A sad little story has been unfolding at Santa Monica Community College in Southern California. Santa Monica is apparently one of the better two-year colleges in the state, with some thirty-four thousand students and an excellent record of students moving on to the state’s four-year system. But its success has led to a steady increase in applications even as state-college bud (...)
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College, the New Luxury Item
HOW WILL THE NONRICH PAY FOR IT?
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Sounds like nothing a few federal mandates can't fix. Order the states to start paying a lot more of the cost of post-secondary education. If they don't, cut off their highway funds. Double or triple the minimum wage. Federalize two-year colleges. That should get the ball rolling.
In California, AB1500 and AB1501 would reduce U.C. and State College tuitions by almost half. The measures are strongly opposed by Republicans and by five major out of state corporations whose tax loopholes are endangered. In Congress, the Republlicans have finally tried to pass a bill reducing Stafford Loan interest rates from 6.8% back to 3.8%, about the same as current FHA or Fannie/Freddie long term home loan rates. Yet they insist on financing the revenue loss (not a direct cost) by cutting health care once again. Do these antedeluvian folk really believe that college students will not vote their own self-interest in November and see through this strategy? And how many blue collar parents will support them once the facts are known? The Repubs need to be beaten soundly and widely in November. It would be all our citizens giving them a big slap upside their heads.