It’s a simple fact that Rhode Island’s economic success depends on a highly educated and skilled workforce. But, with higher education tuition and fees continuing to rise and incomes stagnating for many lower and middle class Ocean State residents, the ability of thousands of families to afford the key to economic and social mobility for their children has been greatly diminished. ...
Read moreRhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo has announced a bold plan to provide two-years of college tuition-free for all Rhode Islanders. Her Rhode Island’s Promise proposal, when enacted, will provide either two-years of tuition-free community college for full-time students, or last dollar scholarships to make tuition free for junior and senior students at the state’s public four-year colleges. She writes in the following blog post, written at the request of the Campaign for Free College Tuition, “this policy will encourage both access and completion, ensuring that Rhode Islanders are earning their degrees without falling behind.”
We applaud Governor Raimondo and share her hope “that leaders across the country will follow Rhode Island’s example in designing free tuition policies that meet their local needs and reach all students.”
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Then make college tuition free.
Higher education is the key to economic mobility in America. A recent study, with unprecedented access to individual and family incomes, has proven the case for this proposition beyond a reasonable doubt. The study confirms what families already know, and why paying for their children’s college education is a high priority topic of conversation at kitchen tables across America. Governors in states as diverse as New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Oregon are addressing this challenge by leading efforts to make their colleges tuition free and winning wide public support from grateful constituents. Without waiting for the federal government to get its act together, these pioneering efforts are creating an unstoppable momentum in favor of each state adopting free college tuition as the solution to economic inequality and the source of a more skilled workforce for the entire country.
Read moreEloy Ortiz Oakley, the new Chancellor for California’s Community College system, was interviewed recently by the Campaign for College Opportunity as he prepares to take office. As the instigator and spark that made the Long Beach Promise a reality, we thought his comments on how the idea of free community college tuition could be spread across the entire state would be of interest to our supporters. Remember, Chancellor Oakley’s ideas will be the governing policies for twenty percent of all community colleges students in the country in the coming years.
Read moreSara Goldrick-Rab, one of the most influential and articulate advocates for the cause of free college tuition, was recently asked to debate the idea that public higher education should be universal and free at a conference at the State University of New York. We found her argument to be so well presented that we have created a short video excerpt from the debate, which we think everyone in favor of free college tuition should watch. You can view it here.
Read moreIn this edition of Congressional Quarterly the At Issue section posed the question “Should public-college tuition be free?” We were honored to have CQ ask CFCT President and CEO, Morley Winograd, to present the argument in favor of free college tuition. Below is his argument.
Read moreToday’s global economy rewards nations with the most educated workforces. We saw the benefits of expanding access to free college in the second half of the 20th century when the GI Bill of Rights and then the Higher Education Act of 1965 were enacted to further encourage college enrollment. That investment in our veterans and others ready to contribute to our nation’s defense established the educational foundation for the rapid expansion of America’s middle class after 1950 and was worth every penny that the government spent on the program.
Read moreThe Campaign for Free College Tuition released a report detailing the estimated cost to each state of making their public colleges and universities tuition free. The research authored by Mark Schneider, Vice President and Institute Fellow at the American Institute for Research (AIR) and made possible by a generous grant from the ECMC Foundation, establishes a baseline for state policymakers to discuss appropriations and the eventual return that they might expect on such an investment.
Read moreEver since Hillary Clinton’s campaign endorsed the idea of free college tuition for America’s middle class and debt free college for everyone, many leaders in the higher education community have begun circling their wagons to protect their current world. Almost two-thirds of all Americans and just about three-fourths of Democrats and Independents support the idea of free public college tuition according to CFCT’s latest survey research. However, it is just starting to become clear to the higher education establishment that political imperatives, economic necessity, and demographic destiny make the arrival of the disruptive force of free college tuition in their world inevitable.
Read moreSixty-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.
Read moreOur goal is to make higher education a possibility for every American, without regard to their financial circumstances.
We have a lot to do and not much time to do it, so your support is critical for our campaign to succeed. It’s with your investment that we can fundamentally reform how higher education is financed in this country, opening the doors to a more equitable society.
If you agree with our goal, our plan, and the urgency of the problem, we ask that you give what you can to help us write the next chapter in our nation’s history of continuously expanding access to universal, free education.
