Tag Archives: government

Can Community College Really Be Free?

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Black graduation cap on white background with price tag attached to tassel.I am writing this just before the annual State of the Union address so I am admittedly lacking in details, but I want to start a conversation on the proposal to provide free community college education for everyone. This proposal was announced two weeks ago and has drawn a mixed reaction. The proposal is this: community college tuition shall be free to all who “make steady progress toward completing their program”(whitehouse.gov). Students would be required to attend at least half time and maintain a 2.5 GPA. The federal government would fund this program with $60 billion over the next ten years and states that opt in would bear 25 percent of the cost.

Benefits

This proposal would benefit low-income students who are already taking advantage of Pell grants, as well as all who want to complete the first two years of a college education. In essence, this would be an extension of government funded K-12 education and would remove the cost barrier that prevents many students from continuing their education. The benefit would apply to vocational and certificate programs as well as those programs that prepare students to transfer to a four-year college or university. The national government proposal is modeled after a program launching this fall in Tennessee.

Costs

This proposal would cost an estimated $60 billion with the federal government supplying 75 percent of the money and states covering the remainder. While details are light at this point, the money is expected to come from higher taxes and eliminating some tax breaks, including the tax-free status of 529 college savings plans. Without the tax-free growth benefit such college savings plans would likely disappear as parents would seek other investment vehicles.

Questions

This proposal has set off bells and sirens in my head. Let me be clear, I am a huge proponent of higher education at any level and would love to have it be accessible to all, but there are a lot of unanswered questions. Here are my top questions, and I invite you to add your own (or answer mine):

  1. If tuition is covered, how is a student going to pay for room and board, or will that be covered as well?
  2. If every high school graduate enrolls in community college, who funds the expansion of the community college infrastructure, such as buildings? It will put a burden on the state to keep up with the new incoming students.
  3. Following on the question above, if everyone enrolls in community college because it is free, who is left to complete their first two years at public and private universities? Will these now also become two-year universities for juniors and seniors? If not, will they restructure their curriculum to favor those students that completed their first two years as a resident as opposed to being a transfer student?
  4. What will be the opportunities for those newly minted community college graduates who want to complete a higher degree? Will they be limited because of cost or other factors?
  5. Will cash-strapped states want to participate in this program? If so, will that take money from the already shrinking pool available to four-year state institutions?
  6. Will we create pockets of states that offer free community college tuition versus those that don’t? Residency requirements suddenly become a moot point.

Thoughts

I have a lot more questions, but I am hoping that at least some of them will be answered in the days to come. From the initial proposal, it does not seem well thought out in terms of economics. But the overarching question that I don’t think we are asking is: what do we value about a community college education? Do we value it as a vocational education program or as a gateway to a full university education? Do we value it as a means to teach functional, applied skills, or for teaching higher thinking and reasoning skills in preparation for a university education? How do we value our community colleges?

These are some of my questions and I would love to hear from you. What questions or answers do you have? Perhaps together we can figure this out.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

Hacktivism: Is it a Forgivable Crime?

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A hacktivist is defined as one who breaks into a computer or network for political or social motives. The more I read about hacktivists, the more I wonder if they are hackers cloaked in the ideals of activism, or activists borrowing a page from the hacker playbook to further their cause? In this post, I will highlight a few recent incidences of hacktivism and let you decide.

Sony Hack

The Sony hack tops the list, both for its recency and its impact. A group of hackers called The Guardians of Peace broke into Sony’s internal computers and released sensitive documents and e-mail exchanges, some of which involved Sony partners. Five movies were released to download sites, four of which had not yet been released in theaters. They blocked the release of the movie The Interview by threatening to bomb theaters that showed the film. The Interview is a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Ironically, or maybe not, as of this writing the FBI is claiming the hack originated from North Korea. Was this an attempt to expose Sony’s inadequate defenses, a case of defending a country’s honor from a fictitious film, or was it plain and simple malice? Whatever the motives, The Guardians of Peace crossed the line from hacktivism to terrorism when they threatened to bomb theaters.

