Today, Explained - Free college for everyone!

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

President Biden wants to give Americans four more years of free school: two years of pre-K and two of community college. In a two-part series, Today, Explained’s Haleema Shah explores the challenges of expanding public education. This episode was reported by Haleema Shah, fact checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Efim Shapiro, edited by Matt Collette with help from Jillian Weinberger, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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On yesterday's show, our own Halima Shah explored President Biden's plan for free universal pre-K, what it might look like in practice. Today, she's going to do the same for his plan to give Americans free universal community college.

Good morning. Many of you are halfway through your first week here at Greendale. And as your dean, I thought I would share a few thoughts of wisdom and inspiration. What is community college? Well, you've heard all kinds of things. Free community college is another part of Biden's Build Back Better Act. It's kind of his anti-poverty plan. And the current version sets aside $111 billion to make two years of community college free for everyone. And the idea is you'll either get job training or enough credits to transfer to a four-year university. Halima, did you know that I'm a product of the community college system in this country?

Really? What did you think? What did I think of community college? You know, I liked that I got to stay at home with my family a couple extra years, hang out with my parents, my brother, my dogs, my friends. I think it's the reason my high school friends are actually more so my like lifelong friends than my college friends, although I got a couple of college friends. And I think it worked because I transferred. Yeah. I mean, the perks of paying less money and staying close to your community is very appealing to a lot of people. But the fact that you transferred to a four-year university

actually makes you an exception. I can maybe see that, but is that more the norm to not make it out? It is. A majority of community college students plan to transfer to a four-year school for a bachelor's degree just like you did, but that plan does not pan out for most of them.

You know, I know a lot of them, Halima. Yeah, and what did they tell you? I mean, they just got tired of community college and they went on to pursue careers without finishing college. Yeah, and that plan works out for a lot of people, but the thing is that community college still has a pretty abysmal record of helping students achieve the goals that they set for themselves. And that's why Biden's community college plan is somewhat controversial. I spoke to some other former community college students to see if they think that Biden's plan would have been helpful to them. It's very beautiful, very quiet.

Ikra Nasir is 28 years old. She's describing the campus of NOVA, or Northern Virginia Community College, the same college First Lady Jill Biden teaches at. When I first started here, I would just sit out here and, you know, decompress from the stress of classes and just chill out. She graduated from here in 2017, and we met up to talk about whether this campus lived up to the promise it made to her years ago, that if your family couldn't pay for a four-year institution, community college was another pathway to a bachelor's degree and upward mobility. In high school, they were telling us that community college was way more cheaper than a four-year college. And we also had the ability to transfer once we were done with our two-year college. So that made it a very

attractive option. It was also an attractive option because people told her more education means more money. And studies show that that is often true, but it's a little more complicated than it seems. Some degrees give a higher income boost than others. An associate's degree will get you on average about $17,000 more a year than a high school diploma. But a bachelor's degree will get you about thirty nine thousand dollars more a year than a high school diploma. So we're talking seventeen thousand versus thirty nine thousand. Now, of course, a bachelor's degree doesn't guarantee middle class income, but usually it's a good start. A good start that can also come with a mountain of debt. My older sister, she graduated high school in 2006, and then she went to college. Well, she was working full-time as well, so she had

to resort to online college. And she found it very difficult to manage both, so she eventually ended up dropping out of college, and she ended up accruing a lot of student loan debt that she wasn't able to pay back and so it's still with her to this day and she very much encouraged me not to take out student loans because you know it's a very, very risky thing to do. So in 2011, when Iqra realized that financial aid covered her tuition at NOVA and that school would basically be free, she decided to go. But without much guidance, she struggled to find her way through college. I kind of switched my majors a lot back then.

So as a result, I didn't really do well because I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And then in 2013, you know, I kind of hit a rock bottom academically. And I decided to just take a break. And during that break, I decided college is not for me. And I did not plan on going back. But she did go back. In 2015, Ikra returned to NOVA as a political science major. She had plans to work in the non-profit or advocacy sector. When I went back to school, it was, you know, it felt empowering. I began to do well with my grades. I felt

inspired that, yes, maybe I can do this. Maybe I can get a degree and create a new life for myself. She finished her associate's degree in two years. It was hard to kind of wrap my head around it. I was like, wow, you know, I have a college degree now. And at the time, I was the first female in my immediate family to have a degree. Icaro wanted to keep going with her education. I wanted to transfer to a four-year university, which in this area where I live, it would be George Mason University. But Ikra didn't transfer to George Mason University.

