Earlier this month President Barack Obama issued the latest
in his series of bad ideas: free community college for all. "No one with
drive and discipline should be denied a college education simply because they
can't pay for it," Mr. Obama said. "A college degree is the surest
ticket to the middle class." While that assertion may or may not be true
anymore, many people may be wondering what’s wrong with the free tuition idea.
First, we have to ask if he is really serious? Or, knowing
that this idea has little chance of being approved, is he setting the stage for
an issue in the 2016 campaign? But, assuming he is serious, here’s some of what
is wrong with this idea.
If every state participated, the White
House suggests that Mr. Obama’s proposal could help 9 million students and would
save full-time enrollees an average of $3,800 a year. However, using the
average cost, state and federal governments would have to pick up the tab of $34.2
billion each year. And, of course, these governments will get this money from …
guess who: We, the taxpayers. Nothing is free.
Never having had to pay his own way, perhaps Mr. Obama is unaware
that students with “drive and discipline” have in the past managed to pay their
own way to a community college, a trade school, or to a four-year institution,
through part-time or full-time jobs and/or work-study programs. That is a good process
that over time has gotten millions of people through school and given them
valuable work experience at the same time.
Giving things away is a slippery slope. An article in the Los Angeles Times has already suggested
going farther. Michael Hiltzik writes, “But
the proposal fails to address one glaring flaw in the nation’s overall system
of public higher education: It should all be free.” Really? Why? Will
this give-away mentality never end? And, furthermore, what exactly gives the
president the authority to take care of kids’ college costs?
And, making significant things too easy deprives people of
the ability to control their own lives. How will they ever be able to actually think
about their life, develop goals, and work to achieve them? How will they become
self-sufficient, and make their way in the world? The ease with which one
obtains desired things is directly and inversely correlated with the
appreciation one has for that which is obtained.
We can see this concept in action in federal support programs
for children and unemployed adults, how dependency becomes a way of life.
Paying unwed mothers generous levels of support for themselves
and their children has produced single-parent families where the mother is
incentivized to have more children, not because she really wants more children,
but because having more kids means getting a bigger support check.
People who have lost their job in the ultra-weak Obama
recovery not infrequently turn down a new job because they can collect more in
extended unemployment support than they can make at the new job. This is a
significant influence in pushing the workforce participation rate to its lowest
point in decades. “I can make more on unemployment than I can working one of
the jobs that are available, so I’ll just drop out, and stop looking for work,”
is how tens of thousands look at the situation.
This is not some unsupported theory. In March of 2013 The
Huffington Post reported that the “number of days a job vacancy sits
unfulfilled has gone up since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009. It
currently takes an average of 23 business days for an employer to fill a job
opening, compared to 15 days in 2009, according to an analysis of Labor
Department data from economists at the University of Chicago and University of
Maryland that was cited by The New York
Times.”
In November of 2014, a study conducted by the Centre for
Economics and Business Research (Cebr) reported that in the U.S. “33% of job
vacancies remain open for three months or more. The cost of these unfilled jobs
reaches $160 billion each year, a significant cost to the nation as a whole,
businesses and individuals.”
Just as providing too much comfort through support for
families and the unemployed has produced negative economic and social outcomes,
so will giving away tuition to community colleges.
The truth is that Barack Obama and the others who share his poisonous
ideals don’t want people to think for themselves or to be self-sufficient. Big
government liberals want widespread dependency. They decry and oppose free
market features and self-sufficiency at every turn, not because it is better
for Americans or for the country at large, but because it suits their narrow,
selfish ambitions.
Remember, back in late October of 2008, candidate Barack
Obama told us he wanted to fundamentally transform the United States of
America.
When those who think government is the answer to all
problems, great and small, significantly outnumber those who prefer individual liberty
and self-reliance, the country will have taken a step from which it will not be
able to retreat. We are very near to that point.
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