Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer plans to urge state lawmakers to pass legislation that would provide free community college tuition for all high school graduates during her sixth State of the State speech on Wednesday.
Whitmer also prioritized community college access in her annual address last year. State lawmakers responded by temporarily lowering the minimum age for free tuition from 25 to 21 years old. The Democratic governor now wants to expand the program by removing all age requirements for free community college, according to details of her plan provided to The Associated Press by Whitmer’s office.
Whitmer’s administration created the Michigan Reconnect program in 2021, aiming to increase the percentage of the state’s workforce with a postsecondary degree or training from 50.5% to 60% by 2030. It made Michigan residents 25 years and older eligible for free community college tuition.
Seems like a great idea to me. Invest in the population and it’ll pay off, long term.
One of my greatest regrets is dropping out of college. I’m doing ok, thankfully, but it hasn’t been an easy path.
You mean requiring a whole population to pay out of pocket for absolutely everything before they can afford it doesn’t lead to growth?
One of my greatest regrets is dropping out of college. I’m doing ok, thankfully, but it hasn’t been an easy path.
This is one of those regrets in life you can actually undo!
I dropped out of Community College after a year there at age 19. I went back to that same Community College at about 34 and finished my Associates Degree at night/weekends while working full time. One really nice thing was all of my credits earned as a teenager were still valid after almost 14 years away. I meant that my time there as a teenager wasn’t wasted. I transferred all my credits to University again doing school at night/weekends and finished my Bachelors at age 39. It was one of the best decisions of my life.
Before going back to school I had all kind of anxiety about it. It was much easier as mature adult than as a teenager. I’m happy to share advice or just encouragement if it will help you.
The Republicans will hate this one trick.
Certainly a much better approach than “I love the poorly educated”.
As society gets more complex, it’s more important than ever for everyone to be more educated. The death of journalism, rise of online scams, gutting of consumer protections and degeneration of politics makes it more critical for people to learn to think
Calm down Michigan, save some good ideas for the rest of us!
It’s balanced by our lovely bunch of insurrectionists
Every tax dollar spent on education brings in more than $1 net present value of future income tax.
Yes but what if Lenin comes back from the dead and makes my kids gay?
Then it’s $1 net present value of future income tax + Undead Lenin and more gay kids.
I don’t see the issue here.
On a different note, Undead Lenin is a kickass band name.
Undead Lenin the Gaymaker
The fates can be cruel.
We can only hope
Fellas, is it gay to seize the means of production?
SOCIALIST! REAL Patriots use Tax Dollars to give Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos more money, NOT Educate Kids!
Already in effect in California. :)
Surprisingly, in Tennessee now, too. Just wish it had been a thing 20 years ago
Yeah I agree. Better than never!
Missouri has had the A+ program since before I graduated in 2003, if you graduate high school with a 2.5 GPA (that was barely passing back then, idk what it is now) you got free community college.
TIL community colleges are not free…
Definitely cheaper than public/private colleges, but not free. I think my classes came out to ~$1k per semester when I was going to my local community college. It’s still a significant sum for many, but it meant I didn’t need to take out student loans and could pay it off via part time work.
It’s a wild comparison. I live in Denmark where you get paid $948 each month for attending college (or any education).
So I assumed that at least it would be free in the US.
Education and medical is outrageously expensive in America. I have had college text books cost $300. For one book.
Oh we decided that even the state schools should cost more than most people can afford. I don’t know why.
US corporations like workers to have debt etc. This gives them more power over employees.
Free college and legal weed? Why do you have to be so cold, Michigan?
See also: Canada.
There is this theory that cultures that were developing in colder places had less reason to be wary of strangers, due to diseases being less transmittable in the cold, and because of that they turned out more progressive.
CHEAP legal weed😁
Eh?
It won’t be cold for much longer with the way climate change is heading. I moved to Detroit a few years ago, and all my neighbors have commented on how little snow we’re getting and how warm winters have been.
You’re way further north than me (I’m in West-Central Indiana) and on the lake. It was -14 here last week. I can’t believe it was especially balmy there.
Eh, the heat waves and cold snaps are happening nationwide. I more mean that on average, it’s been pretty warm. Most of November and December was between 40F and 50F.
But for sure, the lake (and concrete from the city) helps keep temperatures moderate. We’re also lucky being on the west side of the lake, so we don’t have to deal with lake effect snow.
