> As Reihan Salam of National Review notes, community college tuition is already low. In fact, it’s zero, on average, for lower-income families, after taking financial aid into account. Vox’s Libby Nelson wrote, “Community college tuition for poorer students is often entirely covered by the need-based Pell Grant.”
So making it free takes care of people who couldn't handle the paperwork of filing for a Pell Grant.
They're still going to have to fill out the applications to get in, which aren't significantly different in difficulty from the FAFSA. And most colleges have people who will help you fill out the FAFSA anyway.
I can't imagine that eliminating the FAFSA form requirements will allow a noticeably larger number of substandard students to attend.
I can't either, (not proportionally larger) and if it does, I'd expect to see those individuals shunted into the remedial math and language courses which are already offered for that purpose.
>In fact, it’s zero, on average, for lower-income families, after taking financial aid into account. Vox’s Libby Nelson wrote, “Community college tuition for poorer students is often entirely covered by the need-based Pell Grant.”
It may be true that tuition is free for some, but to say it is often or on average probably depends upon a strange definition of the word. Anyway, the students' expense is not zero, there are never enough Pell grants to go around. Tuition is not the only cost. etc.
>So making it free takes care of people who couldn't handle the paperwork of filing for a Pell Grant.
My own experience in the '90s was that the time I spent filling out forms and travelling to offices and standing in lines would have been better spent at a minimum wage job.
So making it free takes care of people who couldn't handle the paperwork of filing for a Pell Grant.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/upshot/obamas-community-co...