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| Senator Hass' Golden Retriever |
In an AP story by Steven Dubois printed in the March 19 issue of the Bend Bulletin, Senator Hass was quoted as saying, "I think everybody agrees that with a high school education by itself, there is no path to the middle class. There is only one path, and it leads to poverty. And poverty is very expensive."
(Well, the Taxpayer Association of Oregon might note that poverty is only expensive if liberals like Sen. Hass choose to vote to provide medical and other benefits for those who can't afford them. But I digress.)
The free tuition movement is also a response to increasing college debt loads and America's declining ability to compete in the global skills race. Will it work? According to the article, Governor Kitzhaber "ordered" a state commission to examine the question. According to my own Googling, however, State Bill 1524, voted on by both houses, actually "ordered" up the commission (with no "no" votes in the Senate and two Republican "no" votes in the house).
So who is the Higher Education Coordinating Commission that is charged with this research? According to the state gov. website, it's a 14-member volunteer board "dedicated to fostering and sustaining the best, most rewarding pathways to opportunity and success for all Oregonians through an accessible, affordable and coordinated network for educational achievement beyond a high school diploma."
A quick look at the members of this volunteer group shows three people associated with community colleges: Frank Goulard, math teacher and Charlene Gomez, both of Portland Community College, and Betty Duvall, who is either a dead confederate spy or former executive dean at PCC and more recently a director of the Community College Leadership Program for Oregon State University's School of Education. The Oregonian had a story about the latter two last June.
The Oregon effort follows one that just this week passed both the house and senate in Tennessee. The Tennessee plan, originally proposed by Republican Governor William Haslam, draws on state lottery funds. It has proven controversial in part because it's diverting funds from four year schools. Democrat Steven Cohen is quoted in the Times Free Press as saying that "the governor's 'promise' actually cuts funding from high-achieving students beginning four-year degree programs."
Could Representative Cohen's concerns arise from his association with organizations linked to faculty at these four-year schools? Not that the $14,000 he got from Public Sector Unions is all that great a benefit. He actually got a lot more money from business. Nevertheless, it seems as though some Oregon unions are not happy about the suggestion that our state follow the South.
Back in the AP story, "Patricia Schechter, a Portland State University professor active in the faculty union, worries that students will be induced into taking the community college route — 'arguably against their interests' — and about the effect on public universities, whose students won't get a tuition break."
Hmmm. Really? How is it against student interests to save many thousands of dollars by getting their first two years free? I think what she might mean is that it's not in the interests of members of the faculty union that more people go to community colleges than universities. And why would that be? Well, I don't know about PSU but I do know that in other universities, such as the one I attended back in the day, lower division courses, especially those meeting general education requirements like oral communication and writing, are often taught by graduate assistants. And how is it in the interests of their students to be taught by people with little or no experience teaching?
It's not. But it is in the interest of full time tenure track faculty. The teaching assistants are often able to afford their graduate school largely because of their assistantships. Thus the required courses with their meagerly paid teachers provide support for the upper division and graduate courses taught by those full time tenure track professors who make up the membership of faculty unions. Fewer graduate assistants might mean that senior faculty would be required to teach lower division again. More students! Not as interesting to teach! Ouch! So it's just not in the interest of university faculty to encourage lower division students to go to community colleges.
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