Option D: Should community college be free?
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community college should be free. Be sure to have a counterargument section.
For research, use Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price” and any other relevant sources such as “Here’s the downside of making community college free” by Bruce Sacerdote, “Community College ‘free-for-all’: Why making tuition free would be complicated,” by Dick Statz, “Economists find free community college can backfire” by Jill Barshay, “When Community College Is Free,” by Juan Salgado, “For community colleges, free college has its costs,” by Liz Farmer, and “The potential disaster of free community college” by Biana Quilantan.
Sample Essay Outline for "Should College be Free?"
Paragraph 1, Introduce the crisis of college education and discuss the and how many people are priced out of an education. Clearly, there is a need for free community college. Establishing the need is a good attention-getter, but it’s not an argument. It’s a fact. You can use this fact later in your essay if you decide to support free college education.
You can also use personal experience to create emotional appeal for your essay, showing in detail some of your financial struggles and how zero-cost education would benefit you.
Paragraph 2, Transition to a thesis that argues for or against free community college with 3 supporting reasons.
Paragraphs 3-5 are supporting paragraphs.
Paragraphs 6 and 7 are separate rebuttal-counterargument paragraphs
Paragraph 8: conclusion is powerful restatement of thesis
Should Community College be Free?
One. Rahm Emanuel in The Atlantic argues that community college, like K through 12, should be free.
Rahm Emanuel's essay "A Simple Proposal to Revive the American Dream"
(parenthetical headings are mine)
(History compels taxpayers to make community college free because CC is the equivalent of yesterday's high school.)
During the industrial age, when high school was the gateway to the American dream, public-school systems covered the costs of earning a diploma. Today, however, as associate’s degrees have replaced high-school diplomas as the indispensable ticket into the middle class, families are forced to cover the costs of tuition and more.
(Information Economy requires post-high school education.)
If the information-age economy demands a workforce with additional training, we need to begin cutting students and families the same deal: Anyone willing to work hard and earn the degree should be able to attend community college—for free.
(Free college requires 3.0 GPA. so that by free we mean merit-based) Is this just a “scholarship” for the 1-3%?
Because Washington has yet to shed any real light on how best to do this, each state and city has taken a different tack. Under the terms of the Chicago Star Scholarship, a program that has already enrolled more than 6,000 students, we tied eligibility to academic achievement. If a student at a local public high school maintains a B average, the City will provide a free associate’s degree at a local community college, regardless of immigration status. Then, through a program we call Star Plus, students who have maintained that 3.0 GPA are eligible to receive subsidized tuition at 18 of the four-year colleges located in Chicago, enabling many to graduate debt-free.
At the outset, we chose to make our program merit-based for two reasons. First, we suspected that setting a rigorous academic standard would change attitudes inside Chicago’s high schools. If students in grades nine to 12 know that good grades will earn them a guaranteed free education, they’re further incentivized to run through the tape. (Chicago’s high-school graduation rate grew from 56.9 percent in 2011 to 78.2 percent in 2018.) Second, we theorized that making the scholarship merit-based would help the program avoid the plague of college dropouts—and that’s exactly what’s happened. Chicago Star’s retention rate is 86 percent, well above the national average of 62.7 percent.
(Free includes other costs to expand higher education access to those who are economically challenged.)
Next, we decided to institute a series of carrots and sticks. Unlike some of its sister programs, Chicago Star covers not only tuition, but books and public transportation as well. And we decided to require recipients to complete the program in three years, allowing students to earn their associate’s degree while working full-time, but precluding them from dragging the process out indefinitely. Our shot-clock approach works: 49.7 percent of Chicago Star recipients complete their degree, more than double the national average of 23.6 percent.
The demographic impact is remarkable. More than two-thirds of Chicago Star scholars are Hispanic (compared with 20 percent in Oregon)—and 80 percent are first-generation college students (compared with 43 percent in Tennessee). But proud as we are of these successes, there’s no substitute for rigorous data analysis, and Washington should get in the game of determining which approaches work best. Policy makers in Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky, Nevada, and other states working to shape similar programs should know how free community college affects high-school graduation rates, for example, and whether “use it or lose it” time limits drive completion rates. As cities and states serve as laboratories of democracy, our national leaders must look to these programs as models for modernizing and expanding access to higher education.