Africa

The hacktivist group Anonymous Africa attacked and closed down fifty websites during the 2013 Zimbabwean election, including those associated with the ruling Zanu PF party and those of the newspaper The Herald. The group claimed President Robert Mugabe’s regime dominated the Internet and airwaves and did not allow access to the opposing party. Was their attack successful? Ninety-year-old Mugabe is still in power, but the oppression in Zimbabwe was exposed, if only briefly.

Arab Spring

The Arab Spring was sparked in January 2011 by an uprising against the ruling party in Tunisia. The hacktivist group Anonymous stole Tunisian government documents and funneled them to the website Wikileaks, which published them. The documents showed a pattern of abuse by the government against the citizens. In Egypt, when citizens tried to expose government oppression and the government responded by trying to shut down the Internet, various hacktivists provided alternative methods for citizens to expose the actions taking place in their country. In these instances hacktivism was a weapon, just like bombs or guns, and hacktivists tried to win the hearts of the people and expose activities deemed to be unfair and oppressive. The same method is being used in Syria today.

Thoughts

So is hacktivism good or bad? That depends. There are definitely economic losses in politically motivated hacks, so it is not a zero-sum activity. There can be embarrassment and expense for those who are hacked. I think that these hacks may have started out with reasonable and objective motives, but more often than not they cross the line into cyber-terrorism. I believe that there are better ways to further a cause than breaking into electronic files and exposing them, preventing them from being seen, or outright stealing them.

Hacktivism is criminal, but is it justified? Let me know what you think.
Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

The Evolution of Record Keeping

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Colorful folders fly into your laptopToday’s post is written by Charles Gilman, a current student of the AIM Program. We asked Charles to share his thoughts on his experience with information management.

When I joined the Air Force in 1995, we had two computers in our office— one for our boss and the other to be shared by the rest of us. The shared computer had two main functions: (1) it had MS DOS software which allowed us to record the results of our inspections and download them weekly onto a floppy disk that was sent to a repository each month; (2) it held our medical intelligence (med intel) information which we received from a paramilitary contractor (an expensive one, at that).

The med intel arrived each quarter in a large envelope or a box, if it was a big update. The package contained a disk to upload into the computer and three-hole-punched sheets of paper, including an errata sheet, telling us which pages in these giant binders need to be replaced. You see, for decades, we maintained all med intel in binders under double lock and key. In our office, we secured these binders in the boss’s office in a large, bright red metal footlocker with a white cross on it, and only our boss had the key. This information was classified “secret” so any of us who had to work with the med intel had to have a security clearance. In reality, because the med intel came from the CIA and other assets on the ground, by the time it had been vetted, processed, printed, and sent out to update us, it was months, if not years out of date.

When we connected to the Internet in 1997, it didn’t take long to realize just how obsolete this entire process was. Being able to plug directly into the CIA’s World Factbook, I found it had far more information than what had been contained in our binders. Plus, the information was/is free and updated regularly, so I suggested we stop wasting money on the contractor’s product and use what was already available.

I cannot describe the skepticism towards the Internet in those early days. The absolute resistance to trust computers, much less the Internet, was incredibly intense because so many viewed the Internet as a fad—a toy which was simply a waste of time. Those who were resistant to change argued their case and would rather continue paying thousands of taxpayer dollars per year for out-of-date information (which really wasn’t very exciting anyway—most of the “intel” just listed flora and fauna which had been present for a very long time), instead of using what was available free of charge. I had to print out pages of the Factbook to compare to what we had in our binders to demonstrate how much more information was available.

Back then, I never would have predicted what happened next—our boss loved the change, but she required me to print out those pages to update our binder. I actually wasted several days burning through reams of paper to create our own Factbook (a printed product that could have been ordered from the CIA), before my direct supervisor discovered what I had been doing and brought this insanity to a halt.

Thankfully, we’re far more trusting of computers and electronic information today; although, working for a state agency, I continue to see remnants of that past. We still have staff who print out electronically submitted forms and employees who, rather than e-mailing information, send it by mail and pick up the phone to call and notify the recipient to expect a letter. Electronic security is still a concern, but the sooner we fully buy into electronic media, the sooner we will make greater strides toward sustainability.