Another education post…I’m not gunning for Daryl, no matter how it looks 
The National Taxpayers Union seems to be enamored with this idea being advanced by a think tank in CT. The idea is that high school students who blow through high school in 3 years will get a free tuition for what would normally be their senior year at a community college instead. Since a year of high school costs the taxpayer $10,000+, and a scholarship to the CC will cost, $5000 – the taxpayers win.
If we make the fairly safe assumption that most of the kids capable of finishing high school in 3 years are kids that would have gone straight to a traditional 4 year college, then what this idea really does is increase demand for CC with no corresponding increase in supply.
Any Econ majors in my audience want to take a stab at what will happen to CC prices?
Also, if we look to the Hope scholarship in GA that promises free tuition to any kid with a B average out of high school, we will see another side affect of this type of middle class handout. The pressure to graduate in 3 years will cause the high schools to make it easier to do so. After all, no elected school board official wants to face the wrath of a parent who has been denied a free year of college for junior by something as silly as academic standards. In many GA schools, over 1/2 the kids graduate with B averages. They can’t actually read well, or handle Algebra, but they have the B average and the free college tuition. Of course, that lasts exactly 1 semester, then they flunk out.
See this report for background on problems with the GA scholarship program.
To summarize, TANSTAAFL
{ 3 } Comments
We have a similar CC program in NC. Any high schooler (including HEKs) at least 15yo can take their elective courses at the local CCs for “free.” The program is quite popular among home educating families. I don’t know if the g-schoolers use it much.
FL offers “dual enrollment” too. You pay for the books and, I think, lab fees, and the rest is free. Like high school would be but you get credits toward your high school diploma and toward your AA.
I believe a lot of hsers here use this option. Or the online classes available through FLVS — http://www.flvs.net — also free.
Nance
Nance is right — but no Taxpayer Union would like it much. it’s not “good” for taxpayers here, except for us relatively few HE families. Years ago when it was passed by the Legislature, the only way they could get the high not to swuak was to send some FTE funding to the high school, even for kids who are never THERE to take classes. That’s the part of it that I feel good about because FavD is at the CC as a HEK high school kid, not a FTE-generating high school kid. Maybe hsing should start pointing this out to the public?