What is Community College For?
An Analysis of President Obama’s Discursive Framing of Community
Colleges
Natasha Patel
Undergraduate Honors Thesis
Graduate School of Education
Stanford University
May 2016
Stanford University
Graduate School of Education
UNDERGRADUATE HONORS
What is Community College For?
An Analysis of President Obama’s Discursive Framing of Community
Colleges
Natasha Patel
May 2016
A Thesis in partial fulfillment
Of the requirements for Undergraduate Honors
Approvals:
Program Director: __________
, May 21, 2016
John Willinsky, Date
Thesis Advisor:
, May 25, 2016
Mitchell Stevens, Date
Patel 2
ABSTRACT
Objective: The project of the thesis is to understand the social and political role
community colleges play in the American higher education system through the policy
commitments of President Obama’s administration, 2009-2016. To do this, I conduct an
analysis of President Obama’s rhetoric about higher education and specifically
community colleges in his State of the Union Addresses. Method: I borrow rhetorical
analysis strategies from scholars who have previously studied the President’s discourse.
From Robert Terrill’s analysis in Double Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Barack
Obama, I borrow his practice of centering the discursive analysis on pre-selected political
concepts like democracy and equality of opportunity. From Mark Ferrara’s work, Barack
Obama and the Rhetoric of Hope, I borrow his tactic of chronological, close-readings,
and his emphasis on identifying narratives commonly found in the American social
imagination. Speech and Political Theory Analysis: When President Obama calls upon
the United States Congress to help realize a free, public postsecondary system,
specifically a zero-tuition community college system, he is advocating for what he labels,
“the opportunity agenda.” In making his case, the President draws on a limited version of
the philosophical principle of equality of opportunity for welfare. Two motivating factors
drive Obama’s opportunity agenda: public and private interests. I conclude there is
reason for thinking these interests overlap. Conclusions: Obama’s discursive framing of
community colleges paints for us a world in which realizing equality of opportunity
toward economic ends is a necessary process for fostering a healthy democracy. The
President’s discursive framing of community colleges omits language describing the civic
purposes of a community college education. The omission contributes to a stagnant,
underdeveloped national narrative about the civic ends of higher education.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ 3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................... 4
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ............................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY ………..................................................................... 12
CHAPTER 3 STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH ANALYSIS ................................ 20
CHAPTER 4 POLITICAL THEORY ANALYSIS .................................................... 36
CHAPTER 5 WHAT’S MISSING? & CONCLUDING REMARKS …................... 49
WORKS CITED ……………………………………………………………………….57
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To give credit to where credit is due: a big thanks to John Willinsky and Kamran
Naim for making a place for a wannabe philosopher in the Graduate School of
Education’s honors cohort of exceptional social scientists. Also, deep gratitude to
Mitchell Stevens, my advisor, whom I was fortunate enough to stumble upon as a
clueless second year, and whose genuine belief in my capacities shepherded me toward
some of my greater endeavors in the field of education, including this thesis.
An additional thanks to all of my professors from whom I have taken Education
courses, including Jennifer Wolf, David Palumbo-Liu, Candace Thille, David Labaree,
Joe Conaty, Gillian Cohen-Boyer, and, of course, Mitchell Stevens. While philosophy is
my departmental home, my work in philosophy has always been inspired by the questions
these brilliant historians, policymakers, and social scientists have been asking.
Finally, to both of my grandmothers, my mother, father, sister, brother, and long
list of cousins, aunts and uncles, thanks for your sacrifices and willingness to humor my
interests -- however astray they may seem.
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1. Community College Specific Rhetoric ……………………………………...29
Figure 1. Conceptual Frameworks for Understanding Private & Public Interest ...38
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM
On July 13, 1946, George F. Zook, President of the American Council on Education at
the time, was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to chair a commission that would
examine the condition of higher education in the United States. Prior to serving as chair
of the President’s Commission on Higher Education, Zook had served as a propagandist
for the U.S. during World War I. After the end of the war in 1918, Zook took the post of
chief of the Division of Higher Education in what was known as the U.S. Bureau of
Education at the time – now known as the Department of Education.1 His early
experiences crafting narratives about the ideals of American society and creating policy
for an under-developed postsecondary system made him a unique steward for the
President’s commission.
At the time of Zook’s appointment to chair, the G.I. Bill had recently been passed
and signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The G.I. Bill, also known as the
Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, was crafted with the intent to facilitate the
return of about 16 million veterans who had been on active duty during World War II.2
The bill offered benefits like low-cost mortgages, monetary support for attending a
university, vocational school or high school, and a small amount of unemployment
compensation. Zook was charged with surveying the American democratic institution of
public higher education to keep up with the rapid conversion of soldiers to students. In a
1
Pierron, G. Joseph. "George Zook." Kansapedia. N.p., Mar. 2013. Web. 21 May 2016.
<https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/george-zook/18152>.
2
"FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:." The National WWII Museum. N.p., 2015. Web.
<http://www.nationalww2museum.org/about-the-museum/frequently-askedquestions.html?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F>.
Patel 7
letter from John Snyder, Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, to
President Truman in May of 1946, Snyder described a need for an immediate update to
secondary schools and colleges. He framed the urgency around his estimation that “more
than 2,000,000 young Americans would apply for enrollment in the nation’s colleges and
universities -- the greatest number ever” that fall.3
One year after Zook’s appointment as chair, the commission released a sixvolume report entitled, Higher Education for American Democracy: A Report of the
President’s Commission on Higher Education.4 Almost 25 years prior to the release of
the report, Zook authored a piece in The School Review, in which he outlined the
emerging potential of the junior college, a new institution in the American higher
education ecosystem. In this piece, he writes about the advantages of the “junior-college
plan.” Zook describes the junior college as the work to be completed “before a student
takes up advanced work in liberal arts or professional schools.5” Fourteen years after
Zook’s publication advocating for the junior-college plan, Byron Hollinshead, an
influential writer, clarified what he saw to be the role of junior colleges: “the junior
college should be a community college, meeting community needs; that it should serve to
promote a greater social and civic intelligence in the community.6” Thus, when the
Truman commission’s six-volume report calls for the establishment of a nationwide
community college system, it is with new civic notions of the role of the junior
3
Zook, George F. "The President's Commission on Higher Education." Bulletin of the American
Association of University Professors 33.1 (1947): 10-28.
4
George Zook. “Higher Education for Democracy: A Report of the President’s Commission on Higher
Education.” (New York, 1947): Introduction.
5
Zook, George F. "The Junior College." The School Review 30.8 (1922): 574-83. Web.
6
Hollinshead, Byron S. "The community junior college program." Junior College Journal 7.3 (1936): 111116.
Patel 8
community college and the support of a long time advocate for two year post-secondary
educational institutions.
The commission would go on to have lasting, far-reaching effects on the
American system of higher education, especially the community college system. When
the commission began its study of higher education, the federal budget was about $400
million. By the early 1950s, the budget had skyrocketed to over $1 billion in order to
meet the recommendations of the commission.7 Furthermore, within twenty years of
releasing the report, the community college system expanded to over 450 fully functional
public institutions, a fleet close to one-third the size of the current nationwide network of
public community colleges.8 Volume I of the six-part series outlined the goals of
increasing access to community colleges and further education through a series of
benchmarks, such that the final benchmark sought to ensure at least 49% of the
population would attend two years of schooling beyond secondary school.
President Truman’s presidency represents a period of radical growth for the most
accessible tier of the American higher education system. This expansion of the
community college system, along with the increase in federal postsecondary spending for
Americans and, more specifically, American veterans was paralleled by a “civic
renaissance” in higher education as veterans’ patriotic training influenced the ends of
education.9 At this time, the federal government adopted a serious stance on the role of
7
Chantrill, Christopher. United States Government Spending Analysis.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?chart=24total&view=1&year=1940_1960&state=US&local=b
8
"Community Colleges Past to Present ." American Association of Community Colleges. N.p., 2000. Web.
<http://www.aacc.nche.edu/AboutCC/history/Pages/pasttopresent.aspx>.
9
Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens: The GI Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2005): ix.
Patel 9
postsecondary education in facilitating democratic societies.10 More importantly, during
Truman’s presidency, the federal government offered a well-developed position on what
community college was for.