And she's not alone. 80% of students like her plan on getting a bachelor's degree when they start out. But less than 14% actually do. Which kind of makes you wonder why Biden is pushing so hard for universal community college. Too many folks are priced out of a piece of the middle class dream. In 2015, as Obama's vice president, Joe Biden rallied behind community college. I have exciting news.

Vice President Joe Biden has been visiting community colleges across the country as part of his Biden time talking about teaching tour. His former boss wanted to make it free. That's why I'm sending this Congress a bold new plan to lower the cost of community college to zero. This used to be the norm. A lot of states had free community college in the middle of the 20th century. But states stopped funding them after a while and community colleges became less affordable. But after the Great Recession, we saw several states and a number of cities revisit the idea

and implement some form of free community college. Mark Hulsman is a fellow at the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University. He studies the affordability issues that many students face in college, and he said that when local governments started pushing for free community college, the federal government noticed. That attracted the attention of the Obama administration, Vice President Biden at the time in particular, and obviously the broader idea of free college began to be socialized within the progressive movement

through folks like Senator Bernie Sanders. I do believe that when we talk about public education in America today, in a rapidly changing world, we should have free tuition at public colleges and universities. That should be a right of all Americans. So there's this sort of virtuous cycle of political popularity, research that's shown the benefits of free community college and kind of a bipartisan appeal of free community and technical college that it led to at least the, you know, that being mainstreamed in the political conversation and kind of being a core piece of the democratic policy agenda.

When this nation made 12 years of public education universal in the last century, it made us the best educated, best prepared nation in the world. That's probably not true. The U.S. was never number one in primary school, but Biden went on to say in that same speech that 12 years of school isn't enough to compete with the rest of the world. When you add two years of free community college on top of that, you begin to change the dynamic.

Biden plans to pay for it in part through a federal-state partnership. But Mark thinks that the program could work because education often pays for itself. The U.S. economy returned $7 for every dollar we put into the original GI Bill. That was the bill that gave a range of benefits to returning World War II veterans, including tuition payment from the government. States see big returns to education when they invest in education. There's a public benefit angle here that I think we can't ignore, and that should be a part of the funding conversation. Some of the key pieces of the

latest version of the higher education plan are two years of free community college, more Pell grant funding, and an additional $9 billion for resources that help students stay in college, not just enroll. To Mark, that's a sign that the plan could work. There's a lot of reasons why students may not make it to the finish line or the transfer line. One is cost. Community colleges are a lot less affordable than people often think. They tend to be quote-unquote low tuition, but the other costs that students face—fees, child care, housing, transportation, books—it's a laundry list of things that can trip students up that students often go into debt for after having exhausted their grant aid. So it's the other costs that forced students to maybe clip their educational aspirations. Maybe they

feel like they can't transfer to a more expensive institution if the one that they've already gone to was more expensive than they thought. There are some smaller programs that have shown a lot of promise in getting students to an associate degree or to the finish line, but they all have one thing in common. It's resources. Resources like mentorship might have helped Ikra when she first went to community college and couldn't find the right major. But a lack of resources wasn't the only obstacle in her way. Ikra had to think about her family.

My mom, she had a lot of health issues with Parkinson's disease and type 2 diabetes, and she needed extra care and attention. So when she graduated from community college, it didn't feel like a good time to transfer. I felt kind of selfish to just abandon my parents and spend all this time studying. So I did sacrifice going to college because of that. I felt like I could go back at any time in my life and go get a degree, but I cannot go get my mom again. So I wanted to look out for her, and she was my first priority.

Icarus' mom wanted her to get the bachelor's degree. But even with family support, cost was going to be an issue. If I transferred, I would have to apply for financial aid, and I knew that financial aid wouldn't cover the whole cost of going to George Mason. So I knew at that point I would have to take out loans, and I felt very apprehensive about that. So that apprehension prevented me from actually going through with the process. There was also a good chance that ICHRA would have to pay for more than another two years of college. Students like ICHRA, when transferring to another institution, lose over 40 percent of their credits. They end up having to do at least one more semester and paying for it too.

But the retention services in Biden's plan are supposed to remedy this. They include mentorship for students and stronger partnership between institutions so students can transfer more seamlessly. By putting billions of dollars into resources into community colleges, ideally that helps things like the clunky and complex transfer process that allows students to have the supports they need. So ideally that's the plan. And because life happens, Biden's plan also funds other non-academic services to help college students succeed.

