You would think that I would be the type of person who is extremely “rah-rah” about Obama’s community college plan. Instead, I’m “meh.”

Yes, community colleges are a fantastic resource for people that were given the short end of the stick in their local public schools. It gives people a chance to find a respectable career in a technical field or to build academic skills to let them jump into the four year college system. Community colleges are places for untraditional students. They are places for second chances. I love all that.

I sometimes check out the course offers at our local community college, because I can see Ian getting a degree as a sound engineer or in computer repair or electronics. He would be great at that stuff.

David Brooks makes good points in his column today.

The problem is that getting students to enroll is neither hard nor important. The important task is to help students graduate. Community college drop out rates now hover somewhere between 66 percent and 80 percent.

Spending $60 billion over 10 years to make community college free will do little to reduce that. In the first place, community college is already free for most poor and working-class students who qualify for Pell grants and other aid. In 2012, 38 percent of community-college students had their tuition covered entirely by grant aid and an additional 33 percent had fees of less than $1,000.

The Obama plan would largely be a subsidy for the middle- and upper-middle-class students who are now paying tuition and who could afford to pay it in the years ahead.

Brooks says that that $60K would be better spent on living expenses for students (tuition costs are small in comparison), guidance counselors and mentors, and child care.

Louisa also points out in the comment section from a previous post that this program would mostly subsidize administrators in DC and wouldn’t help the $2,500 per class adjuncts who teach those classes or improve conditions for students at these schools.