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Community college for all?

President Obama wants the U.S. to lead the world in college graduates by 2020. That goal includes graduating an additional five million community college students and pushing all Americans to get at least one year of postsecondary education. Obama is overselling the value of college, writes Frank Donoghue in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Obama’s international college race presupposes that formal postsecondary education is “the single biggest factor in professional and social success,” writes Donoghue.

That’s just not true: my plumber, my electrician, and any contractor I’ve ever hired make more money than I do as an associate professor of English at Ohio State . . .

The administration isn’t trying to fund four-year degrees for everyone because it’s too expensive, Donoghue writes. But community colleges don’t have the capacity to boost enrollment. In Ohio, Columbus State Community College ran out of space and was forced to lease classrooms from nearby Franklin University.

Those additional five million students are going to go to for-profit colleges, which are able to expand quickly to meet demand.

EduBubble asks: Is college just another luxury good?

POSTED BY Joanne Jacobs ON March 28, 2011

Tags: associate degrees, college costs, college graduates, Obama

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Community College Spotlight is written by Joanne Jacobs. It provides a forum for discussion and debate about America’s community colleges, which are home to nearly half of all college students in the U.S. Views expressed on the blog are those of Joanne Jacobs and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Hechinger Report or the Hechinger Institute.
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