Fast forward sixty years, President Obama’s administration has taken up the
mantle on radically increasing postsecondary access through the community college
system. In 2015, President Obama unveiled his American College Promise proposal,
calling upon the U.S. congress, and state leadership to make the first two years of
community college tuition-free for responsible students.11 The American College
Promise program would be undertaken in partnership with states and is inspired by new
programs to make community college free in Tennessee and Chicago. If all states
participate, an estimated 9 million students could benefit from a free, public education. A
full-time community college student could save an average of $3,800 in tuition per
year.12 If realized, the plan would make community college as free as universal high
school – a goal Zook outlined in the first three pages of his 1922 publication on the
junior-college plan.
When Obama entered office in 2009, he inherited the legacy of his predecessors.
From Truman’s presidency, he inherited an expansive system of community colleges, and
a robust theory about the community-driven, democratic purpose of the community
college. At the same time, from President George W. Bush’s era, Obama inherited an
urgent, spiraling economic recession. The economic crisis Obama was charged with
10
Hutcheson, Philo. "The 1947 President’s commission on higher education and the national rhetoric on
higher education policy." History of Higher Education Annual 22.1 (2002): 357-404.
11
Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." UCSB
American Presidency Project (2015): pp1-12. Web.
12
"FACT SHEET - White House Unveils America's College Promise Proposal: Tuition-Free Community
College for Responsible Students." The White House. The White House, 09 Jan. 2015. Web. 21 May 2016.
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-white-house-unveils-america-scollege-promise-proposal-tuitio>.
Patel 10
fixing as he entered office was unlike any major dip in the economy since The Great
Depression. By November of 2009, unemployment levels rose to 10.2% -- the highest
national joblessness rate in 26 years. As the American economy sustained net job losses
over the course of the President’s pre-inauguration period, the pressure was on for the
President to achieve results for unemployed America.13
Just days after releasing his American College Promise proposal, the President
stated, "In the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to
grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience. We will not fill those jobs – or
keep those jobs on our shores – without the training offered by community colleges.” The
president’s rhetoric here commits community colleges to fulfilling the nation’s economic
needs. Under the Obama presidency, community colleges have received a new slogan:
the economic engines of America. How are we to make sense of the President’s
economically, vocationally driven rhetoric about community colleges? In the era of
Obama, there does not exist a six-volume examination of American higher education
landscape.
The project of the thesis is to understand the political role community colleges
occupy in the American higher education system through the policy commitments of
President Obama’s administration. In order to do this, I surveyed the president’s
discourse about higher education in the State of the Union Addresses he delivers each
year. The final product of this investigation will be a positive reconstruction of the
13
Goodman, Peter S. "U.S. Unemployment Rate Hits 10.2%, Highest in 26 Years." The New York Times.
N.p., 6 Nov. 2009. Web. 20 May 2016.
<http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2009%2F11%2F07%2Fbusiness%2Feconomy%2F07jobs.html
>.
Patel 11
various logics and philosophical underpinnings of the President’s policy push to make
community college tuition-free.
In chapter three, I will argue that two kinds of appeals underpin Obama’s theory
about the political, democratic role community colleges occupy; the first is an appeal to
individual economic interests and the second is an appeal to national economic interests.
President Obama’s appeals to the nation’s and individuals’ economic ends are embedded
within a rhetoric about the role of community colleges as democratic institutions, which
increase equality of opportunity in American society. Given the President’s opportunity
agenda, in chapter four, I provide analysis of what notion of equality of opportunity the
president prioritizes. In particular, I will describe how the President thinks increased
access to and utilization of community colleges might help the United States better
provide all residents with two principles: equal opportunity to participate in the
economic system and equal opportunity to economic outcomes. The conclusion expresses
reasons for thinking these national and individual interests overlap such that increasing
equality of opportunity through a free community college system may, at once, benefit
national and individual interests.
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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
SELECTING THE CORPUS AND TACTICS FOR DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS
The thesis pursues a thoughtful analysis of political language in order to develop an
understanding of a governmental agent’s political philosophy. More specifically, my
project is to conduct an in-depth analysis of a president’s public statements and explore
how such statements might reveal the Obama administration’s values and thoughts about
higher education public policy.
A prima facie analysis of the problem of political discourse may result in the
following line of thinking: if politics as a practice entails the manipulation of ideas and
words in order to achieve certain ends, so too we might expect political language to be
embedded with double-meanings and manipulation. In order to confront this worry about
rhetorical manipulation, I will appeal to facts outside of the President’s discourse,
including ongoing current events and background political. Such facts might further
contextualize the rationale behind some of the President’s rhetorical choices. Moreover,
for the sake of providing a worthwhile analysis of the President’s rhetoric, I will borrow
tactics of political rhetoric analysis from other scholars of Barack Obama’s discourse.
2.1 Political Rhetoric Analysis in other major works
When the young Senator Obama made his first big splash on the national stage
during the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he was lauded for oratorical skills
unlike any other politician. Since his first major speech, the President’s rhetorical
strategies and practice have been thoroughly analyzed by academics, campaign
strategists, and aspiring politicians alike.
Patel 13
Robert Terrill, in Double Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Barack Obama,
authors an example of scholastic analysis of Obama’s rhetoric. In his book, he argues that
Obama’s rhetoric invites audiences into a state of “double consciousness.” A notion
similar to W.E.B. Du Bois’s notion of “two-ness,” which describes the phenomenon in
which African American folks see themselves both through their own eyes and through
the eyes of others. Terrill provides a close analysis of Obama’s 2008 campaign speeches
and statements from the President’s first term in order to argue that the President’s
rhetoric presents double-consciousness as an idiom. In Terrill’s work, he aims to situate
the president’s rhetoric as a resource for citizenship, “as a rhetorical storehouse that
might inform the ways that citizens address one another and recognize themselves as
being addressed.”
Terrill proclaims his work to be the work of “rhetorical criticism” for the further
end of providing readers with a way of rendering public discourse as a tool for enacting
their own sense of citizenship. For Terrill, the bounds of “rhetorical criticism” are not cut
and dry. Terrill does not provide a clear method to how he engages with the President’s
language, semantics, or themes. Instead he dives right in with a topic of discussion in
mind, like the “confines of race” or “a more perfect union,” and then selects particular
addresses or rhetorical turns from the President’s rhetoric that provide direct insight into
understanding these themes.14 In addition, within the realm of rhetorical criticism, Terrill
analyzes the President’s rhetoric in combination with the context of current events.
While Terrill’s lack of clear methodological practice presents issues for
understanding the reasoning behind some of Terrill’s analytical choices, his free form
14
Terrill, Robert E. Double-consciousness and the Rhetoric of Barack Obama: The Price and Promise of
Citizenship. Univ of South Carolina Press, 2015.
Patel 14
does offer insight into unstructured analytical space. Terrill is able to weave a compelling
story that links themes of democracy, citizenship, and race through a holistic criticism of
the President’s rhetoric. In the chapter on a Political Theory Analysis of the President’s
work, I aim to follow a similar pattern of thoughtfulness. The conversation will start with
a set of philosophical premises about opportunity, equality, and democracy.
Understanding the contours of these philosophical premises will require drawing on
Presidential rhetoric.
