Free college will have several benefits including increased innovation, competition in the market, higher average skill level, lower crime and suicide rates, and less debt. With the opportunity of free college more people will reach higher levels of skill, and have the degrees necessary to compete for jobs in the workforce. Crime and suicide should decrease as people have more opportunities after graduating high school, and positive outlets to pursue their goals. K-12 reforms should help with this as well, as students won't be as bored in school and will have the opportunity to pursue their goals. Free college will also decrease debt load on students and decrease the overall cost of college, as there will be no interest payments and strictly the actual cost of college.
How Will Free College Be Paid For?
There are several ways to fund free college without having to raise taxes, including budget cuts, increasing class sizes, increasing the class load on professors, decreasing professor salaries, and decreasing support staff. Other requirements such as free college strictly being for Portland high school graduates can be applied too in order to ensure sustainability. The Portland State Budget in 2022 was around $600 million with $120 million being funded by the government.1 The PCC budget in 2022 was $350 million with $275 million being funded by the government.2 Currently 64% of PSU's population is from the Metro Portland Area.3 The amount from the strictly Portland area is a certain amount less, possibly 20-30% of student population. Based on this data, in order to fund free college, the city will have to create $75 million to cover PCC, and possibly $100-200 million to cover Portland based students attending PSU. We'll just say $300 million total to be safe. This difference will initially be covered by budget cuts. Any increase in students will be covered by professors teaching larger classes, and more classes. Overtime the costs can slowly be decreased by increasing professor to student ratios further.
Professors currently only teach 3-5 courses a semester which is only 12-20 hours of real work a week. In 2010 average salary for public professors was $100,000 a year, compared to the average personal income of $40,000.4 Professors also don't usually teach in the summer. In order to help increase efficiency, class schedules should be designed so professors teach back to back courses in the same class room all day, similar to K-12 teachers. Ideally a college class schedule will have classes at 8 am, 10 am, 12 pm, a 1 hour lunch break at 2 pm, classes at 3 pm, 5 pm, and 7 pm. Office hours will be eliminated, students can come into the class room at lunch hour if they need help. Microwaves, and fridges can be placed in the classroom so teachers can eat in the classroom. There are also several ways professors can organize their classes to increase efficiency and decrease out of class workload. Essay grading generally requires reading by the professor. A good way to grade essays is by having students do in class presentations, this way the essay can be graded in class without the professor even necessarily needing to use out of class time. This also gives students the opportunity to share and learn from each other. All exams should be multiple choice so scantrons can always be used, and efficiency of the grading process maximized. Multiple choice also eliminates the possibility of discrimination when grading, where as anything written allows professors to potentially discriminate when grading. Essays are often unavoidable as they allow students to research more freely, but written exams can be completely avoided. For harder sciences which often have math and equations as part of the homework and exams, computerized exams and homework can potentially be used, or peer grading in class. Research quotas for professors can also be eliminated, freeing up more of their time to focus on teaching.
How large of an increase in student population there will be is uncertain. European countries that have free college don't actually have much higher rates of attendance, so I will predict an increase of 100% at most. In order to ensure that the colleges can withstand the influx in new students, qualifications based on age can be put in place initially. For example strictly students under 25 can attend for free. After a semester or two, the limit can be increased, and so on. Qualification based on being a graduate from a Portland high school will be permanent. It could even be made stricter requiring 4 years of high school, or even being born here if necessary etc. With higher quality k-12 educations systems the need for college may decrease as well, as graduates will have higher skill and be ready to work immediately.
The end goal is to increase class load on professors to around 10 a semester which equates to about a 40 hour work week. Class sizes ideally should be up to 50 students, this may require bigger classrooms. Possibly walls can be torn down and class rooms connected, speakers can be added to ensure professors are heard with clarity. Salaries ideally should be closer to $70,000 based on the current average income of $65,000 in the Portland area. This is a more realistic pay rate for professors. Different departments may haver higher pay rates. Pay will be adjusted with inflation overtime. Requirements can be lowered for hiring, as Masters and PHDs are not really necessary, especially with the new k-12 education systems which will allow students to reach higher levels of skill at a younger age. With this restructuring, assuming student attendance increases 100%, the amount of professors needed will be around 1/3 of the amount. This means the costs of professors will be 1/3 of the amount as well. With a decrease in salary on top of this, costs will be down to around 1/4 of the amount. There are other costs of operating a college, so overall costs won't necessarily be this much lower. This restructuring of college will occur overtime. As old professors retire, schools won't hire new professors and will simply increase the class load on current professors. Pay can slowly be decreased.
Other ways of decreasing costs mainly involve cutting support services. There are often other staff at colleges such as student counsellors, tutors, accountants. Cutting these positions as much as possible should be a goal. Eliminating general-ed (see below) will make this easier as students will be taking classes they are interested in, which means they probably won't need as much tutoring. Eliminating general-ed will also mean there isn't as many requirements, so they probably won't need as much student counseling. Free college will also decrease the amount of accountants needed by colleges, as the individual payments made by students will no longer need to be processed, as well as student-aid. Academic probation should also be made stricter, if a student’s grades are not up to par the amount of classes they can take should be limited. C average students should be restricted to 2 courses a semester, D average or less to 1 course. This will eliminate funds being wasted on non-performing students. New students should have some limits on how many classes they can take as well for the first semester. Once they have proven they can perform the limits will be lifted.
Eliminating General ED
By the time students are in college they need to be focused on their occupation. General-ed delays this by two more years and wastes student's money. Eliminating general-ed will greatly increase the ability of students to reach their full potential. Department requirements should be shaped to maximize student potential and ensure they reach the highest level of skill by the time they graduate college. Some areas of study require more structure than others. Having design your own degrees as much as possible is ideal for students to reach their highest level of skill. Having lists of classes that will most likely apply to a degree can be helpful for a department. Lists should encompass classes not necessarily strictly in the department, but in other departments that relate. For example, for a political science degree, classes in economics, criminology, business, sociology, psychology, and geography often have a lot of relation to political science.
References
1 FY22 Year-End Actuals All Funds Report. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KuuiGrvWhn2_gafxVFc0a4D38AiJfL64/view?pli=1
2 Portland Community College Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. Retrieved from https://www.pcc.edu/about/wp-content/uploads/sites/98/2023/12/acfr-2023.pdf
3 Facts : PSU By the Numbers. Retrieved from https://www.pdx.edu/portland-state-university-facts
4 Martin Ward. On The Cost Of College. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sMzUUKW7FjPke-U4af5hKrY8OWu6Y5OD/view