Posted on 01/23/2016 1:56:38 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson announced Thursday he had filed a bill to make tuition free and restructure student loans for students at public colleges and universities.
Grayson, an Orlando Democrat running for Florida's U.S. Senate seat, modeled his House Resolution 4385, introduced last week, after a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last year by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is running for president.
The would have the U.S. Department of Education award grants to states to allow them to eliminate tuition and other required fees at state colleges and universities.
The bill was referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. It does not yet have any co-sponsors.
It also would modify provisions related to interest rates on future federal student loans, regardless of public or private colleges, and allow current student loan borrowers to modify their interest rates to reflect current rates.
It also has provisions that address Federal Work Study programs and financial assistance programs.
"This bill provides qualified students with the means to get a high-quality education at a state school, as well as make it easier for graduates of private universities to pay off their debts," Grayson stated in a news release issued by his Congressional office.
"Our students and graduates currently owe $1.2 trillion due to the high cost of tuition and high student loan interest rates. That's more than we owe on our credit cards. It's stopping many graduates from buying houses, starting businesses, or in many cases even moving out of their parents' homes. It stops them from fully participating in our economy, which hurts all of us. We have the means, and the need, to provide tuition-free education to our students. It's time we did so."
Which is why we need to refocus primary education. Move youth away from the bastions of Marxist education - more trade & technical colleges.
Those are often good jobs for those working them, but there aren’t enough openings. Many people my age who learned carpentry in trade schools 30 years ago have been idled by employers using Hispanics for construction work. While FReepers sometimes shine a spotlight on some career field or other that is facing a staffing shortage, the numbers required are a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people with obsolete (or no) skills.
lol
I lived in Florida in the 1980s when they started their prepaid college tuition program and I signed up for my daughter.
So they set the tuition to a very low amount, but raised the mandatory fees by big bucks. So, be careful.
Pre-K education indoctrination.
etc.
etc.
People joke about basket-weaving classes, but I bet if you got some basket-weaving training and had some talent for it, you could probably make a pretty good living these days.
In the real world, there is only two roads that free college tuition works. The first road is to admit only the best and brightest high school students into college, the rest are off to trade school or work. And these schools are bare bones centers of high academic achievement. No food courts, no big time sports. The standards of teaching are what was seen at Ivy League institutions 50-60 years ago, and if you cannot keep up, your out. This system of free college could actually work. The second road is to let everybody in, and these free tuition colleges will be barely, if even, better than your average high school. A degree from one of these schools will be virtually worthless. Those who attend private colleges will get all the good jobs, while those at the free state schools will have wasted there time and our money. This system would be an unmitigated disaster.
In regards to closing the income gap between the rich and poor, the first road might actually work. A poor kid who wanted to rise in the world through hard work could actually accomplish it. But the Left will do what the Left will do and they will pick road two. This again will widen the income gap even further. The rich will attend good private colleges and the poor will attend crappy state universities.
...don't forget community organizing.
It’s not free, somebody has to pay. I resent others getting free rides while my husband and I have truly sacrificed to get our daughter through college without debt, working hard and she is a 4.0 student and also works. People do not work hard when they aren’t making an investment in their own education.
I think free college is a GREAT idea: no tuition, no fees, free books, no government money, professors/administrators/personnel work for free and any necessary money comes out of the school’s endowment.
Yes, illegals. I had a friend in the gardening business, she was most upset with gardeners who’d pick up illegals on a street corner and take them to a job site. While she hired and struggled to keep employees. Illegal immigration is the bane of society.
If Americans think a college education is expensive now, just wait till it’s free!
You’d make a good living until someone figured out how to get them from Red China for $.05 each.
Where I hike in the mountains along the NJ/NY border, basket-making was how many for the people (normally employed in farming, woodcutting, or mining) spent their winter evenings.
I worked my way through two degress (sic).Did either of those degrees cover spelling?
Yeehaw Junction
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