A second rhetorical analysis of the President’s work, entitled Barack Obama and
the Rhetoric of Hope by Mark S. Ferrarra, draws historical and literary connections
between Obama’s campaign rhetoric and traditional Western utopian concepts, including
discipline, a strong work ethic, self-reliance, and service to the community. Ferrara
analyzes the President’s rhetoric with a focus on segments of political language in which
the President incorporates his personal biography. The author pairs the direct analysis of
the President’s language with the current events of each successive year. As Ferrarra
follows the President’s rhetoric in conjunction with a timeline of events, he takes
moments to recognize the themes --and American myths underlying each excerpt of the
President’s work. For example, in the chapter entitled, Rhetoric and the Presidency, he
writes, “Obama equates his own struggle with that of people for the American Dream:
‘When Michelle and I think about where we came from -- a little girl on the Southside of
Chicago, son of a single mom in Hawaii-- mother had to go to school on scholarships,
sometimes got food stamps’ … His rhetoric is steeped in myths of American
Patel 15
exceptionalism recognizable to (and defended by) a large proportion of his audience and
the broader electorate.15”
At last, for the purposes of the reconstruction of President Obama’s views about
equality of opportunity and the ends of community college, detailed in chapter four, I rely
heavily on a strategy used by Marta Degani. In Framing the Rhetoric of a Leader: An
Analysis of Obama’s Election Campaign Speeches, Degani uses an analytical approach,
which I attempt to model. In coming to understand the overall macro-narrative of
Obama’s campaign, Degani outlines three key micro-narratives. In Degani’s view, a
micro-narrative is a narrative substructure that could be seen as a standalone narrative
thread. For Degani, the micro-narrative gains its relevance from the overall macronarrative. A micro-narrative can be co-constructed by several smaller stories that all
contribute to a particular function.16 Furthermore, the micro-narrative can hold several
themes that all serve the same, targeted purpose or that all provide content knowledge
about the same topic. For the purposes of my research, I look for threads within the
President’s discursive framing, which co-construct the President’s view on the social and
political role of community colleges. I identify these threads within sections of the
President’s speeches that directly discuss community colleges and the value-laden claims
the President offers in these references.
2.2 Corpus selection
To begin my analysis of President Obama’s philosophy about the place of community
colleges in higher education, I surveyed the president’s discourse about higher
education. The United States Government publishing office maintains a federal digital
15
16
Ferrara, Mark S. Barack Obama and the Rhetoric of Hope. , 2013. Print.
Degani, Marta. Framing the Rhetoric of a Leader: An Analysis of Obama's Election Campaign Speeches.
, 2015. Print.
Patel 16
system database that hosts governmental publications and documents.17 One of the
collections within the database is a comprehensive compilation of presidential
documents. These documents include addresses and remarks, proclamations, interviews
with news media, joint statements, meetings with foreign leaders and international
officials, executive orders, appointments and nominations, supplementary materials, bill
signings and vetoes, addresses to the nation, communications to federal agencies,
resignations and retirements, communications to congress, and business and industry
communications. Some of the President’s statements could qualify as fitting within two
of the above categories. For example, the President’s national addresses, and all other
category speeches that reference public speeches, can also be found under the category
listing addresses and remarks. Thus, studying the contents of the documents within the
addresses and remarks category can provide insight into the line of thinking the President
and the President’s administration have decided to prioritize as a public narrative.
Throughout the thesis, I will default to describing the contents of the selected
corpus as providing insight into the President’s specific political framework and theory
for higher education. However, it is important to keep in mind that these speeches and
policy positions are a compilation of thought and labor provided by the people who work
within the President’s overall administration, including most obviously, the speech
writers of the specific documents, and less obviously, the policy wonks within different
offices of the Department of Education.
The Government Publishing Offices collection of presidential documents of
President Obama’s overall remarks and speeches about higher education is fairly
17
The records of the Government Publishing Office can be accessed online at the following url.
https://www.gpo.gov/
Patel 17
expansive. Obama’s addresses and remarks including any reference to “higher
education,” “university(s),” “community college(s),” “postsecondary,” or “college(s)”
during his time in office numbered 1,312. When the search was limited to addresses
referencing “community college” or “community colleges,” the total corpus was reduced
to 146 presidential documents. In selecting which Presidential remarks I should analyze, I
limited my search to addresses and remarks that discussed “community college” or
“community colleges.” Within these documents, I focused on statements explicitly
centered on postsecondary education reform measures and specific discussion of
community colleges. Even at this point, the amount of text to conduct a close reading
was quite large. As a result, I further limited the corpus for the close textual analysis I
conducted within the following chapters on Speech Analysis and Political Theory
Analysis. However, a broader reading of the 146 presidential documents informed the
three micro-narratives that carry across his speeches. These micro-narratives are outlined
below.
Given these priorities, I narrowed the close textual analysis to a pool of eight
State of the Union Addresses. This set of speeches includes the following:18
18
I will cite the entire set of the President’s eight State of the Union Addresses here. For the remainder of
the thesis, I will refer to each of the addresses by year, and will refrain from re-citing each speech for every
mention of the speech. Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the
Union." UCSB American Presidency Project (2009): pp1-11. Web.
Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." UCSB
American Presidency Project (2010): pp1-11. Web.
Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." UCSB
American Presidency Project (2011): pp1-8. Web.
Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." UCSB
American Presidency Project (2012): pp1-9. Web.
Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." UCSB
American Presidency Project (2013): pp1-9. Web.
Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." UCSB
American Presidency Project (2014): pp1-10. Web.
Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." UCSB
American Presidency Project (2015): pp1-12. Web.
Patel 18
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 2009
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 2010
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 2011
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 2012
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 2013
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 2014
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 2015
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 2016
For the purposes of the close textual analysis, I excluded remarks made in venues like
campaign trail events, fundraising events, round tables, and town halls. I exclude
campaign trail events since Barack Obama, the presidential candidate, rather than Barack
Obama, the President, makes these statements. I excluded the last three kinds of events
because I aimed to analyze remarks made in public venues and to larger audiences. In
addition, the format and style of remarks in the last three types of events are more casual
and may not strike the pre-planned seriousness of a presidential address. The key reason I
focused on the States of the Union addresses is because these are among the rare
speeches where much of the federal governing body, including congress, heads of
departments, and cabinet members all join together to hear the President’s vision for the
nation. These speeches are aimed to align the federal government on public policy for
the upcoming year.
There were several constraints in conducting this analysis. One major constraint
was time. Processing all of the President’s discourse about higher education, colleges,
and universities would have required reading over 1,100 remarks and speeches that
employed these concepts about higher education. While I aim to provide a well-rounded
theory of the President’s philosophy about higher education through a State of the Union
Obama, Barack. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." UCSB
American Presidency Project (2016): pp1-11. Web.
Patel 19
analysis and other relevant speeches, a holistic view of the President’s theory would
likely require an analysis of the complete pool of remarks. Given the narrowed scope of
the paper -- understanding the President’s theory about the political purpose of
postsecondary education through his proposed community college policy -- there are at
least 138 remarks and speeches related to community colleges not within my pool. In
particular, Presidential speeches made at community colleges like Hudson Valley
Community College in New York could have provided a special, different perspective to
this project.
Patel 20
CHAPTER 3: STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH ANALYSIS
AN ANALYSIS OF THE PRESIDENT’S RHETORIC
Article II, Section 3 of the American Constitution reads that the president “shall from
time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union and recommend
to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.19” The
State of the Union address represents an important political moment in the American
presidency. These addresses share insight into the stylistic leadership of each President
and each administration’s policy priorities. The speech is a familiar, unifying custom,
which takes place during the month of January in the Capitol dome. During this time, the
President of the United States appears before a congressional joint session to provide a
formal address. These formalities highlight the President’s elevated role as head of state,
while the content of the address underscores the President’s capacity to act as chief
legislator.20 On the night of the address, the American public is invited to tune-in to their
television sets or radios and to listen to the President’s vision for the nation. Since taking
office, President Obama has delivered eight such addresses.
The State of the Union Address has also become a venue by which the President
can demonstrate leadership and agency in developing social and policy positions. As a
result, the address provides special access to the president’s public position on a wide
range of policy topics. The president has five legislatively relevant constitutional
powers: the power to veto, give information to Congress, recommend measures to
congress, call congress into special session, and adjourn Congress if Congress disagrees
19
Shogan, Colleen J. President's State of the Union Address: Tradition, Function, and Policy Implications.
DIANE Publishing, 2011.
20
Hoffman, Donna R, and Alison D. Howard. Addressing the State of the Union: The Evolution and Impact
of the President's Big Speech. Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006. Print.
Patel 21
on a time.21 The President can utilize the State of the Union Address in two legislatively
important ways: to provide remarks regarding current legislation in congress or to
independently provide policy proposals for congress to consider.22 In Obama’s State of
the Union speeches, he utilizes both strategies to influence higher education and more
specifically community college related legislation. For example, he comments on the
importance of congress adopting a pair of proposals called the American Jobs Act, which
allocated $30 billion to modernize public schools and community colleges.23 He also
used the State of the Union address to push congress to support continued funding for
student loans.24
One metric for assessing the salience of policy prescriptions during each year is
by taking note of whether or not the proposal is discussed in the major public statements
of governmental officials and policymakers. President Obama discusses higher education
in some form in each of his eight addresses. Moreover, the President makes specific
references to community colleges in all but one of these addresses. The President’s
discussion of community colleges, frequently and thoughtfully incorporated into his
broader policy agenda, serves as fertile ground for coming to understand how the
President, and his administration, think about what community colleges are, why they are
needed, and what rights and freedoms community colleges institutions can help protect.
