President Obama has been singing “I Love College” since the release of his error-riddled College Scorecard in September–pushing the Democratic’s hopes and dreams of “free college” with his proposal of two-years of free community college–but it seems like his choosy Scorecard is in direct contradiction with the “everyone-gets-free-college” party line.
In his State of the Union address last January, Obama said that community college should be “as free and universal in America as high school,” praising the option for it’s affordability and accessibility to students just starting out or older adults in the work force looking for a different direction.
Yet for all of his nice words about community college, Obama’s long-awaited College Scorecard not only left out hundreds of four-year institutions, but also one in four community colleges.
But this isn’t the first time the President has let consumers down with his illustrious Scorecard.
In his September radio address, Obama said of the highly anticipated College Scorecard that “Americans will not have access to reliable data on every institution of higher education,” yet hundreds of colleges were left scratching their heads looking for their school the day the scorecard came out.
The Department of Education lauded the site as an example of “President Obama’s commitment to provide consumers with information about college costs and value in an easy-to-read format,” but instead of delivering on that promise, the scorecard failed to provide information on the graduation rates of students who receive federal grants to attend college.
Community Colleges are just the next in the long string of educational groups to be dissed by the scorecard.
When Obama said he wanted to grant “free” community college and then left out a quarter of those schools he praised, he contradicted his vocal benefits of community college. He must have just meant the colleges he approved of –which is just another example of the “pick and choose” mentality of the entire scorecard.
