President Obama's 'Free' Community College Plan Could Cost $34B Per Year

    Previewing an item from his upcoming State of the Union address, President Obama announced a "Free Community College" plan Thursday evening:

    According to Justin Sink of The Hill, Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, declined to put a price tag on the plan during a conference call Thursday evening. Rather Muñoz said details of the plan will be in the president's next budget proposal.
    However, the president's announcement said that the plan could benefit as many as nine million students who could save an average of $3,800 per year. This would put the total cost at a little more than $34 billion.
    In a video accompanying the announcement, the president said that his plan would be "making two years of community college free for anyone who's willing to work for it." At $34 billion per year, taxpayers at least will be working for it, willing or not.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

NSA Expands College Recruitment Program

    Even as the National Security Agency (NSA) addresses public perceptions of overreach in its surveillance activities, the agency is broadening its recruiting efforts for future cyber experts.  An announcement on Wednesday named four new schools chosen to participate in the NSA's "Cyber Initiative."  The press release explains the program:

An outgrowth of the President's National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, the program identifies institutions that have a deeply technical, interdisciplinary curriculum centered on fields such as computer science and electrical engineering. The agency has long worked with schools to improve education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. 

In addition, the program offers some participants opportunities to apply their learning or enhance their teaching in summer seminars at NSA...

Topics covered are routinely taught in colleges and universities, but this initiative seamlessly integrates the material to help students better understand how they could someday help to defend the nation.  

    The four schools chosen for the 2013-14 academic year are:

• Air Force Institute of Technology in Ohio;
• Auburn University, Alabama;
• Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania; and
• Mississippi State University.

    Although "[s]ummer seminar participants must undergo background checks and obtain temporary, top-secret security clearances," it is noted that "students and faculty members do not engage in actual U.S. government intelligence activities."

    The four existing schools in the program are:

• Dakota State University, South Dakota
• Naval Postgraduate School, California
• Northeastern University, Massachusetts
• University of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Education Secretary: If You Don't Graduate High School, 'You're Basically Condemned to Poverty and Social Failure'

    Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, on Air Force One en route to New York for the president's education bus tour, had some strong words to say about the prospects of those who do not attend college.  While answering a question about the cost of college and whether the administration might be exaggerating those costs, Duncan said [emphasis added]:

But, again, if you look at polls of the public -- this isn't me -- if you look at polls, the vast -- it’s like two-thirds of the American public think college is for the wealthy today.  There is something dramatically wrong with that picture.  Some form of higher education -- four-year universities, two-year community colleges, trade, technical vocation training -- some form of higher education training has to be the goal for every single young person in this country. 

Again, we know the long-term economic benefits, dividends are just tremendous -- more than doubling long-term salaries.  So if you drop out of high school today, you’re basically condemned to poverty and social failure.  There are no good jobs out there. If you have a high school diploma, there’s almost nothing for you.  College has to be the goal, has to be the aspiration.

UPDATE: It turns out Duncan has been using this line since at least 2010.  In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, he said:

Just as troubling, about one in four -- about 25 percent -- of high school students in the United States drops out or fails to graduate on time. That's almost 1 million students each year leaving our schools for the streets. That is economically unsustainable and is morally unacceptable. As all of you know, high school dropouts today are basically condemned to poverty and social failure.

Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard. 

President Obama's Student Loan Rate Proposal Saves Average Borrower 25¢ Per Day

    Reprising the Don't Double My Rate theme used during the 2012 presidential campaign, the White House is pushing a plan by President Obama this week to prevent interest rates on some student loans from doubling effective July 1.  However, the savings for most borrowers is rather less significant than might appear at first glance.  The White House uses the example of an incoming freshman who will save $4,000 under the president's plan:

If Congress fails to act, college will be further out of reach for millions of students and families.  In fact, an incoming freshman who borrows $27,000 over the next four years -- a typical debt incurred by today’s college graduates – is projected to pay over $4,000 dollars more over the life of their loans without the President’s proposal.

    However, the chart included with the plan shows that the average savings for student loan borrowers is actually $1,126.  Despite tweets from the White House that seem to suggest the savings are annual ("Last year, President Obama helped students save an average of $1,000 on their college loans"), the footnote to the chart explains that the savings assumes the borrower "repays the loans over the expected period of 12 years."  A savings of $1,126 over twelve years is $94 per year, or about 25¢ a day.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Note: Here's a post from last year's Don't Double My Rate campaign when the Obama administration used the same playbook, and Congress eventually signed on.