In the next section of the paper, I dive directly into the thematic narratives about higher
21
Kalb, Deborah, Gerhard Peters, and John T. Woolley. State of the Union: Presidential Rhetoric from
Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush. Washington, D.C: CQ Press, 2007. Print.
22
Hoffman, Donna R, and Alison D. Howard. Addressing the State of the Union: The Evolution and
Impact of the President's Big Speech. Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006. Print.
23
"American Jobs Act." The White House. Office of the Press Secretary, 12 Sept. 2011. Web. 20 May
2016. <https://www.whitehouse.gov/economy/jobsact>.
24
Hudson, David. "President Obama: "No Hardworking Young Person Should Be Priced Out of a Higher
Education"" The White House. The White House, 09 June 2014. Web. 20 May 2016.
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/06/09/president-obama-student-loan-debt-no-hardworking-youngperson-should-be-priced-out-h>.
Patel 22
education within each of the President’s addresses. In a later section, I will cut to a direct
discussion of how and for what purposes the President builds a discussion of community
colleges into his speeches. During this process, I trace the development of concepts about
the role of community colleges over the course of the eight addresses.
I.
Obama’s Discursive Construction of Higher Education
The States of the Union include arguments that center on the relevance of the
community college in American higher education. However, the speeches also include
arguments focused on income inequality, fiscal policy, or other issues like labor rights, in
which the President found it worthwhile to reference community colleges. These latter
themes do not provide a straightforward description of the President’s thoughts on higher
education or his philosophy about higher education. Still, understanding how the
President thinks about the community college in different, non-education contexts can
flesh out a broader vision for the policy context in which the community college might
have influence. The background policy context might reciprocally influence the
development of the President’s community college discussion. Thus, before jumping into
a discussion of Obama’s rhetoric directly referencing community colleges, I will outline
the President’s discussion around these broader themes.
i. 2009 State of the Union Address
February 24, 2009, President Obama delivers the first of his eventual eight
national addresses, entitled "The State of the Union," before a joint session of congress.
Just a month before the first address, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President
of the United States. The economic backstory to the President's first State of the Union
influences the themes the president discusses and the way in which he articulates the
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importance of each of the social policy proposals he offers to the joint session of congress
and the American people. The economic crisis is an immediate influential node that
influences other political factors, like the sentiment of the American people, which then,
in turn, influences the way in which Obama provides a political framing of the vision he
has for the American federal governmental. For example, due to the ongoing economic
crisis during the same time the President is delivering his first State of the Union, the
Gallup Poll reported that the number one concern for the American people is the
economy.25
Thus, Obama's first argument for education reform and education policy
innovation begins with an articulation of the urgent need for all students to be able to
access more than a high school diploma, given that the fastest growing sectors require
more than a high school diploma. Moreover, Obama's college-to-job agenda begins with
and relies on PreK-12 education reform. Obama articulates, "Countries that out-teach us
today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration
to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education, from the
day they are born to the day they begin a career.”
ii. 2010 State of the Union Address
In his second State of the Union address, higher education stands out as one of
many important mechanisms the President views as crucial to ending the lasting social
effects of the economic crisis. He argues, "In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty
program around is a world-class education." However, this time, he also indicates that
25
Hargreaves, Steve. "Obama Rides Economy to White House." CNN Money. Cable News Network, 05
Nov. 2008. Web. 20 May 2016.
<http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/04/news/economy/election_polls/index.htm?postversion=2008110500>.
Patel 24
increasing access to opportunities in higher education is also part of a more specific
strategy to support middle class families through the post-economic crisis era. Other
policies for middle class family support include giving every worker a retirement
account, reducing healthcare costs, allowing Americans to take out new loans and save
on mortgage payments, and doubling the child care tax credit to make it easier to save for
retirement.
iii. 2011 State of the Union Address
In 2011, President Obama uses the State of the Union Address as a national
platform to propose the bipartisan American Jobs Act. The purpose of the act was to "put
more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working.26"
While the act covered increasing infrastructure investment and small-business support, it
also funded indirect avenues of job creation like education. Part II of the American Jobs
Act is entitled “Community College Modernization.” The second part of the act seeks to
reinvest federal dollars in community colleges by awarding “grants to States to
modernize, renovate, or repair existing facilities at community colleges.27” Beyond
community colleges, the act also seeks to modernize at least 35,000 schools and to
support low-income youth and adults through investments in sector-specific job
training.28
During the 2011 speech, Obama addresses the salience of the economic downturn,
in order to motivate congress to act on social policy. The President urged Republican
members of Congress to reinvest in America in spite of the financial stress of the
26
"Address by the President to a Joint Session of Congress." The White House. The White House, 08 Sept.
2011. Web. 20 May 2016. <https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/address-presidentjoint-session-congress>.
27
"American Jobs Act." The White House. Office of the Press Secretary, 12 Sept. 2011. Web. 20 May
2016. <https://www.whitehouse.gov/economy/jobsact>.
28
https://www.whitehouse.gov/economy/jobsact/read-the-bill
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economy. Obama points out how Abraham Lincoln, a Republican President set up the
first land grant colleges despite the fact that he was leading the country through a civil
war at the same time. In this speech, the President does not directly mention the need for
investments in community colleges; however, he continues to highlight the importance of
these institutions in a healthy American economy with high job creation and low
unemployment.
iv. 2012 State of the Union Address
American excellence is the theme underlying the 2012 State of the Union. The
President begins by praising the military as one of the few American institutions that is
performing well. He contends that Americans are responsible for ensuring all of our
social institutions perform equally well. However, he does not explicitly outline how
Americans might go about ensuring its system of higher education functions as well as its
military. Rather, his speech pushes his theory of the college to workforce pipeline
without asking congress for specific policy actions. For example, the President states that
it is within America’s reach to become a “country that leads the world in educating its
people; an America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and highpaying jobs." In one clause, the president lays out a vision for a world-class education.
Immediately following this clause, the president makes the argument for creating more
jobs. The conjunction of language about education and jobs suggests that higher
education's primary utility is workforce preparation and economy stimulation. Even his
historical appeal to the G.I. Bill, which had diverse social and economic effects on
American society, centers on the bill’s role in reinvigorating the economy by increasing
veterans’ access to an education to jobs pipeline.
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v. 2013 State of the Union Address
Four years into Obama’s tenure, the President makes the argument that America
has finally achieved substantial economic recovery within the domains of the housing
crisis, consumer fraud, the 2009 recession and consequent unemployment of the
American workforce. For the first time since 2010, the President once again utilizes the
language of opportunity. He makes the argument that those who work hard enough
should be rewarded, and that the American education system must be redesigned to
ensure this is true. The President references the German education system as a model
example of education for workforce preparation.
In this speech, Obama argues that colleges should be held responsible for keeping
costs down, and that the domain of the federal government in postsecondary policymaking should be centered on the redesign of the system. This vision for the federal
government’s role in higher education policymaking presents a radical departure from the
President’s previous arguments, which were largely tied to college affordability as a
mechanism for increasing student postsecondary graduation and consequent job
attainment.
vi. 2014 State of the Union Address
The 2014 State of the Union is an address of firsts. In 2014, for the first time, the
President begins his speech with education as the lead: "Today in America, a teacher
spent extra time with a student who needed it and did her part to lift America's graduation
rate to its highest levels in more than three decades." His lead then turns to a praise of the
American entrepreneurs, autoworkers, farmers, doctors, and late-night employees. Again,
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he conjoins the discussion about education and about jobs. In this speech, the President is
celebrating the lowest unemployment rate since he entered the presidency.