Counterargument
Two. We see that free community college is no panacea or cure-all in The Washington Post article.
Jay Mathews' "Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price":
(parenthetical headings are mine)
(A CC insider argues that free college isn't the solution: graduating on time is and so is transitioning to a job or a 4-year college.)
Few educational issues, at least the nerdy kind I write about, get people riled up. Angry demonstrators rarely carry banners demanding, “More Research Papers in High School!” or “Down With Credit Recovery!”
But one school issue — free college tuition — has been getting big political play this year. Community college counselor John Mullane wishes that would stop. He has been spending much of his time explaining why free tuition would be bad for his students.
How can that be? Many community college students don’t have much money. Why not make their struggles to get an education easier by making sure they don’t have to pay that bill?
“Providing tuition-free opportunities at public colleges and universities is far superior than the typical hodgepodge of aid packages and loans that are cobbled together by many students,” says the nonpartisan, nonprofit Campaign for Free College Tuition. Some polls show more than 80 percent support for that idea.
Mullane is not allowed to promote his views on state and federal education spending during his working hours at Gateway Community College in New Haven, Conn. His job is to help students negotiate the complicated pathways of learning so they can establish a career and a life. What does he know of legislative politics?
He knows community colleges. He has spent his personal and vacation time doing research and making convincing arguments that getting rid of tuition would make it harder for his students to earn the certificates and diplomas they need.
“States can make college as free as they want,” he told me, “but if they don’t have a system in place to help students get through these institutions and graduate on time, with a college degree that allows them to go directly into a good job or to fully transfer the credits to a bachelor’s degree, they are doing more harm than good.”
(Free college means less resources for other areas resulting in a compromised education.)
The free tuition idea, he said, “involves spending hundreds of billions of dollars and flooding public colleges and universities with new students.” Increased spending on tuition to make sure everyone gets a free ride would mean less money to hire more professors and less money to expand room in the most important classes so that students can get what they need to graduate, he said.
(Free college is no solution to abysmal completion rates.)
Mullane testified before the Connecticut legislature in favor of a bill that would have allowed students to transfer all community college credits to the University of Connecticut and the Connecticut State universities. The two big systems opposed that measure. They said their transfer systems were working fine, despite research showing that only 6 percent of Connecticut community college students are in a degree program that allows them to transfer all their credits to the state universities.
Sixty-one percent of community college students told the Center for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas in 2016 that they could get the certificates and degrees they sought. Yet only 39 percent of community college students get a certificate, an associate degree or a bachelor’s degree from a four-year college within six years.
Only 15 percent of students who begin in a community college ever earn a bachelor’s degree. Traditionally, colleges have fought for more students — something free tuition would give them — but have done little to ensure successful student outcomes because state funding has usually been based on enrollment.
Mullane endorses what many scholars of the community college system say: States need to tear down traditions that keep many students stuck in remedial courses and leave transfer paths to four-year schools that look like a Halloween season cornfield maze.
Mullane said he is pushing for “state laws that mandate statewide transfer pathways for students.” Then, they have to be enforced, he said — which could prove even more difficult. That is not happening with many such laws at the moment.
There is good news in some parts of the country. Florida has one of the best transfer systems in the country. But its reforms are complicated and hard to summarize in one slogan. How can it beat a movement with a banner as simple and compelling as “Free Tuition Now”?
Second Suggested Outline
Paragraph 1, your introduction, summarize Rahm Emanual's case for making free community college.
Paragraph 2, your claim or your thesis, support or refute Emanual's argument by addressing Jay Mathews' objections.
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 7 is your counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 8 is your conclusion, a restatement of your thesis.
Sample Thesis
While free college education would help a small percentage of low-income students who already have a baseline of writing and math skills, for the most part the argument for free community college is not persuasive when we consider that free things tend to lead to entropy (decline, chaos and worthlessness), free college doesn’t solve the problems of baseline acquisition that would allow students to complete their graduation in a timely manner, free tuition would take away from budgeting for instructors and infrastructure, and free college would only lower the already abysmally low graduation rate.
Bonus Option for Essay #4: Should Parents Spy on Their Children’s Computers?
