
I Owe It All to Community College - MaxQuentero
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/opinion/tom-hanks-on-his-two-years-at-chabot-college.html?_r=0
======
jesseclay
Another anecdote on the power of community college:

Back in 2009 I enrolled at Community College of San Francisco. I was 19 and
had no idea what I wanted to do career wise, so I took broad and rigorous
curriculum focused on transferring to UC-Berkeley.

The 2 years I spent there were some of the best of my life. I was frequently
pushed and challenged by excellent professors who had true passion for their
subjects (a few even had Ph.D.s). I grew a passion for learning Spanish (a
subject that I had found painful in high school) among many others and got
involved with several extracurricular groups. By my second year I was an
elected student government senator and president of the business club. I was
amazed by all the school had to offer hungry students and I took advantage of
every opportunity. Not to mention I met some of my closet friends in life
geeking out in study groups.

When it came time to apply to 4 year universities (fall and spring of my
second and final year) I decided to apply to Stanford in addition to my
originally intended UC-Berkeley. Just a few months later I was shocked to
accept Stanford’s offer of transfer admission to complete my undergraduate
degree. Going to a place like Stanford would have been unthinkable for me just
a few years earlier in high school, back then I had pretty average grades
(around a 3.4) and mediocre test scores. Community college let me re-invent
myself as a student and start with a completely fresh slate.

When I got into Stanford I eventually started to focus in on a major and
skill-set, taking a ton of CS classes in the process. While I hadn’t studied
CS in community college (although I think they do offer it), I strongly feel
the high level of general curriculum I took prepared me to major in nearly
anything I would have liked at Stanford. I now work as a full-time software
engineer, something I had no knowledge of whatsoever when I first started
community college.

No doubt my admission to Stanford is an outlier for community college students
(only a tiny percentage are admitted), however a ton of very intelligent and
eager students transfer to 4 year universities every year, including several
of my close friends. They have now entered the workforce and are highly
contributing members to society and the tax-base.

I could go on forever about the benefits of community college (and in some
ways how certain things were better than at a place like Stanford), however
the short of it is that indeed, I also owe it all to community college, too.

~~~
jdhawk
Not all community colleges are the same. If you live in close proximity to
universities with high academic standards, most of the professors are going to
be recent graduates of those programs, or educators picking up extra cash and
some experience teaching at CC.

BFE Community College will not have the same level of academic excellence.

~~~
alexisnorman
Yeah, while I think community college is great, the one I attended (GCC, in
AZ) basically felt like high school all over again. Horrible professors, worse
students, boring (and ridiculously easy) material; I hated it so much that I
ditched college for two years before deciding to go back to school at a
university. As soon as I was taking university classes I started to wonder why
I hadn't just started at a university to begin with. It's good to hear there's
community colleges out there that emit the same level of passion in
students/professors though.

~~~
nearengine
I took a couple math courses (discrete math and differential equations, I
think) at GCC and MCC while attending ASU for Computer Engineering, and I
thought the CC professors were more helpful and more passionate about teaching
undergrads than the profs at ASU. In my experience the university professors
were more worried about their own projects and acted like teaching 20 year
olds was above them.

As far as the material goes, the curriculum of the classes I took was nearly
identical to the ones at ASU. The diffeq course actually had a higher workload
than the ASU version. It's interesting that CC/university experiences differ
so much even among students of the same school.

~~~
PakG1
Even within the same school, there are different professors of differing
quality. I remember when I was choosing my courses for the next semester
during university, I'd always check ratemyprofessor.com before making a final
decision on a course.

------
snake_plissken
The initial proposal from The President costs $60 billion over ten years or $6
billion per year. For some perspective, conservative estimates have put the
cost of the war in Iraq at $500 million a day. This proposal would cost 72
days of war.

It's difficult to comprehend how our politicians could have any issues
supporting such an initiative.

~~~
danielweber
If we just buy everything that is cheaper than the Iraq war, we will very soon
be bankrupt.

~~~
RIMR
The Iraq War has cost us ~$6,000,000,000,000 (that's ~$17k per US citizen).

Under Obama's plan, that money could be used to pay for two years of community
college for every student willing to do the require work for the next 1000
years!