Things like childcare and mental health services. In Icra's case, life kept happening, even after she graduated from community college. She had about a year left to spend with her mom. After I got my degree in 2017, I actually worked as her caretaker. I applied to a caretaking agency, and they said I could work for my mother and that's exactly what

I did so at the time it was a great decision because I was literally getting paid to be with my mom but I did not plan on being a caretaker for very long I knew that my mother's illness was, you know, growing. And I knew that once she was gone, I would stop doing caretaking and I would try to find another job, a better job, because I know that's what she would want. Ikra's mom died from cancer in 2018. I'm really glad that she got to see me at least get my associate's degree, you know, some kind of college degree before she passed.

She hasn't gone back to school like she thought she might have, mostly because of money. And today, Ikra works as a document processor at an e-learning company. She's a contractor, and she doesn't see herself getting a more stable position where she currently works. It would require a lot more skills. Some of the higher paying roles do require a bachelor's degree. So that's a challenge. After hearing her story, I asked Ikra what she wishes she had as a student so she could go through with her original plan for a four-year degree. And she told me a couple things. One, just for my parents to be healthy, because that was always on the back of my mind.

Two, I wish I would have took a break after high school, figured out who I was, what I wanted, and then went into community college with a solid idea of what do I want to do. And three, I really wish that four-year college were free. And at the time of the 2016 presidential election, that's what Bernie Sanders was kind of advocating for. And I really agreed with that because a lot of these days jobs are requiring four-year degrees. The Biden plan covers just two years of community college. But in Iqra's case, community college was already practically free. And she's still looking for a better job. So how much will tuition-free community college was already practically free. And she's still looking for a better job. So how much will tuition-free community college really change? There's one state that might answer that question because it implemented a statewide version of Biden's plan.

Wait, which is the state? Take a guess. Tennessee. You looked at the notes, Sean. But yes, Tennessee has free community college for everyone. I wish I didn't have notes because then I would like actually have to guess. And I probably wouldn't have guessed Tennessee because I just figure this is like a blue state thing and not a red state thing. It's not just a blue state thing. And some students in Tennessee have even found pathways to a bachelor's

degree. And we're going to hear from one of them after the break. Cool. Thank you. to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an AuraFrame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an AuraFrame for himself. So setup was super simple. In my case, we were celebrating my grandmother's birthday. And she's very fortunate. She's got 10 grandkids. And so we wanted to surprise her with the AuraFrame. And

because she's a little bit older, it was just easier for us to source all the images together and have them uploaded to the frame itself. And because we're all connected over text message, it was just so easy to send a link to everybody. You can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off Aura's best-selling Carvermat frames with promo code EXPLAINED at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code EXPLAINED. This deal is exclusive to listeners and available just in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions do apply. Tamari Ray is from Knoxville, Tennessee. She's 20 years old, and she always knew she wanted to go to college. It's just always been told to me, like, in order to get a better job, in order to make more money, you need to go to college.

But it was going to be hard to pay for. I just knew that, you know, financially, I wasn't going to be able to afford it by myself. Just the way that my life is set up, it just wouldn't work out. I don't have daddy's money. I don't have mommy's money. She said in her senior year of high school, she felt like the best option was to play a sport on an athletic scholarship, maybe get an academic scholarship, go to class, keep her grades up, and find a way to juggle a job too. So I was like, there's no way I can work more than however many hours I'm working now. I'd

be dead somewhere. Like, that's a lot of time taken out of my life just to get to college. But things changed when a high school counselor told her about Tennessee Promise, a program that provides free community college to Tennessee high school graduates if they meet a couple requirements. You needed eight hours of community service every semester. You needed to take 12 hours of classes each semester. And you needed to maintain over a 2.0. Tamari decided to take the scholarship

and go to Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville. A lot of my peers that graduated, you know, a couple years before me or whatever, they were there too, so it is a good stepping stone because, I mean, like, no, it's not necessarily like a university experience, but you still get that community aspect and the opportunity to meet new people and try new things and be in a bunch of different clubs. And they always have events on campus. So it's different from high school, but it's not necessarily like a university, if that makes sense.