The 2014 State of the Union is also the address in which the President makes his
first mention of educational inequity in higher education. He makes the argument that it
is not enough to let the "hard working kid" into college, but also to make sure they can
both afford to stay in college and successfully complete their education. During this time,
the White House organized the first ever College Opportunity Summit, during which
universities, businesses, and nonprofits made commitments to reduce inequality in access
to higher education. He argues, "Here in America, our success should depend not on an
accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams…
Opportunity is who we are. And the defining project of our generation must be to restore
that promise." For the President, restoring this promise begins with getting people access
to jobs via some kind of postsecondary training.
vii. 2015 State of the Union Address
In President Obama's second to last State of the Union address, he directly tackles
the issue of income inequality. The President asked, "Will we accept an economy where
only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that
generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?” At this point,
the economy has turned around from the 2007-2009 crisis. Rather than focusing on the
overall unhealthiness of the national economy, the President can now think about
persistent inequality within the United States and advocate for solutions that would
compress income inequality.
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The 2015 address is highly celebratory. As the President lauds the nation's return
to pre-recession unemployment rates, he points to the fact that more Americans were
finishing college than ever before. Through this celebration, he once again argues about
the importance of the G.I. bill in affecting the social mobility of a generation of veterans,
and the effects of a college-education on wages. In this 2015 speech, the President sends
a proposal to Congress, and asks that the cost of college be reduced to zero for those who
are willing to work for it.
viii. 2016 State of the Union Address
In the President's last State of the Union, delivered in January of 2016, he makes a
point of delivering a shorter speech and reducing the number of overall policy proposals
in the speech. His discussion of higher education and college is at an all time low since
his 2012 speech. Yet, he still incorporates a short pitch for making college affordable for
all Americans and briefly mentions his initiative to make the first two years of
community college free. The brevity of his push here may be due to the fact that he is
nearing the end of his term and does not expect much action from congress in the last
year of his presidency.
II.
Obama’s Discursive Construction of Community Colleges
Now that I have laid out the broader narrative backing the President’s higher
education agenda, I will look directly at his references to community colleges.
Community colleges are a national priority for President Obama. Embedded in the
President’s rhetoric is the premise that community college educations are an obvious
pathway to a good job. Job-readiness both presents a positive private good and positive
public, national good. For the President, those who are able to secure decent wages are
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put in the position of realizing the American Dream, and play a role in the narrative of
American Individualism by securing their private interests. In addition, those who are
able to secure decent wages, contribute to the health and success of broader American
economic system, which serves a public, national interest. Below is a table including all
of the statements within the corpus that reference “community college” or “community
colleges.” The table also indicates whether the rhetoric discursively frames community
colleges as primarily serving a national interest or an individual interest. In the following
discussion, the analysis of the President’s discursive framing of community colleges
relies heavily on the rhetoric included in the table.
TABLE 1. Community College Specific Rhetoric in the State of the Union
Addresses
State
of the
Union
Address
Interest
Served
Community College References
2009
National
Interest
“It is our responsibility as lawmakers and as educators to make this
system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in
it. So tonight I ask every American to commit to at least 1 year or more
of higher education or career training. This can be community college
or a 4-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But
whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more
than a high school diploma.”
2010
Individual
Interest
“Still, in this economy, a high school diploma no longer guarantees a
good job. That's why I urge the Senate to follow the House and pass a
bill that will revitalize our community colleges, which are a career
pathway to the children of so many working families.”
2011
National
Interest
“Already, we've mobilized business leaders to train 10,000 American
engineers a year, by providing company internships and training. Other
businesses are covering tuition for workers who learn new skills at
community colleges. And we're going to make sure the next generation
of manufacturing takes root not in China or Europe, but right here in the
United States of America. If we provide the right incentives, the right
support—and if we make sure our trading partners play by the rules—
we can be the ones to build everything from fuel-efficient cars to
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advanced biofuels to semiconductors that we sell all around the world.
That's how America can be number one again. And that's how America
will be number one again”
“Ask yourselves: Where would we be right now if the people who sat
here before us decided not to build our highways, not to build our
bridges, our dams, our airports? What would this country be like if we
had chosen not to spend money on public high schools or research
universities or community colleges? Millions of returning heroes,
including my grandfather, had the opportunity to go to school because
of the GI bill. Where would we be if they hadn't had that chance?”
2013
National
Interest
“Let's also make sure that a high school diploma puts our kids on a path
to a good job. Right now countries like Germany focus on graduating
their high school students with the equivalent of a technical degree from
one of our community colleges. So those German kids, they're ready for
a job when they graduate high school. They've been trained for the jobs
that are there. Now at schools like P–TECH in Brooklyn, a collaboration
between New York Public Schools and City University of New York
and IBM, students will graduate with a high school diploma and an
associate's degree in computers or engineering. We need to give every
American student opportunities like this.”
2014
National
Interest
“So tonight I've asked Vice President Biden to lead an across-the-board
reform of America's training programs to make sure they have one
mission: train Americans with the skills employers need and match them
to good jobs that need to be filled right now. That means more on-thejob training and more apprenticeships that set a young worker on an
upward trajectory for life. It means connecting companies to
community colleges that can help design training to fill their specific
needs. And if Congress wants to help, you can concentrate funding on
proven programs that connect more ready-to-work Americans with
ready-to-be-filled jobs.”
2015
Individual
Interest
“As the crisis worsened, Ben's business dried up, so he took what jobs
he could find, even if they kept him on the road for long stretches of
time. Rebekah took out student loans and enrolled in community
college and retrained for a new career. They sacrificed for each other.
And slowly, it paid off. They bought their first home. They had a second
son Henry. Rebekah got a better job and then a raise. Ben is back in
construction and home for dinner every night.”
Individual
Interest
(paragraphs
1-3)
National
“By the end of this decade, two in three job openings will require some
higher education—two in three. And yet we still live in a country where
too many bright, striving Americans are priced out of the education they
need. It's not fair to them, and it's sure not smart for our future. And
that's why I'm sending this Congress a bold new plan to lower the cost
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2016
Interest
(paragraph
4)
of community college to zero.
Keep in mind, 40 percent of our college students choose
community college. Some are young and starting out. Some are older
and looking for a better job. Some are veterans and single parents trying
to transition back into the job market. Whoever you are, this plan is your
chance to graduate ready for the new economy without a load of debt.
Understand, you've got to earn it. You've got to keep your grades up and
graduate on time.
Tennessee, a State with Republican leadership, and Chicago, a
city with Democratic leadership, are showing that free community
college is possible. I want to spread that idea all across America so that
2 years of college becomes as free and universal in America as high
school is today. Let's stay ahead of the curve. And I want to work with
this Congress to make sure those already burdened with student loans
can reduce their monthly payments so that student debt doesn't derail
anyone's dreams.
Thanks to Vice President Biden's great work to update our job
training system, we're connecting community colleges with local
employers to train workers to fill high-paying jobs like coding and
nursing and robotics. Tonight I'm also asking more businesses to follow
the lead of companies like CVS and UPS and offer more educational
benefits and paid apprenticeships, opportunities that give workers the
chance to earn higher paying jobs even if they don't have a higher
education.”
Individual
Interest
“And we have to make college affordable for every American. No hardworking student should be stuck in the red. We've already reduced
student loan payments by—to 10 percent of a borrower's income. And
that's good. But now we've actually got to cut the cost of college.
Providing 2 years of community college at no cost for every responsible
student is one of the best ways to do that, and I'm going to keep fighting
to get that started this year. It's the right thing to do.”
The President’s discussion of community colleges as fulfilling a national interest
focuses on the role of community colleges in connecting students to jobs, developing
students’ skills, and outcompeting other nations’ economies and education systems. In
the 2009 State of the Union, the President considers community colleges as a valid
mechanism for delivering higher education or career training. The punch line of this
description is that “every American will need to get more than a high school diploma” in
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order to fulfill their civic duty. Through this language, the President signals that an
increasingly educated American populace is a national priority, stating, “it is the
responsibility of every citizen to participate in it [this education system of higher
education].” For Obama, community colleges serve as one of many possible avenues for
Americans to participate in fulfilling this national priority.
Rhetoric that links American national interests and community colleges arises
again in the 2011 and 2014 State of the Union Addresses, during which the President
argues that community colleges can equip American citizens with skills that will
contribute directly to American economic competitiveness in the manufacturing industry.
