WASHINGTON — In order to reduce disparities and make college more accessible, policymakers and higher education leaders should initiate a national discussion to establish a free and universal K-14 system.
That was one of the key arguments made Wednesday at a higher education forum meant to highlight ways to increase postsecondary attainment and give students a better shot at securing one of the growing number of jobs that require education beyond high school.
“We have to reorganize ourselves around a different set of credentials — and finance those credentials — in order to allow people to get into the workforce,” said Eloy Oakley, chancellor of the California Community Colleges. “It’s well beyond the 12 years of high school now.”
Leaders who oversee state initiatives that provide free community college agreed.
“It really is time for a national conversation about this,” said Ben Cannon, executive director at the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
Cannon said that, while the Oregon Promise — a state grant that covers most tuition at any Oregon community college for recent high school graduates and GED recipients — is reliant on federal dollars, there’s still not a “holistic conversation about how to take those federal resources, how to take those state resources and optimize them for community college access and success.”
“Ideally we would be doing this in a true partnership model in conversation with the federal government,” Cannon said.
