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City to cover community-college tuition for low-income BPS graduates
By adamg on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 9:58pm
Mayor Walsh today announced a plan to pay tuition at Bunker Hill and Roxbury Community Colleges for all BPS graduates with at least a 2.2 GPA who are eligible for federal Pell grants for low-income students.
The money will come from payments by developers of large commercial developments into a city linkage fund - the Neighborhood Jobs Trust - and will pick up the costs not covered by the Pell grants.
Along with the new reimbursement program, the city and BPS will develop counseling, remedial classes and other programs to help students graduate from the colleges. The program is already available to Madison Park graduates and will roll out at the city's other high schools June 1.
In a statement, Walsh said:
The single most effective way to break down the social and financial barriers facing many Boston families is to make post-secondary education free and accessible.
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Comments
Grades?
I assume this program requires the students maintain a specific GPA in community college to quality for reimbursement.
Pell Grant Eligibility
To be eligible for Pell Grants, you need to be making satisfactory academic progress - most often this is interpreted as a C-average or better.
In what field of work
Does a C average at a community college yield any benefit to the student's career?
The only jobs I've seen like that are ones that don't require college at all.
C is an average grade
C-average students have passing grades. That means that they know the material.
C average or higher means that they are average or above average students. Especially true in a Community College where you don't have interfering parents driving grade inflation - not that you ever taught at one.
That means that they know enough about the course material to actually use it.
These are people who are often working full-time while going to school, too.
I have no problem having LPNs and lab techs getting average or above average grades.
You must have gotten a D in statistics and statistical inference if you think that a C is the same as failing. Here's your trophy, though.
Work
The older you get, the less anybody gives a damn what your grades were.
Why are we sending youth with
Why are we sending youth with an abysmal GPA, 2.2, to community college, instead of teaching them a trade. The pay is probably better than any job they will get with a liberal arts degree from Roxbury Community College. This is a joke.
Why do we think kids will
Why do we think kids will even have a 2.2 in high school if they aren't receiving a quality education in elementary and middle school. Walsh continues to fund high school programming without giving primary schools what they need to support children and educate them from their earliest school years.
Again, for clarity
A 2.2 GPA is above average by definition.
You seem totally unclear on the mission of a Community College, too.
Whaaaat?
2.2 is above average? Ladies and gentlemen, nothing else to see here, move right along.
Community College
I think you need to look more closely at what community colleges teach. You can get an associates degree that provides all sorts of useful skills in different fields. Building trades are not the only path to a decent income.
OH so it's bad thing.
This is a GOOD option for kids to go to college. They get to choose what they want to do with their lives, not you.
You can bring the horse to
You can bring the horse to water but you can't force it to drink.
Free tuition is a noble idea but should be saved for those who are serious about education.
A 2.0 doesn't indicate the student really values academics.
Look up "Community College"
Usually, the mission is more vocational than academic.
Note that one can be serious about education but like one of my interns: ELL and working a lot of hours to support herself while going to school.
Also note that a 2.0 is average. I give you a D in stats.
Get a clue.
I hear people make this claim about trades as the last refuge of the academically inept as if it's 1950. Many college grad's bomb out of trade apprenticeship because they're ill prepared to apply thought to action.
Bunker Hill has LOTS of trade/vocational programs
Way too many to list. Here: http://www.bhcc.mass.edu/certificate-programs/
I have an adult friend attending a certification program in the allied sciences at BHCC right now, much more cheaply than the same cert program at Quincy College. I'm very impressed with Bunker Hill's programs and its graduates. The university where I work now has a relationship with BHCC, and we get quite a few transfers. They include some of my favorite students, all hardworking.
This is a great idea. Much better than students paying through the nose for tech training at any of con job ITT Tech type trade programs.
Will this be paid for by the
Will this be paid for by the 30+ liquidated schools and administrators?
Are my posts really that long?
I mean, I wrote where the money's coming from. I can tell you if you don't see it buried way down in the second paragraph up there.
I guess you need to post Alex Jones type
videos where you can just yell at people whom may give the written post a just a cursory view.
You cannot be serious!
I think this a wonderful program that will provide an amazing opportunity to many underserved youth. I find it very ironic that a lot of the comments are so negative about this new initiative, considering any time Adam posts an article about a crime committed in Boston involving a young person people are quick to make comments (often laced with tones of racism or classism) like how "these people" need to do something with their lives, get off the street, etc. But now that one huge hurdle (tuition expenses) has been lifted which will allow many young people the chance to reach higher education - people are complaining...nitpicking about the terms...or asking why this isn't an option for suburban high schools. Do you realize how you sound? Are you that miserable that you have to complain about how horrible it is to provide academic opportunity to youth?
Maybe their GPA is low because of having to work at night after going to school all day. We don't know a person's obstacles so cannot judge. Get over yourselves...
Wrong
Stop playing the victim. Working at night is no reason for poor grades. I worked and went to school, my grades were never so low. Working and learning can happen simultaneously.
Great and smart use of money by the developers...
....they very well might be hiring these kids down the road to work on their projects.
this is why private charity beats the crap out of government handouts every time.
This is a positive step but
This is a positive step but ultimately won't do much to alleviate the gulfs that exist between ivy school grads, safety school grads, and every one else. It also fails to address the need for opportunities for people who just do not belong in mainstream education. It has been taken for granted for too long that credentials specified are inherently necessary, which is pure and simply lazy thinking, yet it predominates. A diploma to a trash sorter is only more trash to sort, and a cook only needs two degrees: fahrenheit and centigrade. Stop shoe horning so many people into a tired white collar hierarchy that doesn't serve their needs and burdens society with more debt. Also, there's not a doubt in my mind this is anything more than the mayor's version of the Fios announcement.
Why so bitter?
You really think all a chef needs to know is temperature? You don't know much about being a chef. There are plenty of jobs where people who don't want an MBA can improve themselves through an associate's degree.
Libertarian porn.
This poster had an olgarchasm.
Did I say chef ? I said cook.
Did I say chef ? I said cook. Shall we compare our experience in the food service industry ? Quite a few cooks, myself included, earn minimum wage to do so. A chef could reasonably be expected to have a BA or above. A cook only needs relevant experience or on the job training and health and safety certifications that are not addressed by an academic education. 69 % of Massachusetts workers are white collar, not the 85 % our educational demographics would indicate. We don't need more graduates, we just need more jobs for the graduates we already have. Nevertheless, as I mentioned above, I do feel it's a positive step, even as I doubt its effectiveness. I also stand by what I said about the mayor and the timing of this announcement. It's primarily a grandstanding distraction.
David Koch, is that
you?