I am suprised this didnt make any of the Threads. Unless I just missed it lol.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070315_1_A1_hFree31135&breadcrumb=Article+Search
TCC is offering to pay for tuition and fees for the first 60 hours of classes.
There is also a book bank fund that has been set up that people can contribute to, to help students pay for books.
I really hope TCC keeps this going and even expands it. Would love to see a community wide effort to establish a foundation that will help pay for college tuition in Tulsa, in perpetuity. Through a combination tax vote and donations. Would be great to have something that helped with 4 year and graduate classes as well. Perhaps attach a manditory community service clause per semester in return for the funds.
This type of thing can be great for Tulsa in so many ways.
Imagine helping local people that couldnt otherwise afford college, go. That will help the economy, crime, and health statistics.
It would encourage people who value education to move to Tulsa. Aren't those the very type of people we want to attract more of?
Imagine how it would make our community look to businesses.
What TCC is doing already will help put Tulsa in a better light. But I think it has to be made permanent before we can really "sell" it.
This could help turn around Tulsas population decline. One stipulation is that a student must have lived in Tulsa county for at least one year and continue living in Tulsa County during college. ( would have said within just the city of Tulsa to discourage suburban flight and make living in Tulsa more appealing lol)
I would also love to see a fund for young adults who move here to help them go to our graduate universities. This would almost force the hand of the regents and the universities to give us some real funds to grow our nascent colleges and quit dribbling out measly crumbs to Tulsa. They have already dramatically cut back the estimates of the number of students they will go for at OSU Tulsa and when they expect to reach that number.
While it is certainly good news, my only concern is that it continue to degrade the quality of education. While I'm sure TCC offers fine programs, there will be pressure to graduate or at least pass along the kids that enter the free tuition program. However, I have to assume a fair % of these kids wont really care and just continue going through the motions (which is all you need to do to graduate high school).
In the end, we could end up with many more people with degrees that mean much less. I hope I'm wrong and TCC has the integrity to flunk people that deserve to fail. College should not be an "A" for effort. Either you know the material and are able to communicate it well, or you do not.
I'm of the opinion that no one tells their kids they failed or they cant do it anymore. You dont have to be evil, but sometimes kids simply fail. They need to learn how to fail at some point BEFORE the workplace, because when money is involved most employers are not going to hold back.
Bah! I hope I am wrong and I hope this becomes the educational boom that it has the potential to be.
If I were a professor and some student was getting the class for free, I would expect more from them not less. Though who is to say how they would know, dont think it would be proper to announce to the professor who is who.
But I can't really imagine how TCC could pressure the professors or change the grades. The grades will be given and its only after that, that the school will then look at them and assess whether or not a student can continue on with the program.
If one kid fails. I hope they will now waste a moment and let the next kid have a try. Hopefully there will be no shortage of students wanting to take this program. So no need to waste more time and money on one that isnt doing well. If the kid takes a semester and does decent, then another semester and fails, they can still continue to pay for their own classes and eventually graduate, they just wont get the free help anymore. It wont be a wast of the schools money or the students time even if they only get a few classes for free.
We have all had good grades and bad ones, good semesters and bad. Each class whether you did good in it or not was a valuable lesson and can help you make better career choices and class descisions in the future.
When I was in high school TCC (TJC back then) was referred to as a high school with ashtrays.
I think the curriculum is far better than the image of a local CC implies.
Tulsa is an odd vacuum of illogical thought on various issues.
I believe we are still the largest market in the U.S. without an independently-run four year public college. Instead we have a dominant CC and then the odd conglomeration that is OSU Tulsa. When they built UCAT I could never figure out why TCC didn't merge and they could offer four year and post-graduate programs and we would have had Tulsa State University or some such thing.
IMO- the free tuition is a good incentive.
I taught at TCC for five years. There is no pressure to pass people based on where they come from. A large percentage of those I taught were under some sort of free tuition program anyway, almost all the rest were on student aid. There is very little difference between this program and any of those other sources. Keep in mind, TCC only charges about $60/credit hour to the student anyway. The majority of their costs are subsidized.
This is a great program with very little cost to TCC.