Oooo, I like this. Free Associates Degree and if you want to go on to get a Bachelor’s it now costs 50% less!
Stick it straight to the for-profit college system.
why limit it to only high school graduates?
You generally have to graduate high school or complete the GED to be eligible for enrollment in higher education. This has nothing to do with ability, it’s just the minimum for entry
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Would you like to elaborate, or provide any information of value instead of just saying “nope”?
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“Admission is open to all high school graduates, GED recipients, college transfer students and persons 18 years of age or older.”
Note it says “and persons 18 years or older” and not “or.” This means you have to be both 18 or older and a high school graduate or a GED recipient and 18 years or older.
My initial point stands and you’re still lazy and incorrect.
If you’ve seen their other comments, reading is not their strong suit even though they claim to be smarter than everyone and dropped out of high school.
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Provide relevant evidence to the contrary. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
I would assume those who could actually reasonably pass.
Saying that, over here you automatically get uni entrance when you hit 20 so those who grew after high-school aren’t disadvantaged. Have somethings similar would be good.
being a high school graduate says zero about intelligence, and just shows you can blindly follow rules
If you think college doesn’t also require you to follow blind rules, I’ve got bad news for you. A good chunk of life is the requirement to follow stupid rules. In that way school is a pretty good preparation for life after school.
if you think college is like high school, then you didn’t go to college…
you see no difference between picking your own classes and being programmed to work in a factory?if you think college is like high school, then you didn’t go to college…
Thats a strawman. I never said college is like high school, I said going to college does not mean you avoid having to follow rules, even silly or stupid ones.
you see no difference between picking your own classes and being programmed to work in a factory?
You may not be aware, but in college while you do get to pick a portion of your own classes, for your chosen program of study there are certain required classes that are required or even prerequisite classes you have to take to take the class you want to pick. This is a good example of rules you have to follow.
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And? Dealing with arbitrary rules and systems is a major life skill.
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They didn’t say “comply with”, they said “deal with”.
Very different things.
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It says you’re smart enough and driven enough to do literally the bare minimum for your own education, and sure, you follow the rules enough to pass.
But spoilers, that’s what the community colleges want too. Smart enough, driven enough, following instructions enough to pass.
And spoilers again, that’s what employers want too.
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The tiny subset of people who dropped from high school, never got their GED, and want to take community college seriously could just… get their GED first? Compared to the time and cost of completing a 2 year degree, obtaining a GED is very small barrier to entry.
You’re not articulating very well what your issue is.
Would you be surprised to hear this guy is a high school dropout who wildly overestimates their own intelligence?
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GEDs are high school equivalency credentials. GED test scores are treated the same as high school credits by practically all institutions.
I’m not sure why this bill would exclude GED holders since there’s no practical reason to, so I’d assume they are included until we know for sure.
My guess is it has to do with effective use of resources. The tuition is free to the student but not the taxpayer. Teachers and administrators don’t work for free. If you can’t get through state funded education up to high school then the chances probably aren’t great for college. Those seeking a second chance could always complete a ged and get the benefit, hopefully.
If you can’t get through state funded education up to high school then the chances probably aren’t great for college
not true at all, the types of people that don’t do well in high school are usually the smartest ones
not true at all, the types of people that don’t do well in high school are usually the smartest ones
There’s a difference in “not doing well” and “not graduating”. Also there are lots of different ways you could define the “smartest ones”, but ability to earn an income is a at least one indicator of success. Using that metric the data doesn’t support your assertion:
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you do realize your graph just supports my point, right? a high school dropout will earn a lot more money if they just get an associates degree.
You think a community college will accept you in their programs without the high school level education?
otherwise, im not a capitalist and think “ability to earn money” is the worst possible metric for judging someone…
Feel free to present your own data to back up your point. So far you’ve provided none.
Yea, I am very interested in how you get into a college without a diploma, GED, or some other equivalent.
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yes, they already did. to your second point: fuck no
I’m beginning to get a picture of the problems you may have had to arrive where you are.
I hope your day get better.
Stop lying and go touch grass
You didn’t graduate did you? 😁
No, they didn’t (said in another comment), but they somehow went to college without a diploma or equivalent (not sure how). They are also a self described genius and smartest person ever.
