Community colleges are often touted as an affordable start for students who aim to earn four-year degrees. And it’s for good reason: The average annual tuition and fees for two-year
Community colleges are often touted as an affordable start for students who aim to earn four-year degrees. And its for good reason: The average annual tuition and fees for two-year colleges is less than $4,000. But fewer than one in 10 Indiana students who enroll in community college go on to earn degrees from four-year institutions, according to recently released federal data. Indiana has the third lowest success rate in the country.
Students who complete a community college associate’s degree would be primary beneficiaries: Statistics point to their earning $9,000 a year more on average than their counterparts with only a high school diploma (in 2021 dollars). Meanwhile, costs to local taxpayers would be more than offset through these graduates ultimately paying more in state income taxes.
So is critical race theory poisonous or illuminating?
Twice during last year’s American presidential election campaign, the US president attacked Critical Race Theory (CRT). The first time, on Constitution Day in September, Donald Trump called the critical school that developed from Critical Legal Theory in the late 1980s “ideological poison” because it foregrounded the racial aspects of American history in the school curriculum.
The 1619 Project developed by scholars and the
New York Times was “radical”, he declared, because, among other things, it began American history with the arrival of the first slave in Jamestown, before calling for it to be replaced by “patriotic education”.