“They understand the promise of America’s community colleges.” “They really believe in the power of education and they really believe in creating those kinds of ladders of opportunity,” then-President Barack Obama said of the Bidens during a 2015 speech outlining his proposal for free community college. The first time free community college grabbed headlines on a national level, Biden was also in the White House, but then as vice president. This week, we’ll look at the history of the free community college movement, why it was left out of the bill and where the idea goes from here.īiden has been pitching free community college since the Obama administration Congressional Democrats had offered a detailed plan for the initiative as part of their social spending package, the idea seemed to have a White House champion in First Lady and community college professor Jill Biden, and President Joe Biden had pitched free community college on the campaign trail and in his first speech to a joint session of Congress earlier this year.īut then, just as suddenly, free community college became one of the headline items to be dropped from the Democrats’ spending bill.
