So there are a number of hot button topics that have been flowing all over the internet since 2015, and many of them are starting to come into fruition now. Free this, free that, business market, jobs, trade deals, healthcare. With social media being our top form of news, whether real, propaganda, or satire; it's impossible to avoid any of it, even if you're not on Facebook or Twitter. There's always that one friend who will whip out his phone and show off that article that was meant to trigger an emotional rage from someone on one side or the other. And the headline is always an emotional trigger meant to make one man feel triumph, and another feel hatred and rage. Working on that, I did read an article that I ran across that is sure to divide people again. I looked at it, and I can see merit and failure with it.
Detroit has decided to offer it's community colleges tuition free. Pretty sweet deal, right? Well, let's look at a couple things that go along with this. Most conservatives are going to bring up the suffocating debt that Detroit still owes the Federal Government, along with several private banks. Meanwhile the progressive movement will laud the city council of Detroit as heroes because they're giving away the promised free education. But let's take a look from the center to see what the reality is.
Now, it's impossible to ignore the fact that companies are running over each other to start investing in the US. Much of this can be attributed to our sitting president, even though the extremist media outlets are going out of their way to find reasons that it wasn't on him. Realistically, there has been a promise of deregulation of labor, and a business friendly tax environment, and everyone knows it. That includes democratic city council members, mayors, and pretty much every politician in this country. In real life, tax and regulation cutbacks mean that it's easier to employ here, and that's gonna create tax revenue. With that in mind, municipalities are gonna want that tax revenue, especially cities that are buried in debt.
With all this in mind, one has to look at the final piece of the puzzle, incentivization. Detroit knows that when the jobs come back, investors are going to be searching for markets full of trained workers. With free community college, and a spattering of enough low level jobs to start drawing people in, Detroit seems like a paradise to be for workers who have been out of a job for years. Our sitting Commander in Chief has promised to invest money in rebuilding Detroit by name, it's no wonder that Detroit is rushing to find workers. In this writer's personal opinion, the free community college is a gimmick. Yes, it's going to put the city further in debt, but I can see the city's council looking at it long term. A working class family, who's been strapped by being out of good work for years, who's heard the Donald say for two years that he wants to invest money into Detroit. Now the parents of that family hear that they can start sending their kids to get some basic classes that transfer to a 4 year college, for free, and save a couple years of tuition, they're going to see a move closer to the Detroit area as a viable move. I see a lot of cities in the next four years doing things like that. If the city can sustain it, it's a great idea. We live in a digital age where every phone has a video camera, and airfare has never been lower. People can move and not fear losing touch with family and friends. So any perk that a city can hang on living there, it will exploit at any turn in an upcoming economic upturn.
The conclusion. I can see where the City of Detroit is going with their plan, but I ultimately think it will backfire. The problem with having something for free is that it never attracts the people who want to put the work in. The community colleges will be flooded out, an won't be able to take on the people who want to use them as a cost effective stepping stone into a a higher college experience, or even a trade school.
A final note would be a suggestion. If I was a City Planner, I'd move away from the free, and move in the direction of getting the community colleges and the potential employers together and working out a tuition break or scholarship for working at the manufacturing plant. Don't offer anything for free, but definitely try to get people to come work for you.
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