Criticism about President’s new plan for free community college tuition

Early this year, President Obama announced a plan for free tuition at nation’s community colleges. Some hailed the plan as taking the county’s education on a path for success while others were quick to criticize the proposed plan. Here are some of their criticisms.

• Community college education is already free for most of the Pell Grant recipients and those who are in lower income categories and receive tuition waivers from community colleges.
• How about those who don’t want to follow the path to a higher education in a community college or a university? The proposed plan ignores the need of those who are attending vocational training programs.
• How about those who want to attend four year colleges instead of two years at the community college and the last two years at a university? They will be still paying higher tuition fees.
• Many Federal programs develop into something else over time costing the nation more money.
• Proposal pitted community colleges and universities against each other for the first two years of college education and favoring community colleges.
• Community colleges experience much higher level of dropout rates compared to graduation rates of universities. Dropout rates at community colleges are around 82 percent nationwide.