wrote ” I do not align with any of the elitism of my home institution.”
I now vision that college profs will be similarly discredited as K-12 teachers. They will be called elitists, and that will be enough to do them under.
Here’s Goehring advice as he cites an age old recipe to drive people to war: “All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”
K-12 teachers are the pacifists who don’t want the reform-war against public schools, and all these profs in the Ivory tower are next.
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Not much attention to the faculty and resources needed in community colleges in order to serve students who enter at little or no cost, but in theory have passed muster in being college OR career ready under the regime of Obama/Gates/Duncan.
So, if the students enter but do not complete, or complete “on time,” then these institutions and faculty may well face “corrective actions,” especially because gov”mt funding is now contingent on outcomes only, irrespective of the supports students and their teachers actually require.
In 2010, about 70% of community college teachers were adjuncts, part-timers. For one of the first reasonably comprehensive surveys of teachers in community colleges (and part-time faculty in higher education) see
Click to access aa_partimefaculty0310.pdf
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Hi everyone. Thanks to Diane for posting this. But I have to admit, I’m surprised and concerned with how you framed it. There are a few missing facts that your readers might welcome as context:
1. I co-authored a lengthy proposal for making two years of college free which was used as PART of the blueprint for this initiative. That proposal includes a thorough discussion of the resources required to do this well. Moreover, in a 2009 Brookings Institution paper, I discuss the need for a major investment in faculty and infrastructure at community colleges. Please see:
Click to access Redefining_College_Affordability.pdf
and
Click to access 0507_community_college_full_report.pdf
2. I do not address the questions about accountability/metrics in this FAQ because they have not been proposed by the President, not because I am avoiding them. I’ve written on this topic in the papers linked above as well.
3. I do not “seek to allay the fears of critics” in the FAQ, Diane, but rather to honestly and directly address the common questions asked. This is not “propaganda,” for I am selling nothing and am not in cahoots with anyone. I support the plan and am explaining why to the best of my ability.
4. In full disclosure, it seems worth mentioning to the readers who do not know me that I am a member of the AFT’s Higher Education Public Policy Council, recently co-authored an op-ed with Randi on the same topic, and that I’m also a new member of the board of the Shankar Institute. I’m also very active in my local here at UW-Madison, and I work with faculty, staff, and students across all public institutions in Wisconsin. I do not align with any of the elitism of my home institution, and work daily to implement the Wisconsin Idea. See the latest iteration of my efforts at the Wisconsin HOPE Lab (wihopelab.com)
I look forward to a robust and informed discussion on this blog. Again, thanks for sharing the FAQ. This proposal is among the boldest we’ve seen from the Obama Administration. While I’ve opposed pretty much everything that’s come from Arne Duncan, I like this one– and I don’t think it bears his fingerprints at all.
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Sara Goldrick-Rab writes “While I’ve opposed pretty much everything that’s come from Arne Duncan, I like this one– and I don’t think it bears his fingerprints at all.”
I wonder about your opinion how Gates will exploit this federal support of community colleges, as he outlines it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf_rxN8Dqfg#t=2196
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