Of course we shouldn't "buy everything that's cheaper than the Iraq war", but
that's not what is being argued. This was just to show a contrast between two
~10-year projects. It doesn't take a lot of work to figure out which
investment has a higher return.

~~~
twoodfin
Where do you get that $6T figure? It's absurdly larger than any budgetary
expenditure.

~~~
dredmorbius
Wikipedia cites Brown and CBO and Brown studies putting the cost at $1 - $2.4
trillion. That's $3200 - $7700 per person in the US.

$6 trillion exceeds that considerably, no idea on the source (I'm not OP), but
inclusive of civilian costs to Iraqis it might be a defensible number.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War)

------
brohoolio
$95 dollars a semester.

It shows you how society used to provide resources for people to bootstrap
their lives.

The same individuals who benefited from this investment have not decided to
pay it forward. They argue for lower taxes and support for education.

~~~
Domenic_S
Today, the cost is somewhere around $50/unit, not too bad.

If I could allocate my tax dollars toward programs like Community College and
other non-University options (Coursera?) I would be all about higher taxes for
education. But I get fatigued and resentful when public institutions cry
poverty and then we see things like this:

> _UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison retired with a lump-sum package
> of $2.1 million and was immediately rehired as UC Berkeley police chief with
> higher pay than she had earned before her retirement._

[http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081212/news_lz1ed12top...](http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081212/news_lz1ed12top.html)

~~~
es09
The 95$ per semester figure is for the State University at Sacramento - not
for the community college. The current fees work out to ~5500$ per semester[1]
for the same university.

[1] [http://www.calstate.edu/budget/student-fees/fee-
rates/sacram...](http://www.calstate.edu/budget/student-fees/fee-
rates/sacramento-history.shtml)

~~~
danielweber
Probably not a coincidence, at all, that $5500 is _just_ under the Pell grant
amount.

~~~
learc83
The Pell grant limit is per year. The $5500 is per semester, so the total
yearly tuition is about 2x what the Pell grant pays.

------
jarcane
I had a more enlightening, more rewarding, more encouraging experience in
community college than I ever have had before or since in any other form of
education.

If I can place any flaw on it, it's that the experience was in fact too
edifying, and kind of ruined my attempts to survive the painful meatgrinder
that was an actual full university education.

------
romaniv
I'm glad that it worked for him, but my community college was a complete waste
of time with the exception of two (just two!) courses and the internship
program.

I think the true way forward is in replacing community colleges with
certificates from online courses (with some in-person labs, probably). It's
cheaper and would make for better quality of education.

~~~
aaron-lebo
Colleges as a whole should be completely replaced with something like
certificates. Bachelor degrees are way too expensive for what they provide.
The vast majority of people would be much better off with focused, relevant
learning and skills.

I went to a CC as well, fantastically cost-effective, I had some real gems for
teachers, but I can think of at least one who had no business teaching
anything. If we make CC free, they become an additional paper prereq, and high
school education becomes even less valuable because basic education gets
pushed further back to the CC level.

Stop, stop, stop. I know many people on this forum like me value learning, but
spending more money fixes nothing.

~~~
Retra
What you're saying is mostly true, but it may not be all that relevant. The
vast majority of people would be better off if you just gave them everything
for free, but the _society_ as a whole would not be. Bachelor degrees, for
instance, aren't supposed to be designed to serve the student, but to serve
the community. (I.e., that's why they teach the 'classics' in the
western/greek tradition.)

You are not supposed to be purchasing an education for yourself alone. It is
supposed to make you a better person in terms of supporting your community,
and your community is _supposed_ to support you for doing so.

I think you are being too narrow-minded in supposing we'd all be better off by
adapting a policy that essentially maximizes selfishness and division of
skill. One cannot have the flexibility to make good plans by refusing to make
any sacrifices.

------
eddie_31003
When I started at my Local Community College, Bakersfield College, in 1997 it
was $11 a semester. I think it's up $46 a semester now. I took my C/C++
courses from George Driver. I've recently returned to B.C. as an Adjunct
Professor in the Computer Science Dept.

