Local technical college students and officials are excited about the prospect of two, free years of schooling.
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America’s College Promise Act, championed by Democrats, is considered a long shot in in the Republican-controlled Congress. Even supporters have noted the bill’s $90 billion price tag will be hard for opponents to swallow.
Key success indicators from the National Center of Education Statistics, and the University of California and California State University systems were used to find and rank the best community colleges in California. Community colleges would be expected to offer high-quality programs with transferable credits to four-year colleges. The regulations also help the Department in its efforts to protect students from deceptive practices on the part of some for-profit colleges.
Ranked as number 14 on the list, Schools.com accredited some of the school’s success to its small student body size, which gives it a high student-to-faculty ratio, as well as a high combined UC-CSU transfer rate.
“Congressman Ryan is determined to reverse the trends that are making higher education unaffordable for so many, but this proposal is far from free”, said spokesperson Kevin Seifert.
Although current estimates place the potential number of beneficiaries around nine million students, Duncan was optimistic the figure would expand once the program was under way.
Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Virginia, have introduced “America’s College Promise Act,” a bill that would make the first two years of community college free and provide an affordable route to pursue a four-year degree.
Less clear was whether the plan would pay for itself – for example, by reallocating funds already earmarked for education – or whether new sources of state and federal funding would need to be found. In a statement released after Obama announced his plan in his Knoxville speech, Alexander called on “other states to do for themselves what Tennessee has done … instead of creating a new federal program”. There are now 10 cosponsors for the America’s College Promise Act in the Senate-none of whom are Republican-and 61 cosponsors in the House.
“It was a very enjoyable evening and it was good to see so many students doing so well in their given subjects and being recognised for that”. While the bill has not been officially introduced, Baldwin has heard from ten Senators who she expects to immediately sign on as cosponsors.
In addition to the gainful employment regulations, today marks other milestones in the Department’s work to increase accountability and shared responsibility in higher education.
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In the press conference call, both Baldwin and Scott expressed support for eliminating Americans’ existing college debt, an idea frequently discussed on the campaign trail. All programs will have the opportunity to make immediate changes that could help them avoid sanctions, but if programs do not make these changes, they will ultimately become ineligible for federal student aid – which often makes up almost 90 percent of the revenue at for-profit institutions.
