Free Republic

President Barack Obama wants publicly funded community college available to all Americans, a sweeping, multibillion-dollar proposal that would make higher education as accessible as a high school diploma to boost weak U.S. wages and skills for the modern workforce. The program is expected to cost the federal government $60 billion over 10 years, said White House spokesman Eric Schultz, and it faces a Republican Congress averse to big new spending programs. Obama was promoting the idea on Friday at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee, a follow-up to a video message posted to Facebook Thursday evening. "Put simply, what...

President Barack Obama on Friday will propose making two years of community college free for students. In a White House video posted Thursday evening, Obama said he wanted to offer “a little preview” of his plans for the Jan. 20 State of the Union address. “What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.” The proposal would make two years...

President Barack Obama on Friday will propose making two years of community college free for students. In a White House video posted Thursday evening, Obama said he wanted to offer “a little preview” of his plans for the Jan. 20 State of the Union address. “What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.” The proposal would make two years...

President Barack Obama on Friday will propose making two years of community college free for students. In a White House video posted Thursday evening, Obama said he wanted to offer “a little preview” of his plans for the Jan. 20 State of the Union address. “What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.” The proposal would make two years...

Richmond, VA (1140wrva.com) _ Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring is advising Virginia's colleges and universities and the Virginia Community College System that under current Virginia law, Virginia students who are legally present in the United States under the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program qualify for in-state tuition, provided they meet the state's domicile requirements. In a letter sent to Virginia's college and university presidents, the chancellor of the community college system and the State Council of Higher Education, Herring says the students, often called "DREAMers", will still need to gain admission to an institution of higher education, maintain...

When Brandon Jenkins applied to the Radiation Therapy Program at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) in Maryland, the last thing on his mind was that he would be rejected for his faith in God – but that's exactly what happened. Not long after Jenkins initially applied to CCBC's program as a very strong candidate, he was told by a faculty member that the "field [of radiation therapy] is not the place for religion." "I understand that religion is a major part of your life and that was evident in your recommendation letters; however, this field is not the...

The latest in a string of successful court challenges to college “free speech zones” is unfolding in Virginia, where lawyers are negotiating a settlement in the case of a student who was barred from preaching on campus. The Virginia Community College System has agreed to suspend its student demonstrations policy in response to a lawsuit filed by Thomas Nelson Community College student Christian Parks. Both sides have asked a federal judge in Norfolk to put the case on hold until May 2 while a new policy and settlement details are negotiated. Judicial history and recent legislative developments suggested Parks had...

‘They said this would be a disaster in terms of jobs,” President Obama shouted on Thursday. “There is no widespread evidence that the Affordable Care Act is hurting jobs.” At least 30,377 Americans would beg to differ. Amid their new, Obamacare-generated non-working hours, they might observe that “no widespread evidence” is hardly a categorical denial. Either Obama flat-out yelled lies at a rally in Largo, Md., or he occupies a bubble as airtight as the International Space Station. Perhaps Obama is encircled by yes persons who insulate him from evidence — “widespread” or otherwise — of the increasing cruelty that...

A Tennessee community college professor ordered her students to wear ribbons in support of gay rights and said those who supported the traditional definition of marriage are just “uneducated bigots” who “attack homosexuals with hate,” according to a legal firm representing several of the students in the class. Students in a general psychology class at Columbia State Community College were directed by their professor to wear “Rainbow Coalition” ribbons for an entire day and express their support for the homosexual community, said Travis Barham, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom. Barham is calling for the college to punish Dr....

Tarrant County Community College southeast campus in Arlington is on lockdown midday Tuesday after reports of an armed suspect near campus. Scanner traffic indicates that Grand Prairie Police are looking for an armed burglary suspect who has a stolen .22 firearm. Suspect is reportedly wearing a black hoodie. Officials believe the suspect may be in a wooded area behind the campus. TCC sent out an alert to students telling them a lockdown is in effect. If they were in a building, students were told to stay in the room, turn out lights and stay away from doors and windows.