------
fatjokes
> classes I dropped after the first hour (astronomy, because it was all math)

Yet another cultural figure stating without embarrassment how bad they are at
math.

~~~
toxican
I'm just impressed that a community college level astronomy course had math in
it. Mine was nothing but familiarizing students stargazing and terminology.

~~~
Rapzid
You mean college level? My stellar astronomy involved quite a bit of
computation for orbits, determining the mass of stars, etc.

~~~
xacaxulu
I recall astronomy being mostly physics. It was one of the most interesting
classes I ever took.

------
drawkbox
The community college effort is a worthy one. With a renewed focus on it, it
may help make tuition higher up more competitive. It may also make the
freshman/sophomore level basic classes much better.

I know part of this is to battle rising student loans. Loans will be much
cheaper if they can have community college as an option to start with that the
government won't have to pay higher tuition for. It is actually very smart in
solving the student loan issue, the balance of lower tuition and not having to
pay for the first 1-2 years of university tuition will be very big.

I think some kids need something to go to right out of high school if noone
was there to help them be serious at school. It is also badly needed for
adults that might need a change of career or some path forward.

We need to do this and require 1Gbps internet across the US if we want to
compete and care about our own infrastructure and people. We need to do this
before we fund another war.

------
fnordfnordfnord
I am an instructor at a community college, and I have to say that I had
earfuls of embarrassing pessimism from my colleagues yesterday. You'd have
thought that Obama himself was taking the tuition directly out of our salaries
to fund it.

~~~
danielweber
Maybe they are thinking of the bottom 10% of their class, and then imagining
more students like that in the classroom.

We're talking about expanded community college for the marginal student: that
is, the student who just barely cannot get into community college today but
could with a little more help.

~~~
smeyer
I don't think that's relevant, is it? At least where I grew up (California),
community colleges tended not to have admission standards and anyone could
attend. Making it easier to afford seems to imply you'll be getting people who
just barely cannot pay for it now, not people who "just barely cannot get in".

~~~
danielweber
Community college is already very cheap, and Pell grants often completely
cover the cost if you are low income.

~~~
smeyer
I still don't see your point about people who "just barely cannot get in".
Most community college students did not need to do anything to get in. For the
public community colleges in California, if I recall correctly, you just need
to be 18 (or have a high school diploma or meet some other conditions.) Why do
you think that funding community college would result in more students like
the bottom 10% of those currently in community college classes?

~~~
danielweber
> As Reihan Salam of National Review notes, community college tuition is
> already low. In fact, it’s zero, on average, for lower-income families,
> after taking financial aid into account. Vox’s Libby Nelson wrote,
> “Community college tuition for poorer students is often entirely covered by
> the need-based Pell Grant.”

So making it free takes care of people who couldn't handle the paperwork of
filing for a Pell Grant.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/upshot/obamas-community-
co...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/upshot/obamas-community-college-plan-
a-reading-list.html)

~~~
learc83
They're still going to have to fill out the applications to get in, which
aren't significantly different in difficulty from the FAFSA. And most colleges
have people who will help you fill out the FAFSA anyway.

I can't imagine that eliminating the FAFSA form requirements will allow a
noticeably larger number of substandard students to attend.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
I can't either, (not proportionally larger) and if it does, I'd expect to see
those individuals shunted into the remedial math and language courses which
are already offered for that purpose.

------
morgante
This is pretty far from being a ringing endorsement of community colleges. If
anything, it just reaffirms the complete lack of academic rigor they provide.

\- He aced an English class by doing "nothing more than embellish the
definition I had looked up in the dictionary."

\- His recollection of public speaking class was a gorgeous flight attendant.

\- He never ended up graduating with a bachelor's degree and pursued a career
which depends more on good looks than academic or intellectual ability.

I just don't understand why I should be footing the bill for more substandard
students to get easy As, ogle girls, and pursue unintellectual careers.
There's already plenty of aid available for intellectually deserving students
(read: capable of filling out the FAFSA form). Adding more will just drive up
the cost to taxpayers and continue to lower the quality of a CC education.

~~~
king_jester
I love this post for how wrong it is:

* Acting like regular college students don't have classes that are super simple to game and pass

* Saying life moments like dating/flirting aren't important (what exactly are students supposed to do between classes anyway!?!)

