With the rising costs of attending a four-year college and the growing demand for higher skills in the workplace President Barack Obama’s new plan to make community colleges free for students who qualify makes sense.
In addition to the lower cost, community college offer students smaller classrooms and more flexibility to fit classes around their work schedules.
Last week Obama announced he wants publicly-funded community college available to all Americans, a sweeping proposal that would make higher education as accessible as a high school diploma to boost weak U.S. wages and skills for the modern workforce.
“Put simply, what I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who is willing to work for it,” Obama said. “It’s something that we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our work force so that we can compete with anybody in the world.”
Administration officials said the funding details would come out later with the president’s budget next month. They estimated 9 million students could participate and save an average of $3,800 in tuition per year. That suggests an annual cost in the tens of billions of dollars.
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