In 2011, the president defines community colleges as an avenue for skills-acquisition, not
as a pathway for a well-rounded education. In the 2014 State of the Union Address, the
language of national interest takes the form of the need to “train Americans with the
skills employers need and match them to good jobs that need to filled right now.” In this
speech, the President reaffirms a sentiment from his 2011 addresses: community colleges
are an important avenue for equipping Americans with 21st century skills.
The 2013 national address also incorporates language about American
competitiveness; however, this time, Obama not only speaks about increasing the
capacity of the United States, but also about directly outcompeting other nation’s models.
Here, he cites the German model of education as an outstanding example the United
States has yet to beat. The President outlines the German high school system, which
graduates high school students “with an equivalent of a technical degree from one of our
community colleges.” The rhetoric in this speech is particularly important because it
Patel 33
seals the president’s view that community colleges are primarily skills-acquisition centers
without reference to any broader ideal of higher education.
The President’s rhetoric that community colleges serve individual interests
centers on the importance of affordable college, connecting students to high paying jobs,
and being able to provide for one’s self and one’s family. Obama’s discursive framing of
community colleges as serving individual, private interests draws heavily on themes
found in the myth of the American Dream or the themes of American individualism,
which are heavily embedded into the American social imagination. For example, in his
2010 address, the President speaks to the importance of investing in community colleges
and revitalizing an institution that can serve as a valuable career pathway to the children
of working families. In this speech, the President offers a genuine push to reinvesting in a
social institution that would allow hard-working blue-collar families and their children
the opportunity to achieve their career and life aspirations. In 2016, Obama makes the
case that college, including community college, should be made affordable for all
Americans. Obama focuses directly on the needs of individual students when he states,
“no hard-working student should be stuck in the red… Providing 2 years of community
college at no cost for every responsible student is one of the best ways to do that.” Here,
his appeal is centered on the hard-working characteristics of students; since students are
putting in tremendous effort to obtain an education, they deserve access to an affordable,
non-penalizing education system.
The President does not rely upon an individual interest based appeal again until
his 2015 address. It is during the 2015 address that the President provides his lengthiest
discussion of community colleges. He dedicates five paragraphs of discussion to
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community colleges as compared to a single paragraph of discussion in all other
addresses referencing community colleges. Here, the President draws on Rebekah and
Ben’s narrative – a story of how a community college education helped a young couple
turn their life around, and enter new, profitable career pathways. “As the economic crisis
worsened, Ben's business dried up, so he took what jobs he could find, even if they kept
him on the road for long stretches of time. Rebekah took out student loans and enrolled in
community college and retrained for a new career. They sacrificed for each other. And
slowly, it paid off. They bought their first home. They had a second son Henry. Rebekah
got a better job and then a raise. Ben is back in construction and home for dinner every
night.” Here, the story of Ben and Rebekah represents two Americans whose individual
interests benefitted greatly from the community college system.
At times, the president discursively frames community colleges as serving both
national and individual interests. In 2015, Obama pushes for congress to embrace a bold
new plan to lower the cost of community college to zero. The President emphasizes the
popularity of community college as an option amongst Americans, stating, “40% of our
college students choose community college.” He even uses the address to make an appeal
to companies and organizations to follow the model of providing educational benefits and
apprenticeship opportunities to increase workers’ access to higher paying jobs. While this
proposal would bolster the appeal to national, public interests of improving the health of
the overall economy by increasing opportunity, it also directly increases benefits to
individual workers who are able to benefit from such programs. As I go to show in the
next chapter, the times when the president discursively frames the public and private
realms as respectively having mutually exclusive national and individual interests may
Patel 35
not make as much sense as his 2016 rhetoric, which speaks to the overlapping concerns
of the nation and individuals.
Throughout his addresses, Obama’s discussion of community college engages
critical concepts about what community college is good for and what the role of
community colleges might be in fulfilling individual and national economic needs. In the
next chapter, I will explore how the President’s framing of community colleges within his
speeches speaks to his view about the role of this sector of higher education in shaping
the contours of American opportunity.
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CHAPTER 4: POLITICAL THEORY ANALYSIS
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S OPPORTUNITY AGENDA
“The bottom line is, Michelle and I want every child to have the same chance this
country gave us. But we know our opportunity agenda won't be complete, and too many
young people entering the workforce today will see the American Dream as an empty
promise, unless we also do more to make sure our economy honors the dignity of work
and hard work pays off for every single American.” – President Barack Obama, 2014
State of the Union Address
When President Obama calls upon the United States Congress to help realize a free,
public education system, specifically a zero-tuition community college system, he is
advocating for what he labels, “the opportunity agenda.” In making his case, the
President draws on the philosophical principle of equality of opportunity— the political
ideal that all people deserve equal access to opportunities. The president thinks there exist
inequalities across dimensions of wealth, dignity, and welfare between those who have
college degrees and those who do not have a college degree. For Obama, equality of
opportunity looks like leveling the playing field such that young people entering the
workforce have even chances.
In the last chapter, I introduced two motivating factors driving Obama’s
opportunity agenda: public and private interests. A robust community college system in
the United States is good for both the nation and individual members of the nation. The
public-private, or national-individual, categorization informs the President’s opportunity
agenda in the following way. First, he thinks equality of opportunity is important
Patel 37
because individuals deserve fair treatment. Second, he recalls the story of the American
dream and draws in, as evidence, that America is founded on the principle of equality of
opportunity. While categorizing the President’s theory about the opportunistic ends of
community colleges between private, individual interest and public, national interest
appears to be a logical result of the President’s rhetoric, the notions of private and public
interests need to be better understood in order to define the bounds of how opportunity
serves individuals as opposed to the nation.
The President’s appeals to public and private interests may have been selected
because of the overall context in which the President presents his paradigm for
organizing the nation’s higher education policy agendas. The State of the Union Address
speaks to individual Americans and their families as it is played on television sets across
the country. At the same time, the address is delivered to the nation as a whole. It
captures the attention of the relevant, federal-level policymakers. As a result it seems like
the content of the speech must both appeal to a public and private reason. Thus, Obama’s
discursive framing of public interest as separate from private interest in each of his
statements about community colleges— with the exception of the 2015 statement— does
not capture the full picture of how national and individual interests interact with one
another. Below, I offer three models for thinking about this interaction between the
public and private realms.
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FIGURE 1. Conceptual Frameworks for Understanding Private & Public Interest
Through this diagram, I attempt to question whether individuals can hold purely private
interests since most of our conceptions about the world and how to best proceed are
imported from our social experience and knowledge of the specific social and cultural
context we live within.29 One way of grounding this abstract thought in a meaningful
example is to apply it to the context of how individuals develop their desire for
community college educations. There are strong reasons for thinking extrinsic, social
pressures shape individuals’ rationales for pursuing community college educations. For
example, employers’ demands for specific credentials might motivate individuals to
attend community college or the President’s request that all citizens attend at least one
year of postsecondary education might serve as a motivator. Each of these rationales
serves the broader public interest of increasing the number of highly skilled workers in
the American economy.
29
Goldman, Alvin and Blanchard, Thomas, "Social Epistemology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/epistemology-social/>.
Patel 39
Given the likelihood that the public interest that students should become
credentialed may help shape students’ rationales for having a private interest in a
community college, it is important to remember the background complexity when one
delineates between private and public interest. Furthermore, in my following analysis,
which may, at times, delineate between private and public interests, it will be important
to remember that private and public interests are not mutually exclusive realms.
Individual interests are necessary to achieving public interests and vice versa. For
example, public interests like national competitiveness are also desirable to the private
interest, which benefits from living in an economically healthy social context.
The notion of equality of opportunity as serving the interests of individuals who
live within the United States can be traced back to the Declaration of Independence,
which reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Obama’s opportunity agenda, which
advocates for a robustly accessible higher education system, necessarily implies higher
education is a part of the project of individuals’ rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness. Creating policy and practice that reinforces the principle of equality of
opportunity strengthens core egalitarian-based principles of the nation.