* Saying being an actor does not require intellectual or academic ability (hint: it does)

* Has no idea what FAFSA is like or what it's like to navigate that mess

* Pretending that they aren't already indirectly paying for people to "get easy As, ogle girls, and pursue unintellectual careers"

~~~
morgante
I love your comment for how misguided it is.

> Acting like regular college students don't have classes that are super
> simple to game and pass

Oh, I know they exist. I just wouldn't write about them in the admissions
brochure or an op-ed touting their supposed value.

> Saying life moments like dating/flirting aren't important (what exactly are
> students supposed to do between classes anyway!?!)

I suppose some people consider them important (I don't), but that doesn't mean
the taxpayer should be footing the bill.

> Saying being an actor does not require intellectual or academic ability
> (hint: it does)

Maybe for better actors it requires some intellectual ability, but I'm
unconvinced that most of Hanks's community college classes had any impact on
his career.

> Has no idea what FAFSA is like or what it's like to navigate that mess

I'm in college right now, on financial aid. I'm well aware of the complexities
of the FAFSA and probably filed one much more recently than you. But it's
nowhere near challenging enough that a bright, motivated student would find it
a hindrance.

> Pretending that they aren't already indirectly paying for people to "get
> easy As, ogle girls, and pursue unintellectual careers"

Oh, I know we are. I'd just prefer to not pay for _more_ of it.

~~~
king_jester
The point I'm making is that we expect people to continue living their lives
while going to school, that doesn't change. Getting financial aid isn't a
contract to live a strict monastic life nor should it be. Also, the fact that
not every single person who gets aid goes on to use it for some optimal
standard doesn't mean that it is a waste or that we as a society shouldn't do
it.

> I'm in college right now, on financial aid. I'm well aware of the
> complexities of the FAFSA and probably filed one much more recently than
> you. But it's nowhere near challenging enough that a bright, motivated
> student would find it a hindrance.

It wasn't very long ago when I did FAFSA and I knew quite a few bright people
who struggled with the process. FAFSA is not a perfect process and leaves a
lot to be desired as I'm sure you are aware of.

> Maybe for better actors it requires some intellectual ability, but I'm
> unconvinced that most of Hanks's community college classes had any impact on
> his career.

This is an arbitrary thing to say, as clearly to Hanks some of the things he's
recalling were significant to his life and his career. We don't get to make
decisions for what is important to someone's development, that is up to
individual people. There were many experiences that I've had that make me how
am I today as a person and professional and I'm sure some folks may want to
write that off.

------
pnathan
I went to a community college for my first year. It was a bad choice: the
financial gains were minimal, the networking gained was lost when I
transferred, and the academic environment was very weak (mostly because the
normal major was "sex, drugs, and beer", not the instructors' fault).

Other people I know have had better experiences at CC.

I fully support the idea of community college, in particular, I see it as a
righteous place for things like coding bootcamps and trade training in
general. Vo-Tech schools get a rough knock - they shouldn't.

One particular grief that has stood out to me is the financial recompense for
instructing at a CC. I've looked into it (I am qualified to do so), and I
believe I would take somewhere around a 40% pay cut to teach at a CC. That's
... suboptimal.

------
ahallock
Instead of 2 more years of "free" education, why not ask how we can add more
value to the last 2 years of high school, so that people graduate with job
skills? This is just an attempt to buy votes, and funnel more money into gov.
$60 billion is an estimate, and it will probably be triple that. Look at other
gov estimates and you'll see a pattern. How much was the Iraq war supposed to
cost? What about that NASA project in Mississippi?

------
bko
I think community college is a great opportunity but I don't know if
government funding this will really help many. From what I read, community
college isn't very expensive and, since it is so valuable, I can't imagine
that many people are on the fence about attending due to the monetary cost.
There is a lot bigger investment required in terms of dedication, focus and
effort, but I don't think the constraint is monetary.

If the government picks up what little monetary cost isn't already picked up
by the state or other groups, this will certainly attract some students to
attend but I imagine those marginal students would be a lot less serious and
would not benefit from the program. To paraphrase Nassim Taleb, it's always
helpful to have some skin in the game.

