Good grief. Are Greg Johnson and his KNS editor both Haslam cheerleaders? Even if one didn't already know better, a simple Google search discredits Johnson's assertion this morning that Governor Bill Haslam's Tennessee Promise plan is the "first-in-the-nation" proposal for tuition-free community colleges statewide.
California enacted such a plan over 50 years ago, in 1960, under Democratic Gov. Pat Brown (and yours truly nabbed a free associate's degree there in the early 1980's).
Massachusetts' Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick proposed such a plan in 2007, although the measure failed in the legislature.
Tennessee Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen's plan also failed in the legislature in 2007.
This year, even Mississippi proposed such a plan, although theirs failed in the legislature, too.
Oregon's plan also passed this year, however, proposed by Democratic Sen. Mark Haas and signed into law by Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber.
Looking at that list, it may be that Haslam is the first Republican governor to support a proposal for free community college tuition--but it's also the case that Tennessee is one of 18 states nationally to have cut higher ed funding by 30% or more since 2008.
Sooo...if Tennessee colleges' tuition rates aren't covering their costs now, how does it bode for the longevity of lottery reserves expected to fund this plan if we're to pump into those colleges more students paying the same inadequate rates of tuition?
Thimk, Greg, thimk.
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Yes, Tennessee Promise directs monies to private schools
(in reply to metulj)
The bill, HB 2401/SB 2471, was ambiguous on that subject, until it was amended a couple of times (scroll to bottom of page linked to read in full the bill's successful amendments):
The point
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
I thought that was the whole point of Tennessee promise.
*
(in reply to fischbobber)
If you mean that his point was to better subsidize private colleges while he continues to cut funding for public colleges, I thought so too.
Under this scheme, every time public community colleges have to raise their tuition rates following a budget cut, private colleges receiving Tennessee Promise monies automatically get a bigger subsidy from TP--whether or not the private donations that fund their institutions have fallen off.
Until such time as all of the state's community colleges are reliant on private, not public, funding? Which is virtually the case now? Per The Tennessean earlier this year:
When the state is funding just 30% of its higher ed costs, it doesn't really have a public higher ed system anymore...
Greg Johnson
got Haslam's plan mixed up with Lower Saxony's. Cause taxing rich people's wealth and income isn't freedom but being in debt for the rest of your life is.
Fraud on the Tennessee citizenry that approved the lottery
It was pushed and amended the Tennessee constitution to help our best and brightest attend college, not a free right for kids that want to go to trade school.
The Tennessee lottery was designed after the successful Hope Scholarship program rolling out of Georgia, but wonder if the State of Georgia deemed it necessary to sack those students enrolled in Georgia's state universities so they can provide a free ride to trade school.
Haslam is dangerous and hopefully he'll be run out of office before he can do any more damage to things that were working quite well.
School spending by affluent is widening wealth gap
From yahoo ...
School spending by affluent is widening wealth gap
How will this play out?
Not to mention that These Republicans are desperately trying to rid Tennessee of its revenue sources from the affluent class, like the Hall tax, leaving the taxes for everyone else--our regressive sales taxes, for example. They're trying to make Tennessee the next Kansas.
*
I said earlier:
Since the Tennessee Promise subsidy goes to the student, not to the school, that wasn't particularly clear. Consider:
The public colleges suffer yet another state budget cut. They determine that they have to raise tuition rates to make up the cut. The public college student is protected from the impact of the rate increase by the Tennessee Promise subsidy, which closes the gap, BUT the public college itself is no better off for having raised its tuition rates only for the purpose of replacing lost revenues.
The private colleges, on the other hand, are NOT impacted by any state budget cut. Possibly their private donations are NOT down, either. The private colleges may nevertheless arbitrarily CHOOSE to raise tuition rates by the same dollar amount the public colleges have simply because when public colleges need to raise their tuition rates both public and private college students will see their TP subsidy increased by roughly the amount of that rate increase. Like the public college student, the private college student is protected by the TP subsidy from the impact of the private college's equal ( if unnecessary) rate increase, BUT the private college itself, since it suffered no downturn in revenues to begin with, now enjoys a wider profit margin, compliments of the Tennessee state lottery reserve fund.