Obama points to a problem that arises in non-ideal worlds, where the principles
embedded within the Declaration of Independence and the American dream have yet to
be realized. While the structure of the higher education system allows some people from
middle-income backgrounds to get a 'world class education,' not all people from middleincome backgrounds have the opportunity to receive 'world-class' educations. The
Patel 40
problem of inequality of opportunity that arises in the non-ideal world prompts corrective
policy interventions. For Obama such an intervention includes his American College
Promise proposal. Obama thinks community colleges can help minimize the gap between
those who are better prepared for entering the workforce and those who are less prepared.
In his view, community colleges represent the opportunity for an accessible, careeroriented preparation. The President indicates that a society, which adequately espouses
principles of equality of opportunity, will ensure all Americans attend some kind of
higher education institution. However, the onus is not just on society or government, it is
also the responsibility of the citizens of society to access further education. Obama
expresses this sentiment when, in 2009, he argues, “it is the responsibility of every citizen
to participate in … 1 year or more of higher education or career training.”
Before conducting a further analysis of what Obama’s opportunity agenda means
for community colleges, I will describe what opportunity means and outline an
explanation of the various theories of equality of opportunity. These political ideals can
help us better understand what Obama means by equality of opportunity. In analyzing
Obama’s discussion of opportunity, it is worth first dissecting what kinds of opportunity
he thinks community colleges can open up, namely economic opportunity and
opportunity to participate in the economy. Furthermore, identifying whom Obama thinks
should benefit from these two ends of opportunity can help fill in the scope of how
opportunity operates in the experience of individuals and the record of the
nation. Finally, it is worth outlining why he thinks opening the doors to opportunity is
important.
Patel 41
Opportunity describes a set of circumstances that make it possible to do
something. One might be described as having opportunity for employment if one has the
right technical degree, social connections, and interest in employment. In The Concept of
Equal Opportunity, Peter Westen, a philosopher, describes opportunity as having “three
covert elements.” These include an agent, the agent’s desired outcomes, and the agent’s
respective hurdles.30 The characteristic of having opportunity is normally described
using favorable terms, having the opportunity to travel, to rest, to become
employed. Each of these circumstances are generally viewed as desirable activities. As a
contrast, opportunity is generally not used describe a set of unfavorable
circumstances. For example, it would be unlikely that one would say they had the
opportunity to get into a cycling accident or to get fired from their job. Opportunity as a
political ideal can be found in a taxonomy of concepts within the broader discussions
about democracy.
Democracy is a government system predicated on the participation and
affirmation of every member of the state. Understanding the connection between equality
of opportunity as a concept and democracy as a political theory will play an important
role in understanding my analysis of Obama’s discursive framing toward the end of this
chapter. Usually, the process of membership participation in the political decisionmaking of democratic societies is carried out by elected representation. Political theorists
describe ideal conditions for democracy as being invested in the political, legal, and
moral equality of every citizen. Given healthy democracies assume all citizens are equal,
such social, political systems would also be characterized as having institutions that offer
an equality of opportunity to all people. An egalitarian defense of democracy would
30
Westen, Peter. "The Concept of Equal Opportunity." Ethics 95.4 (1985): 837-50. Web.
Patel 42
normatively require the structure of society to equally advance the interests of all
members of the respective society.31 The assertion of public equality may require equality
of wellbeing, equality of opportunity, or equality of outcome. In this discussion, I focus
primarily on the equality of opportunity dimension, and draw on other notions of equality
simply as points of contrast.
There are several senses of equality of opportunity, including formal equality of
opportunity, which might fulfill the requirements of democracy. These senses of equality
of opportunity include, meritocratic conception of equality of opportunity, equality of
opportunity for welfare, and fair equality of opportunity. In a society with a formalized
principle of equality of opportunity - an autocratic society in which the production and
distribution of goods are centrally controlled - people compete for access to positions,
which are open to all applicants. Applicants are selected for positions through a
meritocratic process, and the most qualified applicants are encouraged to fill superior
positions. 32 The meritocratic conception of equality of opportunity aims to achieve social
and political dynamics that ensure a person’s effort and intelligence contribute to
decisions about opportunity. Such societies seek to suppress discriminatory or nepotistic
rationales for allocating opportunity.33
While the formal and meritocratic conceptions of equality of opportunity focus on
the execution of certain straightforward decision-making processes that adhere to a set of
rules and principles, the equality of opportunity for welfare and fair equality of
opportunity emphasize policy and practice which would adequately correct existing
31
Arneson, Richard, "Equality of Opportunity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/equalopportunity/>.
32
Arneson, Richard.
33
Williams, Bernard. “The Idea Of Equality”. In Philosophy, Politics, And Society, 110-131.
Philosophy, Politics, And Society. London: Basil Blackwell, 1962.
Patel 43
social inequity. Equality of opportunity for welfare demands that each person should
have opportunity for equal welfare over the course of his or her life. For people in this
camp, the only way in which individuals might not have equal welfare would be if
individuals voluntarily chose otherwise.34 Society has no obligation to individuals who,
for example, decide to quit their job and become beach bums. However, society has an
obligation to remedy the situation of individuals whose workplace burned down due to a
natural disaster and no fault of the individuals who worked there. Proponents of fair
equality of opportunity argue that broader social inequity, which operates in the
background of people’s lived experiences, count as direct hurdles to individuals’ abilities
to realize their desired outcomes.35 Under such a view, a centrally located authority
might be called upon to redistribute resources, and ensure people from all backgrounds
have the appropriate amount of support such that all individuals have an equal chance of
success.
Each view of equality of opportunity would require a different kind of social or
governmental system with increased or decreased scope of policymaking and
redistribution within the public and private realms. Take, for example, formal equality of
opportunity. This idealization of equality of opportunity complies easily with public,
centrally or electorally-planned realms of society. However, the idealization is limited to
this public sphere and does not extend to resource distribution in the private sphere.
Community colleges have historically played an important role in augmenting
American residents’ opportunity to receive an education, either liberal arts or vocational
in nature. Educational settings offer individuals a set of circumstances that might increase
34
35
Cohen, Gerald A. “On The Currency Of Egalitarian Justice”. Ethics, Ethics, 1989, 906-944.
Rawls, John. A Theory Of Justice, Revised Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Patel 44
individuals’ respective opportunity in a variety of ways, including increasing individuals’
opportunity to learn, to engage new concepts, to increase civic competencies, to earn
pedigrees that serve as signaling mechanisms in the market, or to gain skills that might be
useful in securing a job. The type of opportunity that increases is directly related to the
content of the education received. For example, a vocational degree program preparing a
person in cosmetology may increase an individual’s opportunity to secure a job while
unfulfilling that individual’s opportunity to increase their civic competencies.
One type of opportunity the President focuses on is the economic opportunity
education can offer individuals. In his rhetoric within the State of the Union Addresses,
the President positions community college as meeting a national goal of preparing
individuals with the skills necessary for competing in the global marketplace. A second
type of opportunity the President identifies is individuals’ opportunity to participate in the
economy. This type of opportunity is implicitly important for achieving national
economic competitiveness via individuals’ uptake of jobs and spending in the
economy. Both ways of framing opportunity require a job to be the ends of a community
college education. The President’s single-minded view that community colleges increase
equality of opportunity for individual’s access to jobs omits any discussion of other
important opportunities community college educations might be equipped to deliver.
The President’s narrow perspective about the role of community colleges as
career centers is starkly different from the views of his predecessors who were also
champions of the community college system. In particular, President Truman is
considered to be the first president to develop a national rhetoric about higher
education. The Truman Commission focused on higher education as a means of realizing
Patel 45
access, equality, and democracy. The Commission released a six series volume, where
the first volume was entitled Higher Education for American Democracy and the second
volume was entitled Equalizing and Expanding Educational Opportunity. As the titles
suggest, a central proposal was to adopt a curriculum attuned to the needs of a healthy
democracy. The Truman Commission advocated the federal government play a larger
role in promoting access in higher education by providing financial assistance to public
institutions that would offer educations to individuals regardless of their race, creed, sex
or national origin. The Commission also called for the democratization of the
postsecondary system though an increase in overall attendance of higher education
institutions. The Commission called for system wide investment and growth that would
make it possible to double the college-going rate by 1960.36
Under Truman, increasing access to education was important because it opened
up opportunity to higher education for any qualified young person. The second
commission argued, “It is the responsibility of the community, at the local, State, and
National levels, to guarantee that financial barriers do not prevent any able and otherwise
qualified young person from receiving the opportunity for higher education.37” Compare
this to President Obama who explicitly discusses community college as providing young
people with the opportunity for employment. Here, each president values increasing
access to education for different ends of equality of opportunity.
