Less than 24 hours after President Barack Obama announced his proposal for free community college, many have already deemed the plan incomplete, ill-targeted and dead-on-arrival in the Republican-controlled Congress.

After the White House released details of the proposal Thursday night, Twitter exploded with conversations about potential funding methods and whether the plan would benefit students and colleges in the long run. Questions remain as to where Congress would find the money to pay for the program, whether community colleges could handle an influx of new enrollments when they're already strapped for resources and why the deal is open to all students, rather than limited to those with more financial need.

In a blog post, Debbie Cochrane – research director of The Institute for College Access and Success – said making tuition free for all students is a "missed opportunity" to instead focus resources on needy students.

"Consider California community colleges, with the lowest tuition in the nation and waivers for low-income students," Cochrane wrote. "The result? Federal student aid application rates, even among low-income students, have been notoriously low, and part-time enrollment rates sky-high. 'Free tuition' is not a panacea."

But Josh Wyner, executive director of the Aspen Institute's College Excellence Program, says it could be most beneficial for students from middle-income families who don't receive as much financial aid, and are often unable to cover the cost on their own.

"We don’t question today whether middle- or upper-middle-class should be able to go to a free high school," Wyner says. "If entering the middle class requires a college education, if we believe it needs to be universal or near-universal, why shouldn't we invest as a country in making sure everyone gets that opportunity?"

But some have questioned the value of funneling money to community colleges when more than half of incoming students require remediation in English and math, and many schools have low graduation and transfer rates.

"It's not clear how simply making it easier for more students to attend these schools will improve outcomes," Judah Bellin, who researches higher education for the Manhattan Institute, said in a statement. "While more higher education is generally a good idea for the average students, directing students to an industry with … poor graduation rates without simultaneously pressuring these schools to improve outcomes seems shortsighted."

The proposal also has resurrected a debate over the federal government's role in public education.

Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Senate education committee, said the "right way" to expand Tennessee's model for free community college is to leave it to the states, and that the federal government should instead work to simplify the application process for federal financial aid and increase support for Pell grants by making them available year-round.

Writing for the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, education policy fellow Lindsey Burke said Obama's proposal is "another step toward the White House’s goal of a 'cradle-to-career' education system, starting with free preschool and now free community college." Burke wrote that the proposal avoids a larger issue by not targeting the root of high college costs, which include more than just tuition and fees.

"Once again, the administration is pursuing initiatives to subsidize rising costs, instead of working with Congress on policies that actually would address the driver of college cost increases: the open spigot of federal student aid," Burke said. "Over the past several decades, college costs have risen at more than twice the rate of inflation, thanks in large part to federal subsidies."

Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., said the proposal is not a "legitimate" way to close the skills gap. Byrne, who serves on the House education committee and was also previously chancellor of Alabama's community college system, took issue with the fact that plans for funding Obama's proposal remain unclear. White House officials said Friday the estimated cost of the program is $60 billion over 10 years.

"Most states, including Alabama, are already stretched far too thin, and it would be unlikely they could bear the financial burden," Byrne said in a statement. "Just as bad, this program would likely place even more requirements and bureaucracy on our nation's institutions of higher learning."

Higher education associations chimed in on the proposal as well, questioning whether it could have a negative impact on four-year colleges and universities by draining state financial resources.

"This demand may well result in a rationing of available slots at community colleges or in diminished quality because of drastically reduced per-student expenditures," the American Association of State Colleges and Universities said in a statement.

From a research perspective, it's also important to note that Obama's program is seeking to nationalize a Tennessee state program that has yet to show beneficial outcomes, says Debbie Cochrane, research director at The Institute for College Access and Success.

"We have a lot more questions than answers," Cochrane says. "It remains a question as to whether or not subsidizing tuition for people with no need is a great use of resources."



Although the proposal likely doesn't have legs in this Congress, Wyner says it's an important starting point for a conversation about college affordability.

think this could trigger this issue becoming part of the next election cycle," Wyner says. "We do need to think longer-term about these things. Often we look at current political dynamics and if it’s hard to see a pathway in the immediate term, we assume these things are dead. Seeing this as par of a trajectory lends hope something like this could take hold."



