President Obama's recent proposal for free tuition for community college students will soon go before Congress. If passed, this bill would allow two years of free tuition for qualifying students. This sounds great until you look a little closer and start to see the darker side of the proposal. This is a program that will have seriously adverse backlashes. Congress should not pass President Obama's free tuition proposal because of the negative effects it would place on state and federal governments, as well as the many community colleges that already have unacceptably low completion rates.
Financially, the negative effects of President Obama's proposal, will create serious issues on state and federal levels that are without a doubt immense. The costs are staggering; according to an investment article from Forbes.com the Obama Administration has estimated a $60 billion price tag in just the first ten years. Participating states would be responsible for twenty-five percent of the cost while the federal government would pick up the remaining seventy-five percent. In the State of the Union Address, President Obama provided few details about how the program would work, including how it would be funded. As the national debt increases by 7.5 billion, it has been an ongoing trend that these entitlement programs are going bankrupt. How much more can we really afford to keep raising taxes on the American people? With no real solutions to pay for this proposal, it is nothing more than a pipe dream. This proposal is just another example of a grandiose idea, which will just lead our country deeper into debt.
Many community colleges suffer from low completion rates. This is partially due to the underprepared high school graduates entering community colleges. Stated in the New York Post, Brooklyn College Education Professor David Bloomfield predicted, a" huge increase" in enrollment if Congress passed the plan, but warns that "many may not be ready for college work.