Support, refute, or complicate Harlan Coben’s argument from “The Undercover Parent” that spyware is a legit and compelling safety measure that parents may need to use for their children’s computers.
Harlan Coben Acknowledges Opposing Views
In paragraph 1, his gut reaction was to reject his friend’s use of spyware on his children’s computers.
In paragraphs 2 and 3, Coben concedes that it is scary to contemplate the ability to invade your child’s privacy with spyware, but he says it’s worth it.
In paragraph 4, he concedes that this is a scary totalitarian tactic that “reeks of Dick Cheney” but he counters by writing we’re not the government; we’re parents.
In paragraph 5, he makes a comparison argument: “parents fight their kids’ battles on the playground, berate coaches about playing time and fill out college applications—yet when it comes to chatting with pedophiles or watching beheadings . . . then their children deserve independence?”
In paragraph 6, he addresses the rebuttal that we should “just trust” our children, but he rejects this notion because we’re not talking about trust; we’re talking about neglect: “surrendering parental responsibility to a machine that allows the entire world access to your home borders on negligence.”
In paragraph 7, he counters the claim that parental blocks, not spyware, should be used by saying that he tried parental blocks, and they do not work. For example, they do not work with cyber-bullying or cyber-pedophiles.
In paragraph 9, he makes the rebuttal that the Internet already violates privacy; children should learn that the Internet is “not a haven of privacy.”
In paragraph 10, Coben rejects the comparison of private thoughts kept in a diary with Internet activities.
In paragraph 11, Coben distinguishes the notion of “being responsibly protective and irresponsibly nosy.”
In paragraph 12, Coben shows that texting on a phone is less dangerous than the Internet because the latter is more porous, allowing thousands of predators into the child’s world.
Coben concedes in paragraph 13, that there will be tough choices. At what point does a child’s curiosity for porn cross the line?
Coben concludes by saying freedom and privacy are not absolutes; they are relative terms that have to be addressed in a radically different way in our Internet age.
Suggested Outline:
Paragraph 1: Either summarize Coben's essay or write an anecdote about a child getting into trouble using the internet.
Paragraph 2: Agree or disagree with Coben's claim and explain your reasons.
Paragraphs 3-5: Your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraphs 6 and 7: Your counterarguments and rebuttals.
Paragraph 8: Your conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis.
McMahon's Thesis
While I would be tempted to put spyware on my daughters' computers as a way of repelling predators, I would not do so, as Coben advocates, for several reasons. One, the spyware might lull me into a false comfort and impede me from communicating with my daughters about the dangers of indiscreet internet activities; two, if I violated my daughters' trust, I may compel them to turn away from me, and find more insidious ways to do internet communications that jailbreak my spyware; third, a prison-like security environment in my daughters' internet landscape strikes me as the kind of overkill that overprotective fathers use who alienate their children.
Templates of Argumentation for Counterargument-Rebuttals
While the author’s arguments for meaning are convincing, she fails to consider . . .
While the authors make convincing arguments, they must also consider . . .
These arguments, rather than being convincing, instead prove . . .
While these authors agree with Writer A on point X, in my opinion . . .
Although it is often true that . . .
While I concede that my opponents make a compelling case for point X, their main argument collapses underneath a barrage of . . .
While I see many good points in my opponent’s essay, I am underwhelmed by his . . .
While my opponent makes some cogent points regarding A, B, and C, his overall argument fails to convince when we consider X, Y, and Z.
My opponent makes many provocative and intriguing points. However, his arguments must be dismissed as fallacious when we take into account W, X, Y, and Z.
While the author’s points first appear glib and fatuous, a closer look at his polemic reveals a convincing argument that . . .
"The Undercover Parent"
Example of an essay that acknowledges opposing views: Harlan Coben’s “The Undercover Parent” (24)
Not long ago, friends of mine confessed over dinner that they had put spyware on their 15-year-old son’s computer so they could monitor all he did online. At first I was repelled at this invasion of privacy. Now, after doing a fair amount of research, I get it.
Make no mistake: If you put spyware on your computer, you have the ability to log every keystroke your child makes and thus a good portion of his or her private world. That’s what spyware is — at least the parental monitoring kind. You don’t have to be an expert to put it on your computer. You just download the software from a vendor and you will receive reports — weekly, daily, whatever — showing you everything your child is doing on the machine.