I can see where you are coming from and do not disagree. However these decisions have to be made in aggregate and proportionally, the “geniuses” that failed or dropped out of highchool, are most likely a small minority compared to the overall population.
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👍
Oh, don’t you wish.
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😆 Oh, don’t you wish.
There is no empirical data to support that at all. If you have some we’d love to see it.
While it is not unheard of for someone to do poorly in school and still be smart, education is a clear predictive variable for future success. Period.
Also too, studies have shown that a direct outcome of improving starting wages and reducing unemployment is a reduction in violent crime. Also better median income in the state also results in better taxes for the state.
This is by no means a giveaway. This is an investment in the state that pays many dividends. By the way Tennessee did this several years ago. It’s a net benefit for society.
As a resident in Michigan, this is good news but definitely not something we need to focus on at this point in time.
The state government needs to focus on the basics and by that I mean clean water. Flint still has a water crisis and many cities like Brenton Harbor as well as northern Michigan towns face the same issues.
It is possible they can fix the water infrastructure and provide free community college since they do have a large budget surplus.
It’s a step in the right direction but won’t help if employers are only hiring senior roles or upping the requirements for entry level positions as they did in the past.
That’s an oddly specific whataboutism. Your premise is bullshit. More education, especially in trades which CC specialize in, is a huge benefit that improves employment outcomes. A better educated workforce also attracts employers. The classic econometrics formula (actually documented in textbooks written by Dr. Jeffrey Woolrich at MSU) is literally: Salary = Education + Ability. Education has a clear positive impact, ability is much harder to measure
In fact it could upskill nearly half the state: https://www.statista.com/statistics/588922/educational-attainment-michigan/#:~:text=Educational attainment in Michigan 2021&text=In 2021%2C about 19.2 percent,their highest level of education.
Good idea, hope this does not deteriorate the quality of education. Corruption gets very rampant in public education when there isn’t constant and vigilant oversight.
Why would poor high school grads going to college for free corrupt it?
The same reason poor highschool kids are often part of the school to prison pipeline. Corruption in poor students’ education leads to intentionally poor education which leads them to struggle as adults to meet the requirements of jobs that a student who got a scholarship to a “good” school will. I think this is a good idea but it’s not enough to make community college free. Higher education in general needs to come down drastically in price and the difference in cost between schools needs to come down as well. There is already judgment in adulthood about which school you went to. Now imagine what that judgement will be like when they find out you went to the free kind of community college.
So your argument is that poor kids shouldn’t get free college upon graduation because they are inherently stupid and thus needed standards lowered to get them to graduate high school in the first place, and this will carry on into the future. Because they are inherently dumber and less capable simply by virtue of being poor.
You are clearly one of those dumb people.
I literally said it’s a good idea and that it needs to go further.
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If a policy proposal on Lemmy doesn’t live up to a user’s personal purity test, it’s a terrible policy
It is when that purity test checks for blatant racism and classism, and their position is extremely blatant and inflammatory classism. Likely racism too
Does it?
Because for some reason, in North America we determined that the best way to ensure that your population is educated and ready to be a powerhouse of innovation and productivity is to make the education required to achieve that as expensive and as out of reach as possible.
School course books are more expensive then community college fee.
I’m usually against free college, but this is actually a really great idea. It makes education available to everyone, without the additional risk of government mismanagement hamstringing our world-class universities in the process.
So close. Try again.
Nah, I nailed it the first time.
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Why are you usually against free college?
Because I see the state of public school funding in the US, and I think it’s utterly, ludicrously naive to think that our universities will somehow magically avoid the same fate. We live in a world where there’s a very real possibility that Trump is elected again, and the people advocating for free college don’t seem to be able to put two and two together to realize that this would put Trump’s government in complete control of the funding of the universities that he condemns as “liberal brainwashing”.
The push for all universities to be free in the US is nothing but utopian wishful thinking that ignores the actual state of US politics, and will have disastrous real-world consequences for the already shaky state of education in the US.
Making community college free seems like a pretty ideal compromise though - everyone gets access to college, and the ability of our universities to take advantage of funding through tuition to ensure that their quality remains among the best in the world is unimpeded.
Personally, it doesn’t really matter if it’s Biden or Trump. The US will continue breaking fossil fuel records regardless of who sits in the oval office. We have already triggered climate tipping points that will cascade for centuries, even if we stopped global co2 production tomorrow. I predict collapse before or around 2030.