An interesting statistic to look at is college completion rates [0][1] which
haven't improved too much over the last few decades (although certainly on the
way up for women). I was pretty surprised to learn that completion rates are
only 30-35%. I imagine community college completion rates are even lower.

Even though more people will certainly attend, getting more people into
college won't necessarily benefit anyone. For those that aren't able to
perform in an academic environment (for whatever reason) are ill-served by the
nagging insistence of politicians.

[0]
[http://www.hamiltonproject.org/multimedia/charts/college_com...](http://www.hamiltonproject.org/multimedia/charts/college_completion/)
[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/new-college-
da...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/new-college-data-give-
fuller-picture-of-graduation-rates--and-show-
challenges/2014/07/18/92578f92-0dba-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html)

------
Yhippa
I love my local community college. I already have an undergraduate degree in
computer engineering but several years ago took a class in linear algebra to
refresh my understanding of it as well as out of personal interest.

I liked that the class size was small and that the teacher was willing to hear
our questions. Some of the people were in the class for what seemed like grade
13 but about half the people were in it for the transfer program to a state
university.

I admire the people who are trying to better themselves by taking advantage of
community college (a bargain for education compared to the state schools).
This is a very smart route whether they are trying to learn some new skills or
attend the state schools on the cheap.

For those of you who think that there's no reason for you to look through the
course catalog you really should give it a shot. I took an excellent project-
based photography course and learned a lot that enabled me to take decent
pictures wherever I go. There are public speaking classes, english writing,
and all kinds of arts classes. Lots of other stuff like welding and auto
mechanics. It's a great and relatively inexpensive way to try something
completely different.

------
mindcrime
I have issues with the Obama plan, not because I'm against community colleges,
but because I have issues with how this will (probably) be funded (read:
taxes). As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't
support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end.

That said, I'm a community college grad myself, three times over. I have an
A.G.E. (General Education) from Brunswick Community College, and an A.A.S in
Computer Programming and another A.A.S in High Performance Computing from Wake
Technical Community College. And I have to say, I'm an unabashed fan of
community colleges in principle. I just want us to find better ways to fund
things like this.

Anyway, I think so highly of the people who come through the community college
system (well, some subset of them anyway), that I've often said that when the
day comes that we can afford to hire employees at Fogbeam, I intend to recruit
heavily at the local community colleges (Wake Tech, Durham Tech, Alamance
Tech, etc.) I also intend to recruit at the "second tier" universities (UNC-
Pembroke, Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State, NC Central, NC A&T, Shaw,
St. Augustines, Peace, Meredith, etc.

Why? Well, I believe there are really good people to be found - people who are
easily smart enough to have gone to Harvard, Stanford, whatever, but just
didn't for whatever reason. And if you're recruiting at these schools, you're
probably not competing with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Glaxo Smith
Kline, Facebook, etc. for talent. Instead, you're competing with the local
furniture manufacturing plant, the local electric utility, etc.

So yeah, community colleges are good. I'd just like to see more of the
scenarios like we had at BCC back in the day. Some local rich millionaire type
(a real estate tycoon) setup an endowment to provide free tuition at BCC for
any graduate of any Brunswick County high-school. I'd love to see a concerted,
nationwide effort to build a coalition of philanthropists of this nature to
fund this "free college for everybody" thing, instead of taking it out of the
federal govt. budget.

~~~
thoth
>As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support
anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end.

That's pretty hard core. How would you fund services like police/fire
departments or infrastructure improvements (roads, electricity), basically
anything where its existence benefits many (as opposed to say redoing
education to require parents to pay for individual tutoring of their children)
- voluntary tipping, usage fees?

How would you pay for courts and enough government to enforce contracts?

