Posted by Maica Pichler on August 14, 2016 at 8:29 PM
Sixty-billion dollars for free community-college tuition will undoubtedly be a tough sell to a Republican-controlled Congress. But in statehouses and city halls around the country, advocates for free tuition are hoping that the national discussion the president’s proposal has unleashed will help them make the case that government-funded education should extend beyond 12th grade to include two years of college.
Originally published in The Chronicle for Higher Education. Read the full article by Katherine Mangan here.
Two of those programs, in Tennessee and Chicago, are familiar to anyone who’s been following the debate thundering around the proposal President Obama promoted in Tuesday’s State of the Union address. His plan, which Republican leaders have already denounced and many presidents of two-year colleges have cheered, calls on the federal government to cover three-quarters of students’ tuition costs, with states providing the rest. The proposal is largely modeled on a plan in Tennessee known as the Tennessee Promise. Mr. Obama also cited Chicago’s version of the idea as evidence that if a Republican governor and Democratic mayor could agree on an approach, a bitterly divided Congress could as well.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on June 29, 2016 at 7:02 AM
“When the history of the 21st century is written, the chapter on how college came to be tuition free will mark this conference as an important historical moment because it was the first time a group of this size (about one hundred) and quality came together not to debate whether colleges should be tuition free but to talk about HOW to make it free.”
-Morley Winograd CFCT President, closing comments at Designing Sustainable Funding for Promise Initiatives conference.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on June 16, 2016 at 8:06 AM
Over one hundred leading higher education policy influencers gathered last week at Educational Testing Service, ETS, headquarters in Princeton, NJ to discuss ways to provide Promise Programs with sustainable funding sources, whether from the public or private sector. Joining ETS in sponsoring the conference was the America’s College Promise Campaign led by Martha Kanter, former U.S. Under Secretary for Education and prior to that, Chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District in California.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on June 01, 2016 at 7:14 AM
All across the country proud parents are celebrating their children taking the next step along the path of their educational progress from primary school to high school and hopefully from there to college graduation. But the overall data on academic performance suggests our current system of education is not serving students and their families well. It is increasingly clear that unless something is done to fundamentally transform the way we finance higher education and prepare students for success in that increasingly critical experience, we are putting in jeopardy not only their future, but our country’s as well.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on May 11, 2016 at 8:00 AM
Dear 2016 Graduate,
Congratulations! As you enter the workforce, your friends at the Campaign for Free College Tuition would like to share with you some good – and some not so good news. First and foremost, your college degree is not only a proud achievement for you and your family, it is worth about $830,000 over a high school diploma and is still the most reliable pathway to the middle class or higher. While we all have struggled at some time during our careers – and you will too – a college education has opened doors and changed our lives for the better.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on April 26, 2016 at 7:30 AM
There are lots of people invested in today’s higher education system who insist that the rising price of tuition is a problem only for the nation’s poorest families. They argue sincerely and with great passion that increased money for students from low income families for both tuition and the other costs of attending college will solve the increasing inequality of higher education opportunity in America.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on March 22, 2016 at 11:00 AM
Free college tuition, an issue that was not even on the radar four years ago, is now being implemented across our country (TN, OR, more than 40 local communities). These are the “early adopters” that are confident such programs will produce incredibly important results--more skilled workers who are able to get on the ladder to economic success, more tax revenue for and less spending by state and local governments, reduced wage inequality—in which both the psychological and financial upfront costs are more than balanced by the outcomes.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on March 17, 2016 at 8:49 AM
As the primaries continue and the general election gets closer, free college tuition is a front burner issue on the debate and campaign stage, but there are clear contrasts in the way the issue is being framed nationally.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on February 18, 2016 at 9:00 AM
Two of our nation’s most elite universities – Harvard and Stanford –have garnered recent media attention as they take steps to use their massive endowments to make college tuition free for most students. While these efforts to provide free tuition are praiseworthy, this ought to be the rule for all post-secondary education, from welding school to MIT.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on February 03, 2016 at 2:00 PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2015
Legislators Urged to Make California’s
Community Colleges Tuition Free
CFCT President Testifies before California Senate Subcommittee
SACRAMENTO, CA – Campaign for Free College Tuition President Morley Winograd urged legislators to make California’s community colleges tuition-free. In testimony before the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Education, Winograd stated “I firmly believe -- given the data from Kalamazoo, Tennessee and other promise programs -- that when going to college isn't about income and where you come from, we see attitudes change. It is the single most important thing that we can do, from a public policy perspective, to improve people's lives.”
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