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Commentary By Preston Cooper

Free Community College Still A Bad Idea

Education Higher Ed

Though only three months remain in his term, Vice President Joe Biden is not quite done spending your tax money. This week, the Vice President and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, hosted an event to reiterate his call for free community college. Dr. Biden—a community college professor herself—has written that “we need to make sure higher education is more affordable and more accessible for more students. It’s that simple.”

If only it were that simple. Start with affordability. While the Bidens are right to be concerned that tuition costs overall have increased at a troubling rate, community colleges are the least problematic. For the 2016-17 academic year, average published tuition at U.S. community colleges was $3,520 a year. Net tuition after financial aid was negative $500, meaning the average student had enough grants left over after tuition to cover $500 worth of living expenses. The only groups that actually pay anything in tuition are those above the median family income. Free tuition would thus be welfare for the upper-middle class.

Free community college advocates also do not seem to recognize that community colleges have remarkably poor student outcomes. The Bidens argue that a community college is a stepping-stone to a more advanced degree—for instance, a student can complete the first two years of a bachelor’s degree at an inexpensive community college and the second two years at a traditional four-year school. But this is not the reality for a majority of community college enrollees.

The Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study tracked individuals who first enrolled in school in 2003 and then analyzed their outcomes six years later. Unlike the more commonly-cited graduation rate, the study takes into account individuals who transfer to a different institution—a relatively common occurrence for community college students.

Of degree-seeking enrollees in two-year public colleges, just 12% go on to earn a bachelor’s degree within six years. Another 23% manage to earn a certificate or associate’s degree. That leaves 65% who have still not earned a credential—most of whom have dropped out of college altogether.

It is irresponsible to urge students to attend community college by providing free tuition when two-thirds of enrollees end up with no degree six years later. Even if free tuition...

Read the entire piece here on Forbes

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Preston Cooper is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute's Economics21. Follow him on Twitter here.

This piece originally appeared in Forbes