~~~
v64
The Wikipedia entry on Anarcho-capitalism[1] dives into these details. It's a
fascinating philosophy that, in my opinion, severely underestimates the human
affinity for greed and manipulation.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-
capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism)

~~~
ashark
Over all my other problems with anarcho-capitalism and minarchism, the biggest
is how much more time I'd waste and how much more anxiety I'd have.

Just thinking about all the new stuff I'd have to keep up with to avoid
getting screwed gives me a headache. Food safety guarantors, some sort of
court and law associations, drug safety certifiers, all kinds of insurance I
don't have to worry about now, and so on.

Having to keep track of all that, who's best, who's had scandals and should be
avoided, who's (known to be) subject to regulatory capture (think only the
government is vulnerable to that?) or various other forms of corruption. Which
ones give me bundle deals, are those actually better than buying the things
individually from other providers. Ugh, it'd be miserable. Like all the
problems of government and all the problems of real-world, imperfect-
information markets in one. In my head it's like shopping for individual
health insurance in the US (which is please-kill-me bad) or buying cars, but
having to do that every. single. day. for one thing or another.

But I guess in all the relaxing free time I'd have left after that stuff
(none, to be clear), I'd be really, really free to do whatever I could manage
to pay for?

I don't see the appeal.

~~~
eropple
_> I don't see the appeal._

Disenfranchisement, as per most modes of radicality. I have observed as a
near-universality among ancap types that they have identified at formative
times of their lives as being "othered." They're not the in-crowd and they're
not fundamentally of it. My suspicion is that they have a secret (or unsecret)
opinion of themselves as misunderstood ubermenschen. (I recall that phase of
my life, but then, I was fourteen.) With emotional and social development it
became obvious to me, and to most recovering right-libertarian/ancap types I
know of, that countless people helped me along the way because _we_ decided,
structurally and socially, that people should be helped. (We don't help
everyone equally or sufficiently, and an expansion of it is decried by the
you-got-mine, pulling-the-ladder-up-after-me types, but we try.)

I have made a pet interest of confronting the ancap types I occasionally run
into--in tech, you sometimes stumble across enough of a True Believer to let
their flag fly high--with questions of, what do you do when you're born into
poverty? What is your recourse when you have nothing to sell? What do you do
when somebody--but not the state, because the state doing it is Wrong, but Jim
down the road with a real big gun and a couple muscley friends is just
participating in economic activity-- _takes everything from you_? The answers
start evasively, but I've read as much von Mises and Rothbard as most of the
vocal adherents and I can speak their language enough to fight on their own
terms. Laughable handwaves of insurance companies and private security aside--
and we called these "barons" in a prior age, but history and economics have
already been laid aside to get into their weird twists of philosophy, so _no
it will not turn into feudalism, that 's a silly notion_\--the answer is and
will always be "and then you lose and you die". What chills me is that while
most seem to have enough of an emotional intelligence to know that this
argument doesn't win, I rarely hear even a shred of doubt when you finally get
to that hard little core--because the idea of losing so totally as to be
rendered economically incapable is not part of the equation. Other people
lose, not them. This is also why there is so much overlap in this crowd of the
worship of eat-your-dead meritocracy; that ancap nonsense devolves inevitably
into feudalism is a feature, not a bug. Because they believe, as is their
right, that they will be the knights, if not the barons and dukes and kings,
of their new order.

I've run a few drafts of this post to leech out most of the pejorative nature
I feel the ideas and the ideologues are due, and what remains should be taken
more to be a mark of how truly alien (and I mean that in the sense of
"inhuman") you have to get and how much reality you must pitch out the window
at highway speeds to bend into a mode where the ancap arguments even make
sense, let alone appeal. I am convinced that there is something rather
fundamentally unwell about the whole thing. I have tried very hard to relate
to it for years and my conclusion inevitably ends up being something around a
predilection for cultish predations or never-outgrown teenage immaturity, and
neither are satisfying but both fit the facts in evidence. I mean, I can have
a discussion with a Communist. A Marxist and I are operating in a
fundamentally relatable frame of reference. I don't agree with where they're
going, but Marxists do not eject the entirety of human history to reach their
conclusions-- _we can talk and actually agree what words mean_. Every ancap I
have ever met has washed their brains and adopted the weird sublanguage of the
movement (Orwell was right...) and I can't do a thing with them except hope
like hell they never stumble on a lever of power.

~~~
mindcrime
Some of us just think that we, as a society, can do better than enforcing our
beliefs and demands at the end of a gun barrel. And we prioritize principle
over outcome, acknowledging that _every_ system has it's pathological edge
cases - including the current system.