Scary. But a good idea. Most parents won’t even consider it.
Maybe it’s the word: spyware. It brings up associations of Dick Cheney sitting in a dark room, rubbing his hands together and reading your most private thoughts. But this isn’t the government we are talking about — this is your family. It’s a mistake to confuse the two. Loving parents are doing the surveillance here, not faceless bureaucrats. And most parents already monitor their children, watching over their home environment, their school.
Today’s overprotective parents fight their kids’ battles on the playground, berate coaches about playing time and fill out college applications — yet when it comes to chatting with pedophiles or watching beheadings or gambling away their entire life savings, then...then their children deserve independence?
Some will say that you should simply trust your child, that if he is old enough to go on the Internet he is old enough to know the dangers. Trust is one thing, but surrendering parental responsibility to a machine that allows the entire world access to your home borders on negligence.
Some will say that it’s better just to use parental blocks that deny access to risky sites. I have found that they don’t work. Children know how to get around them. But more than that — and this is where it gets tough — I want to know what’s being said in an e-mail and instant messages and in chat rooms.
There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve all read about the young boy unknowingly conversing with a pedophile or the girl who was cyberbullied to the point where she committed suicide. Would a watchful eye have helped? We rely on the real world on teachers and parents to guard against bullies — do we just dismiss bullying on the Internet and all it entails because we are entering difficult ethical ground?
Second, everything your child types can already be seen by the world — teachers, potential employers, friends, neighbors, future dates. Shouldn’t he learn now that the Internet is not a haven of privacy?
One of the most popular arguments against spyware is the claim that you are reading your teenager’s every thought, that in today’s world, a computer is the little key-locked diary of the past. But posting thoughts on the Internet isn’t the same thing as hiding them under your mattress. Maybe you should buy your children one of those little key-locked diaries so that they too can understand the difference.
Am I suggesting eavesdropping on every conversation? No. With new technology comes new responsibility. That works both ways. There is a fine line between being responsibly protective and irresponsibly nosy. You shouldn’t monitor to find out if your daughter’s friend has a crush on Kevin next door or that Mrs. Peterson gives too much homework or what schoolmate snubbed your son. You are there to start conversations and to be a safety net. To borrow from the national intelligence lexicon — and yes, that’s uncomfortable — you’re listening for dangerous chatter.
Will your teenagers find other ways of communicating to their friends when they realize you may be watching? Yes. But text messages and cell phones don’t offer the anonymity and danger of the Internet. They are usually one-on-one with someone you know. It is far easier for a predator to troll chat rooms and MySpace and Facebook.
There will be tough calls. If your 16-year-old son, for example, is visiting hardcore pornography sites, what do you do? When I was 16, we looked at Playboy centerfolds and read Penthouse Forum. You may argue that’s not the same thing, that Internet pornography makes that stuff seem about as harmful as “SpongeBob.”
And you’re probably right. But in my day, that’s all you could get. If something more graphic had been out there, we probably would have gone for it. Interest in those, um, topics is natural. So start a dialogue based on that knowledge. You should have that talk anyway, but now you can have it with some kind of context.
Parenting has never been for the faint of heart. One friend of mine, using spyware to monitor his college-bound, straight-A daughter, found out that not only was she using drugs but she was sleeping with her dealer. He wisely took a deep breath before confronting her. Then he decided to come clean, to let her know how he had found out, to speak with her about the dangers inherent in her behavior. He’d had these conversations before, of course, but this time he had context. She listened. There was no anger. Things seem better now.
Our knee-jerk reaction as freedom-loving Americans is to be suspicious of anything that hints at an invasion of privacy. That’s a good and noble thing. But it’s not an absolute, particularly in the face of the new and evolving challenges presented by the Internet. And particularly when it comes to our children.
Do you tell your children that the spyware is on the computer? I side with yes, but it might be enough to show them this article, have a discussion about your concerns and let them know the possibility is there.
Letter of Rebuttal
Counterargument
In “The Undercover Parent” (Op-Ed, March 16), the novelist Harlan Coben writes that putting spyware on a child’s computer is a “good idea.”
