Free community college for everyone? We can all be Aric Hall!

[sanantone]

Another issue we may face with this free CC is seat availability. For example at College of Southern Nevada, every semester there is a seat shortage as Nevada High School graduates tend to have early enrollment versus transfer students. A class may have 30 seats and it gets filled before the next round of students are allowed to enroll. After the first week of class you can see as many as 1/3 drop the course as they are not prepared enough to take these courses. In this instance many of the students who could not get in, wind up taking 100/200 level classes at UNLV which has much higher tuition ($191 a credit last time I checked). The more I think about this, this is a bad deal. Obama would be better off mandating a tuition cap on CC's such as $20-$25 a credit than subsidize (corporate welfare) tuition. This may force the CC's to eliminate some of the bloat in the administrative positions. Also in Nevada CC teachers make over $100,000 a year and I can tell you first hand, most just post assignments online and do not even read many of the them. I looked up one of my Professors and she teaches 3 classes per semester and makes $108,000 a year plus benefits...

My question is will the 5 million illegals who just received amnesty also be allowed to receive free CC? This is leaning more and more to a massive spike in tuition.

Many will not get into CC as it will be filled by lower and middle income, so attendance will increase at the 4 year level. CC's will be maxed out, so the supply will be low and the demand will be high. The higher the demand the higher the prices.

The federal government can provide funding, but it cannot force CCs to cap their tuition. These are locally-operated entities. Why would attendance increase among lower and middle income people when they are already the ones attending CCs for free or nearly free? How many upper class people are trying to attend CCs anyway? I don't think this proposal is meant to help them, and they really don't need the help.

It is only common for certain types of professors to make over six figures. They are usually in tenure-track positions at 4-year colleges and universities and teach law, computer science, accounting, and engineering. Professors at prestigious private universities can make that much, but many professors won't see that much even after teaching for 20+ years. CCs are becoming increasingly reliant on adjunct instructors. Adjuncts make close to fast food wages.

None of my university professors make six figures and some of them have been teaching for more than 30 years. I could make more as a police officer without a degree than a CJ professor with a PhD.