~~~
Total_Meltdown
The big problem though is that the pathological edge cases of our current
system are much better than the extremely pathological normal cases of a
system without checks on what people are allowed to do.

I mean, anarcho-capitalism is basically what sovereign nations are at a
smaller scale: Factions of humans who make decisions without any real checks
on their behavior beyond the environment and the reactions of other factions.
And I'm supposed to want a microcosm of global politics in my back yard? No
thanks, taxes are fine, please fix the roads so I can get to Chipotle.

The only reason I could see for anyone wanting anything approaching individual
sovereignty is if a) they somehow believe that there is no bigger fish in the
pond, or b) they're really so naive to have no idea what other people could be
capable of doing to them.

------
pjmorris
At loose ends as my senior year in high school passed (long story, short on
ambition), I defaulted in to taking a scholarship at the local community
college, offered to the top 10% of local high schools. A software engineer
moonlighting as an adjunct taught my first course in programming (in FORTRAN,
on punched cards, no less!). Somehow, he conveyed an enthusiasm and an
understanding that inspired me to continue, to pursue and obtain a BSCS at a
state U, and to have a happy career as a developer. I owe it all to Community
College (and a whole series of other supportive events).

------
honksillet
My experience at Glendale Community College was that there was a real bimodal
distribution of student, with one peak around very serious, hard working
students trying to better their position and another around a group of
students that were just going through the motions. GCC and most CCs are
already pretty cheap. By removing the already low cost, I fear that proportion
of less serious students would skyrocket. (As a service approaches zero cost,
the percent of user that abuse that service reaches it's maximum.)

~~~
zachrose
Do you feel like the less serious mode of students are a net drag on the other
mode? On the one hand, sure it might diminish the atmosphere or something. One
the other hand, their tuition and fees support stuff that they're probably not
using as much.

------
russelluresti
For my personal story, I graduated high school in 2001 and wasn't quite sure
what I wanted to do. I was good in Math and liked computers, so I was planning
on going to a normal university and just finding something in those fields (I
didn't have a major or a program in mind, I was just going to go in as
"undecided").

However, because of the cost and my own reluctance to get student loans, I
ended up enrolling in a community college with the intention of just doing
some basic courses for cheaper before transferring. While taking your typical
math, science, history, and english courses; I also took an elective called
"Intro to Computer Art" or something like that. Mind you, I hadn't taken any
art courses in high school at all - no music, drawing, painting, whatever; I
only took the minimum requirements and then filled my extra spaces with
advanced math, science, and computer science.

I enjoyed the elective and decided to take more in the same program ("Visual
Communications"). I explored traditional design, web design, video editing,
and 3d animation. At the end, I got my Associate degree in Graphic Design
(having never had wanted to be a designer at any time before college). Of
course, all the exploration meant I spent well more than 2 years there (I also
took things like Astronomy, which I liked after I changed teachers).

From there, I found an internship through the dean of the program who
forwarded me an email from a company looking for interns and, afterwards,
found my first job in the field through someone I had taken a couple of
classes with.

From there, I was able to learn development on the job and change jobs a
number of times - each time for a better experience and generally better pay.
From a Texas suburb, I've gone to Minneapolis, New York, and now the SF Bay
area all based on what I initially learned from community college.

My case is a bit different than what the President is intending, as he seems
to see it more for learning a specific skill (like a trade school) instead of
exploring what it is you want to do.

I think this is fine, but I really believe that the best case for community
college is that it's a great place to explore different programs if, like me,
you're leaving high school with no idea what you want to do (as many people
seem to do).

------
owensims1
The main benefits he reaped from CC are an atmosphere of learning and growth,
and the ability to engage with interesting people, not the degree itself.

Both of those things can be obtained outside of college(community or
otherwise). Too many people will get the degree for its own sake and simply
coast by for this program to be worth it.

------
ww520
Community college is an excellent place for continuation education as well.
Over the years I have taken night classes there have nothing to do with my
date job, like laws, commercial contracts, real estate, investment, languages,
etc. It's a great way to expand your horizon in a classroom environment.

------
elberto34
I have found that the best math teachers were from community college. One
teacher explained the solution to a calculus problem I had developed out of
curiosity , and it wasn't even on the curriculum. He didn't have to do that,
but I appreciated he did

~~~
jimm
My father was a math professor at a community college. He was proud of his
teaching and his students. Those students --- largely people looking to become
nurses, firemen, or other professionals --- benefited from his love of
teaching. He got his PhD in education during his teaching career, and even
developed a game to help teach math. The game sucked, frankly, and was never
released anywhere but it shows how much he cared about teaching.