Tennessee Promise has been really popular. Over 100,000 students have taken advantage of it. But a study that looks at the impact of free community college found that that's not necessarily a good thing. Bruce Sassardo is one of the co-authors of that study. He's an economist, so get ready to hear a lot of numbers. You'll probably pick up between another three and five percentage points of every high school graduate and cohort that will get some college. So that's great news. The slightly less good news is that you might have 1 or 2 percentage points of a cohort who were starting at a 4-year public,

instead started at a 2-year public and may be having lower educational attainment and maybe even lower earnings as a result. In simpler terms, free community college means more students will go. But some of the students who decide to go to community college as a result of no tuition are students who might have otherwise gone to four-year schools, where they have a much higher chance of finishing with a bachelor's degree. Bruce thinks it's a good thing that the government is trying to make some higher education free. But if it was up to him and his co-authors, it would be done differently. What I think my co-authors and I would really like to see is free public college for people below a certain income level.

Let's call it like $60,000 or $70,000. And there are states around the country that have programs like that. And those seem to be very potent in helping students who really need both the boost of knowing that college is going to be very affordable, but actually for whom, you know, public college, even with the Pell, is very expensive. Take Tennessee as an example. There's a financial aid program that makes public university free for families who make under $50,000 a year. So Tennessee Promise students who want to continue on to a bachelor's can cover the rest of their tuition, which is exactly what Tamari is doing. So I will be a junior this fall at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She's going to major in advertising and public relations. Crossing our fingers nothing happens that I'll graduate with no student debt.

No student debt, a four-year degree, and the promise of upward mobility. When Icra went to school in Virginia, there were no programs like Tennessee Promise. After giving the traditional college pathway a try, Icra is creating her own plan for the future. One that she thinks others should try too. I just want to say to everyone that don't feel pressured by society

that you have to get a four-year degree in order to be successful. Because what it really does, it just puts you in a heaping pile of debt that you're pretty much spending most of your life paying off. You know, look at ways where you can earn money that doesn't require getting a degree. I would say if you want to take out a loan, take out a business loan. Icar takes inspiration from tech leaders who didn't go to college. Like some of them, she wants to start her own business, which she's saving up for. She knows what she loves, and she has some ideas. One of them is, you know, makeup. I want to teach people how to do makeup, and

I'm getting that ball rolling. I did start a YouTube channel a few months ago, so I'm hoping that will grow So this may look a little dark on me, but you actually want to pick a foundation that matches neck or chest and another idea I have is for example, I'm really good at organizing and My family thinks that I should start a business where I offer services to organize their personal space or business or whatever. That could also be very lucrative. So like a lot of Americans, Ikra is taking out a loan, just not for school. And she's got plans to become a businesswoman who's somewhere

between Rihanna and Marie Kondo. I'll bring that slightly down as I blend. But the real takeaway here is that if a student wants a bachelor's degree, there's got to be a way for funding to follow them from community college to a four-year university so that they actually have a real choice about whether to continue on with their education. Okay, Halima, you've been doing a good job explaining what President Biden's big education ideas might look like in practice, but now I have a tougher question for you. Will Congress realize his big education ideas? That's a big question, Mark. Free community college and pre-K are part of the Build Back Better Act, which is part of the reconciliation bill, which is something that Democrats in

Congress are debating right now. Right. I keep hearing about it. And the sticking point is the cost. Yeah. Yeah. Progressive Democrats are really into this plan. But centrists like Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin don't love that the reconciliation bill could cost about three point five trillion dollars. Now, this bill could see changes in the coming days. The House is going to mark it up and we'll see if that affects funding for universal pre-k and community college. And we'll also see if those changes are enough to get centrists in Congress on board, or if progressives can strike some other kind of deal with them to get this public education expansion passed. I'm going to go. and a fill-in host on Today Explained. Her two-part education series on the show was fact-checked by Laura Bullard,

engineered by Afim Shapiro, and edited by Matthew Collette, with help from Jillian Weinberger. The rest of the Today Explained team includes Victoria Chamberlain, Hadi Mawagdi, Will Reed, and Miles Bryan.

Our music comes from the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder, and sometimes the extremely knowable Noam Hassenfeld, too. Vox's Veep of audio is Liz Kelly Nelson and today explained as part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. One last thing, we're working on a series about the future of work. We did an episode recently on the four-day work week and in it we talked a lot about how the pandemic has changed our attitudes surrounding

work and we want to dig a little deeper into that change. If you've had some revelations about your work life in the past year and a half or so, we'd love to hear about them. Send us an email todayexplained at vox.com or you can tweet at today underscore explained. Or if you're really into audio like we are, you can call and leave us a voicemail at 202-688-5944. Again, that's 202-688-5944. Thanks. Thank you. Bye.