The last statistics I checked had 21% of people completing college. What about the other 79%? Not everyone is created equally mentally; not everyone is suited for college. My plumber didn't go to college and he makes good money. He learned his skills through an apprenticeship and much of Europe uses a similar model: apprenticeships for students who don't have the skills to complete college. (You can challenge your placement.)

What came first, poor student outcomes or government funding for education?

The government has dreamed up a way to extract more money from its citizens to fund an activity in which it has no business being involved. Will someone on Galt's Gulch, of all places, give me a logical explanation of why government should be providing education, for free or not?

"10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc" Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto.

Both parties have been taken over by the socialists..

Using the gambling habits of the ignorant masses to fund additional educationgreat... how far does 2 years of community college ge tyou these days?

As far as your legislating morality comment.... every law and regulation is an expression of morality

One that functions. That's why people from states where the people only serve to fund government can't understand how life can be without it.

Good for Tenn. and good for you guys for being smarter than the rest of us serfs.

No doubt.

Good luck with that!

as long as nobody is forced to buy lottery tickets, I have no problem with this.

Anything free is worth what you paid for it.

It may very well have good intentions, but these things rarely work as aspected.
The better plan with this money, and would be easier to adopt, use that Lottery money, as it's available, to pay TN residents Student loans, of those who have already graduated. THAT'S incentive to graduate. Hit the mark, the loans are paid off, or reduced.

Our state has a balanced budget and has not had that issue. That may change if we become infested with liberals like Detroit. ; }

That might work in some areas, but TN has no state property taxes, only county and city. We also have no income tax, only sales tax as we are a tourism state.

Maybe it will. Look, not only is this the first time it has been tried in TN it's the first time it has been tried in the country. Right now it is only a proposal by the governor. Don’t you think we should at least wait and see what the final product is before making predictions? We already know this will cover only community colleges and tech schools. Not too many of them waste time with some of the dumb courses they have at UT.

I am not saying this will or won’t work. I am just saying it is interesting and worth finding out more about.

Here in Michigan the lottery is supposed to fund education. Guess what, they have ended up using the funds for other matters for years now. Maybe the government in Tennessee is more honest than here, but ...

Our state is a bit different in that we have a balanced state budget and the lottery has been used for the schools just like it was intended. Then again we are also not a “progressive” state, so that might have a lot to do with it.

I agree with the statement about public schools. I use my youngest daughter as an example. She is a 1st grade homeschooler. She just completed a battery of placement testing in order for us to make sure she was headed the right direction. She tested at grade level 3.2 in reading comprehension and 2.6 in mathematics, the only tested subjects for 1st graders. In this state $600 - $800 a year average is spent to educate homeschoolers (We will come in right at $550) while $8,000 - $10,000 a year is spent on each student by the public school system. There is some obvious inefficiency in the public school system not to mention how many of them confuse their own political views with their job as educators.

I live in Nashville. It's not a matter of, "if it's fully funded", right now. It will be FREE and it will crowd the colleges with people looking for something FREE. Then, there won't be enough money to cover that cost, and THEN the tax payer will have to subsides it.
OR the colleges won't be big enough to accommodate all the new found students, and tax dollars will have to be spent to build more colleges.
Neither the lottery, nor tax dollars should pay for someone wanting to kill time in the pursuit of flower arranging, or basket weaving, or interpretive dance. Select a major in a field that's in demand, successfully graduate, and then this is a fruitful use of funds.

Says who? TN is running a balanced budget as it is. There is also nothing to say the cost will go up. Remember this is being done with community colleges and tech schools. Places like Vanderbilt and UT will not be involved at this point. The government does enough crappy things without us assuming this will be one of them without at least hearing out the final proposal.
If the lottery is paying a sustainable bill under a negotiated contract costs should be well within what is anticipated. We don’t have those details yet, and in my opinion it is premature to rule it will fail without all the facts.

Did you read the article? This entire program will cost the taxpayers $0.00. It is using proceeds from the TN state lottery, which was created to support and promote education in the state.

And giving money back that was not earned by government is a bad thing????

Yeah, IL seems to have pulled the old bait and switch on you guys.

Agreed. I meant to say that I do not stand in judgment of the morality of others. Thank you for the correction.