------
jschwartzi
There was a Physics instructor at Pierce College in Washington State who was
one of the best Physics professors I had. He was also the hardest. I doubt I
would have passed any of my university courses if he hadn't put the fear of
god into me.

------
lifehug
I got paid to go to community college and now I'm getting my masters at UIUC.

It's called FAFSA, and most of my peers did the same. I'm not sure why we need
to make it globally free when those who can't afford it can get paid to go.

Also, the solders mentioned to tug at our hearts strings get school paid for.

Soooo why the need for a hug pay check from congress?

~~~
sigzero
We don't need to make it free and if the answer is some kind of "more taxes"
then I am sorry but no thanks.

------
euphoria83
I will give it an upvote, if for nothing else, than for the powerful writing.
He makes a very lucid point though. Even hardcore capitalists could not argue
with the idea that though the success of a man should depend on his efforts,
bringing him to a state when he can start making an effort should be
supported.

------
MikeTLive
public schools were formed to produce factory workers. community college would
be the equivalent bare minimum for today.

I can see no reason NOT to support this proposal completely and immediately.

------
Taylorious
I'm probably late to this party where everyone seems to be hating on the
President's plan, but I'll chime in since this plan would have had a huge
affect on me.

I'm one of those people who didn't apply themselves in highschool and didn't
have anyone push me to do well. I couldn't afford to go to uni because my
parents made just enough so that I couldn't get any aid. They also didn't have
money to spare and were smart enough not to cosign loans for me to go to a
university. Who can blame them? Its crazy to spend 10s of thousands of dollars
to take intro classes that are basically just substitutes for how terrible our
k-12 system is. My parents did encourage me to go to college though, so I went
to one nearby right after highschool.

I would like to point out that even though its cheap, if you aren't in
district its quite a bit more expensive. I think it ended up being around $100
a credit hour where I went since I wasn't in district. I know that is peanuts
compared to universities, but if you have to pay out of packet, it adds up
really quick, especially with books etc.

I was lucky that my parents let me use their car and live at home for free.
Because of this, I could pay for the classes outright by working 30 or so
hours a week at minimum wage. Its really depressing to work for months and all
summer, saving virtually all of the money you make, and then blow at the start
of each semester.

Ultimately this worked out well for me though, because by getting high grades
and most of an associates degree, I was able to get significant transfer
scholarships and not have to take a bunch of pointless intro classes. I'm not
saying that all liberal arts classes are pointless, but some of them are, and
it feels like hell to have to pay for those classes out of pocket, especially
when you make minimum wage (which was $7.40 at the time). I would rather just
read a book on a subject than take a class in something that I only have
passing interest in.

I still have some debt from university due to double majoring and adding
another year (which is when my scholarships ran out), but I still got out with
< 15k in debt. And hey, that's peanuts when you get a software engineering job
right out of school. I would have had so much more debt if I didn't go to CC
first.

I will say that I meant quite a few people abusing the Pell grants though.
People who lived at home for free and had no ambition would get Pell grants
which covered their classes and gave them an overage for living expenses. They
would just take the easiest classes and pocket the overage check. It was like
a job for them. So I'm sure there will be people trying to do the same here,
and there will be sleazy schools trying to get a chunk of the money too, but
those are just problems that need to be solved.

------
marincounty
I had a great experiences at the two community colleges I attended. The
teachers really seemed to care. Now, my two years at a state college were a
waste of time. I only got the BS degree because I wanted something from this
state school. To the teachers, and guidance counselors at Indan valley
college, and College of Marin; A huge thank you!

------
webwanderings
Awesome read.

