Enrollment swelled at Spartanburg Community College this fall as students took advantage of a free tuition initiative. It was a stark contrast to ongoing enrollment declines at community colleges across the country.
“When people hear the word 'free college,' you’ve got to dig beneath that headline to really understand the full cost and what is and is not covered through programs like these,” said Jonathan Feinstein, the State Director of Texas for the Education Trust, a national nonprofit advocating for educational equity.
The pandemic’s student loan payment pause and debt cancellation and free college proposals are finally disrupting a system that hasn’t been working for.
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The 12 other states that would lose out in the funding formula are Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.
They get the less-attractive deal because, under Mr. Biden’s plan, the federal government would give states 75% of the national average for community college tuition. The tuition, however, varies widely depending on how much each state spends to keep tuition low.
Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the top Republican on the Education Committee, criticized the proposed funding formula that penalizing states with less tax revenue to pump into community colleges.