RIVERSIDE: RCC student body president is registered sex offender It was no April Fools’ joke. On Monday, April 1, anonymous black-and-white fliers were found pinned to billboards at Riverside City College saying the student body president is a registered sex offender. Students at first thought it was a cruel prank, but once it was confirmed, the revelation left them asking whether RCC administrators, who acknowledge they knew about it before the election, should have disclosed the information to the campus community. Doug Robert Figueroa, 40, of Riverside, was sentenced to five years in prison for admitting that in 2005 he...

A group of nearly two dozen Republican lawmakers is threatening to pull state funding from an Iowa community college unless they defund an anti-bullying program that the lawmakers say bullies Christians and conservatives. The Des Moines Area Community College is one of several sponsors of the Iowa Governors Conference on LGBTQ Youth – scheduled to be held next week. The program was founded by Iowa Safe Schools. The college’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter filed a Freedom of Information Act request and discovered that tax and tuition dollars were being used to cover the costs. “It’s outrageous,” said Jake...

A Young Americans for Freedom chapter is demanding its school to pull funding from an upcoming LGBT conference, claiming a bias against conservatives and Christians. Des Moines Community College student Jake Dagel, who chairs the school's Young Americans for Freedom chapter, is opposing the 8th Annual Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) Youth and is calling for the school to pull its $1,000 sponsorship during a press conference announcing his chapter's position. Dagel claims that conservatives and Christians will be bullied at the event. “Any conference or event that attacks individuals for their beliefs is not...

People with an Associate’s degree may earn less in their lifetime, but they might just be earning more right now. New data shows that an Associate’s degree may impart the ‘middle skills’ which are the ticket to the middle class. “Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce,” reports Jon Marcus for CNN Money. “In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.” However, “Although these...

Pennsylvania's Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is slashing the hours of 400 adjunct instructors, support staff, and part-time instructors to dodge paying for Obamacare. "It's kind of a double whammy for us because we are facing a legal requirement [under the new law] to get health care and if the college is reducing our hours, we don't have the money to pay for it," said adjunct biology professor Adam Davis. On Tuesday, CCAC employees were notified that Obamacare defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week and that on Dec. 31 temporary part-time employees will...

Edward Yacuta felt rushed and nervous when he took a test to determine whether he was ready for college-level English classes at Long Beach City College. The 18-year-old did poorly on the exam, even though he was getting good grades in an Advanced Placement English class at Long Beach's Robert A. Millikan High School. Most community colleges would assign students like Yacuta to a remedial class, but he will avoid that fate at Long Beach. The two-year school is trying out a new system this fall that will place students who graduated from the city's high schools in courses based...

Two new studies from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College have found that community colleges unnecessarily place tens of thousands of entering students in remedial classes — and that their placement decisions would be just as good if they relied on high school grade-point averages instead of standardized placement tests. The studies address one of the most intractable problems of higher education: the dead end of remedial education. At most community colleges, a majority of entering students who recently graduated from high school are placed in remedial classes, where they pay tuition but earn no college...

Authorities in Washington say a former Tacoma Community College music instructor tricked a teenage voice student to take off her clothes off while singing in hopes she would reach lower octaves. The Tacoma News Tribune reports 37-year-old Kevin Gausepohl is charged with seven counts of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and one count of obstructing a law enforcement officer. Investigators say he told a Gig Harbor High School student he was conducting a study on how sexual arousal affects vocal ranges. The girl was 17 at the time.

Beginning Sunday evening,instructors at Seattle Community College campuses are teaching classes in support of Occupy Seattle.SEATTLE — Beginning Sunday evening, instructors at Seattle Community College campuses are teaching classes in support of Occupy Seattle.The classes are scheduled to be held in the plaza of Seattle Central Community College. They will focus on subjects such as legislative lobbying, the art of the protest sign and filming to document human rights violations.According to Occupy Seattle and the Washington branch of the American Federation of Teachers, classes were scheduled throughout the night.

This paper uses detailed administrative data from one of the largest community colleges in the United States to quantify the extent to which academic performance depends on students being of similar race or ethnicity to their instructors. To address the concern of endogenous sorting, we use both student and classroom fixed effects and focus on those with limited course enrolment options. We also compare sensitivity in the results from using within versus across section instructor type variation. Given the computational complexity of the 2-way fixed effects model with a large set of fixed effects we rely on numerical algorithms that...