In a video released Thursday, President Obama previewed a big idea he's going to be pushing: free community college for all. There would be requirements, of course. The proposal would:
... make community college free for any student who enrolls at least part-time and maintains a 2.5 grade point average. In a show of rare bipartisan force, he will be accompanied by the state’s Republican governor, Bill Haslam, as well as its two Republican senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, White House officials said.
The plan would allow anyone admitted to a community college to attend without paying tuition, so long as they enroll in a program meeting certain basic requirements and they remain on track to graduate in three years. Its broad goals are clear: to extend the amount of mass education available, for free, beyond high school — from K-through-12, to K-through-college.
And why not? A college degree is now as necessary for getting many middle-class jobs as a high school diploma was back when free high school became universally available. Making a two-year degree more widely available is also, as Obama said in his video, "something that'll train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world."
Students have been coping with rising tuition for years, with rising student debt as a result. People who can't afford college face limited job choices, high unemployment, and low wages. But student loan debt can also constrain job choices and be a burden for decades.
Tennessee and Chicago have recently started similar programs to make community college more accessible, though Obama's proposal would apply to more prospective students. Of course, even though Republicans in Tennessee have seen the value of making college more accessible for more people, Republicans nationally have a well-established history of deciding they hate Republican ideas as soon as Obama embraces them. So we'll see how the politics of this play out. But once again, Obama is offering a big, good idea, one that would help American students and workers and produce more of the skilled workers companies are always claiming they want more of—and if it doesn't happen, it's on Republicans to tell American voters why not.