As a mother and advice columnist for girls, I disagree. For most families, spyware is not only unnecessary, but it also sends the unfortunate message, “I don’t trust you.”
Mr. Coben said a friend of his “using spyware to monitor his college-bound, straight-A daughter, found out that not only was she using drugs but she was sleeping with her dealer.” He confronted her about her behavior. “She listened. There was no anger. Things seem better now.”
Huh?! No anger? No tears or shouting or slammed doors? C’mon. If only raising teenagers were that simple.
Parenting is both a job and a joy. It does not require spyware, but it does require love, respect, time, trust, money and being as available as possible 24/7. Luck helps, too.
Carol Weston
New York, March 16, 2008
Assumptions in Carol Weston's letter:
One. She assumes that proclaiming herself to be a mother and an advice columnist for girls gives her credibility and superior moral standing. Some might say, her opening phrase sounds cliched and pompous.
Two. She assumes that spyware means "I don't trust you." That assumption could be in error. The parent could be saying, "I don't trust predators."
Three. She assumes that because the parent used spyware to catch his daughter using drugs and sleeping with the drug dealer that the discovery is somehow compromised because it hurt the daughter's feelings. This assumption is erroneous. The girl's welfare, not her feelings about getting caught or invasion of privacy, are the priority.
Four. When she lectures Coben by writing, "Parenting is both a job and a joy," she is implicitly saying that Coben is ignorant of the hard work and joys of parenting. In fact, she has proven neither. Again, she comes across as a pompous, ignorant scold.
Five. When she lectures Coben by saying parenting requires "love, respect, time, trust," she again implies that Coben is abnegating his parental responsibilities by using spyware. To the contrary, Coben has made the case that Internet predators make spyware another took parents must use their toolbox to protect their children. Carol Weston's letter is not only wrong; it's insufferable.
Dannielle Thompson Analysis:
Analysis of "The Undercover Parent"
In Harlen Coben's The Undercover Parent, Coben argues in favor of spyware being applied to the computers of children. He claims that spyware will allow the parent to protect the child from himself/herself as the parent will be able to see every keystroke that the child makes. In doing so, the parents would be able to protect their children from tragic events such as, the author mentions, "gambling away their entire life savings" or having a child being "cyber bullied until the point where she committed suicide". According to Coben, spyware on computers would, in fact, help to prevent situations such as these.
Although Coben mentioned many points, he fails to include several factors in his argument. Coben acknowledges the fact that teenagers will find other ways to communicate once they learn that parents are watching. He argues against this valid point by stating "text messages and cellphones do not offer the anonymity and danger of the Internet". Although cellphones may not offer quite as much anonymity, the dangers of cellphones are rather equivalent, if not higher than the Internet. An example would include one of my former classmates. She was dating a boy in middle school and entrusted him with graphic photos and videos that she sent him on her cellular device. Four years later, one particular video of her was found on a website and the majority of her classmates as well as faculty had either seen or heard about the video. Although the video was found on a website, the video was first sent between two preteens' cellphones. There was no anonymity. However, Coben fails to acknowledge the fact that not only are strangers dangerous, but people of which one may trust can be equally dangerous. Incidents such as these are far from rare among teenagers.
Coben argues further to acknowledge parents' role in spyware and apply accountability on their behalf as well. He makes the assertion that "With new technology comes new responsibility... There is a fine line between responsibly protective and irresponsibly nosy... you're listening for dangerous chatter". Although this is a good point. Coben fails to clarify the definition of "dangerous chatter". This definition may be widely varied in the millions of homes across the nation. Coben lists a few examples of nosy irresponsibility such as "Mrs. Peterson gives too much homework" or "what schoolmate snubbed your son". However, cyber bullying and snubbing are very similar. Both attacks the confidence of the victim. Both are simply harsh words. Therefore, would snubbing be just as dangerous as cyber bullying? The phrase "dangerous chatter" has not been made clear and this phrase can be widely interpreted.
Although these are simply a few points in Coben's essay that are questionable, the topic is one worthy of consideration. However, spyware is not practical, or necessary, in order to provide a nurturing, safe, and protected household. Simply providing an open avenue of communication between children and parents could be the key to a happy household.