Make more sense now?
*
(in reply to metulj)
(We can ignore private for-profit colleges as nothing more than money gouging outfits that should be outlawed.)
Toby, these are the very "outfits" about which I'm expressing concern.
If a student pursuing a certificate or two-year degree at Virginia College (where two-year degrees already run up to $42,000 absent any costs for room and board), AND such a student is to receive an automatic increase in his Tennessee Promise subsidy every time public colleges have to raise their tuition rates following a budget cut...I can't imagine that Virginia College wouldn't raise its rates by the same dollar amount the public colleges did in order to nab the full amount of the increase in the TP subsidy.
Especially since it's no skin of their students' noses.
*
(in reply to metulj)
I'll see if I can't find the full text, as codified, somewhere online to confirm.
This is proving to be a little more convoluted than I had imagined it would be...
I found Public Chapter 900, the Tennessee Promise Scholarship Act of 2014, and discovered within that text that the term "eligible post-secondary institution" means "a post-secondary institution that was eligible for the Tennessee education lottery scholarship, as defined in § 49-4-902, on July 1, 2013, and remains eligible thereafter."
I then found that TCA 49-4-902, in turn, says this:
In frustration, I just picked up the phone and called Virginia College and South College, both local private colleges, to ask whether a student applying to either school may apply either the Hope scholarship or the TP scholarship to their costs.
Virginia College said "no" and South College said "yes," but I can't yet claim to understand why the distinction.
(I'm relieved that VC said "no," though.)
*
I just made a couple of edits to my above post to better explain the mechanics of how Tennessee Promise will ultimately widen profit margins for the state's private colleges. If my explanation was previously hard for you to follow, please take another look and see if it isn't clearer now.
My impetus for making the edit was today's KNS editorial, Investment in higher education programs must be ongoing and I just don't have the stamina this morning to go over there to explain to all those readers what the KNS did not or cannot explain to them.
To wit, it's impossible to maintain that the Haslam administration has "invested" in public higher ed when he has cut colleges' funding by over 30% since 2008, when public colleges' students now bear 70% of the costs of maintaining the system, when no rationale exists for his having now invited private colleges to raid the lottery reserve fund for so-called "last dollar" scholarship monies given that those subsidies surely do not represent the "last dollars" their students will need to pay to cover their rates of private college tuition, and when this scheme really serves only to invite private colleges' unnecessary tuition rate increases, widen their profit margins, and drain lottery reserves all the more rapidly.
But please tell me that you KV readers get it? Please?
*
Or are you saying that students of for-profit private colleges are unable to receive TP monies?
If that's the case, it wasn't stipulated in the Bill Summary I linked above.
I'll see if I can't find the full text, as codified, somewhere online to confirm.
30 years
South college has been around 30+ years. Interesting distinction isn't it?
I smell a lobbyist.
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(in reply to Up Goose Creek)
Well, I was looking at that provision in the definition of "eligible institutions," but I didn't know South had been around that long. I'd never heard of them until just a few years ago.
Maybe I heard of them only after their student population burgeoned upon their becoming an institution "eligible" to tap into lottery proceeds?
*
(in reply to Up Goose Creek)
Looks like South requires a minimum ACT composite score of 17.
Meanwhile, this site says the average ACT composite score at Pellissippi is 20 (and low is 18).
N Fifth
They used to be on North Fifth, across from Motor Products. Perhaps not quite 30 years ago, but I had the impression they came from elsewhere at the time.
Comments deleted on KNS editorial?
(in reply to Up Goose Creek)
Well, this is a bit confusing...
I did wind up posting a few comments at the KNS site yesterday on that editorial praising Haslam's improvements to higher ed...and this morning, they were gone. Not just mine, I mean, but comments from a few people. Neither had anyone in that conversation been rude or anything.
And I'm not the only person to have noted the deletions, either. Someone else has come along this morning to ask why comments are gone. Like the other person to have noticed, I too note that it appears just comments relating to South College have disappeared.
What's up with that, I wonder?
Public Policy Fail
What happens when the public is rooked into supporting something as stupid as a lottery to support education.
Free money comes at great cost.