While Truman’s notion of the ends of community colleges centers on their civic
ends, he does not deny the economic importance of community colleges. For example,
36
Bragg, Debra D. "Community college access, mission, and outcomes: Considering intriguing
intersections and challenges." Peabody Journal of Education 76.1 (2001): 93-116.
37
Heller, Donald E. The states and public higher education policy: Affordability, access, and
accountability. JHU Press, 2001.
Patel 46
the Truman commission report reads, “The democratic community cannot tolerate a
society based upon education for the well-to-do alone (Vol. II, p. 23).38” A substantial
middle class is not only a sign of a healthy economy, but it is also among the most
important characteristics of stable democratic states. Under conditions in which members
of a social union share an equality of opportunity and freedoms that promote economic
prosperity, there is a substantial middle class, sandwiched by a less substantial upper and
lower socioeconomic class. The Truman administration’s higher education discussion
integrated notions of democratizing access to higher education by making community
colleges readily accessible to people of lower-income and middle-income
backgrounds. President Truman consequently called for the establishment of community
colleges as a formally recognized component of the American system of higher
education.39 Truman’s focus on the middle class is echoed in Obama’s advocacy for
community college systems.
The contrast between Truman’s conception of community colleges and Obama’s
conception reveals something further about the how President Obama thinks about
equality of opportunity. One might argue that Obama’s articulation – access to
community colleges as providing an opportunity to jobs as opposed to access to
community colleges as an opportunity to pursue higher education or gain civic
competencies – hints that Obama’s perspective on the role of higher education seeks to
realize equal opportunity for welfare. Obama presents a view that takes the opportunity
for higher education as an experience for granted and wants to guarantee a broader
welfare outcome for American students. By labeling jobs as the ends of community
38
Perna, Laura W., and Anthony Jones. The state of college access and completion: Improving college
success for students from underrepresented groups. Routledge, 2013.
39
Vaughan, George B. The community college story. Amer. Assn. of Community Col, 2006. p 42.
Patel 47
colleges rather than education in and of itself, perhaps the President is expressing a
different economically motivated view about what welfare for American citizens might
look like.
Yet, the interpretation of the President’s focus on the economic welfare for
American residents should not be mistaken with an equal outcomes type view or a strong
equality of opportunity for welfare or fair equality of opportunity viewpoint. The
President provides a fairly limited description of where the gaps in equality of
opportunity fall in higher education. He only speaks to the disparities between those who
have some kind of education and those who have none at all; he does not discuss the
disparity in well-being for those who receive college degrees from elite institutions and
those who receive degrees or certifications from less prestigious institutions, community
colleges. Given that the President does not discuss the disparities in welfare between
those who have a community college education and those who receive four-year degrees,
it seems like he is not immediately interested in achieving a vision of America in which
there is equal welfare for all individuals. Rather, the President views community colleges
as aiding in a broader social project: ensuring that each member of society can feasibly
achieve a minimal welfare standard.
The analytical framework justified by the end of chapter three picks up on
President Obama’s articulation of who community colleges are good for: national
interests and individual interests. In chapter four, I delved deeper into understanding how
these two categorizations of interests need not be understood as mutually exclusive, and
how categorization scheme reveals something about the President’s theory of equality of
opportunity. In understanding the President’s opportunity agenda, individuals’ ability to
Patel 48
get a job, serves both national and individual interests. For the President, proper
utilization of and investment in the community college system helps individuals secure a
job, which in turn ensures equality of opportunity for individuals’ economic welfare and
equality of opportunity to participate in the national economy. When President Obama’s
justifications for community colleges are compared to President Truman’s call to
establish a nation-wide community college system, Obama’s emphasis on the ends of
community colleges as economic engines is directly contrasted with community colleges
as serving educational or civic ends. The omission of language describing the civic
purposes of community college education contributes to the view that community
colleges’ value lies in their ability to provide individuals with the opportunity to perform
to the needs of employers in order to achieve a minimal welfare standard.
Patel 49
CHAPTER 5: CONLUDING REMARKS
THE VOCATIONAL – CIVIC DIVIDE: WHAT’S MISSING?
The verdict is in: The vocational ends of education have eclipsed the civic purposes of
education. Community colleges, the economic engines of America, have been charged as
the sector of the higher education ecosystem, which will help individual Americans meet
their respective vocational ends. Through the content of his State of the Union
Addresses, President Obama placed the hottest spotlight on the community college
system since President Truman first called for the system’s establishment. In referencing
community colleges within seven out of eight of his State of the Union Addresses,
President Obama offers the nation with political language for thinking about the role
community colleges can play in the future of the country. Two appeals underpin this
theory about community colleges. The first directly fulfills individual economic interest
by increasing individuals’ equality of opportunity to economic outcomes, namely
securing a job. The second fulfills national economic interest by increasing individuals’
equality of opportunity to participate in the economy, increasing the collective’s ability to
secure jobs and maintain national economic competitiveness.
In describing current trends in higher education policymaking circles at a
conference entitled, Education’s Digital Future, Bryan Murphy, president of Deanza
Community College in Cupertino, CA, asserted, “a language of economism has
dominated the national conversation about American higher education.40” The lexicon of
this language of economism can be curated from President Obama’s State of the Union
discourse about both higher education, more broadly, and community colleges, more
40
"New Forms of College Access." Education's Digital Future. StanfordCEPA, 24 May 2013. Web. 20
May 2016. <http://edf.stanford.edu/topics/new-forms-college-access>.
Patel 50
narrowly. For Obama, the outcomes of education are about the jobs students can acquire
post-graduation.
Obama seeks a community college system that can increase individuals equality
of opportunity to securing a job and therefore to participating in the national
economy. For Obama, reinvesting in this sector of education by lowering tuition of
community colleges marks a step in the right direction. The president’s language of
economism is backed up by research coming out of the Department of Education, which
highlights data regarding the returns to community college educations. For example,
large-scale studies, spanning six states and adjusting for factors like subject studied,
GPA, and college attended, indicate that the average community college graduate earns
$5,400 more than those who drop out of community college and do not earn a degree.
Yet, this research and its role in driving the language of economism about community
colleges does not address potential civic demands on community colleges – thereby
standing at odds with the civic purposes of education.
The omission of the civic purposes of community colleges presents a gross
oversight. Scholar and litigator, Michael Rebell writes that the New York State Court of
Appeals alongside twenty more state courts in the United States have affirmed that public
education has a “responsibility to prepare students to be capable citizens in the modern
world.41” While the state-level judicial system has sent a direct message about the
purpose of public education, the discussion about civics in the policymaking sphere has
lagged behind. In neglecting the discussion about the civic purposes of education,
41
Rebell, Michael A. "Adequacy litigations: A new path to equity." Bringing equity back: Research for a
new era in American educational policy (2005): 291-323.
Patel 51
President Obama may be contributing to a national rhetoric about civics that becomes
stagnant and underdeveloped.
The Community College represents a particular sector of the higher education
system. According to the Digest of Education Statistics, the United States has 1,655
publicly funded community colleges. These colleges enroll about 10.1 million students
on a year-round basis.42 The demographics of the system are also different than four-year
institutions because community colleges are generally cheaper options that are located
close to home. Educational Longitudinal Study data from 2002 to 2006 indicates that
low-income students are more likely to choose to attend community college initially
compared to high-income students. An analysis of the data reveals that 44% of students
whose family incomes are less than $25,000 a year choose to attend community college
immediately after high school whereas only 15% of high-income students choose
community college as their first option. Moreover, 50% of Hispanic students and 31% of
black students choose community colleges initially as compared to 28% of white
students.43 While it is not clear how making community college free will shift the
socioeconomic and racial composition of the community college, when President Obama
uses a narrative of economism to describe the purposes of community college he is
directly shaping educational outcomes for this particular demographic of students.
Moreover, he is narrowing the emphasis of education for these students to the vocational
realm. Bryan Murphy takes issue with this language of economism, arguing that it crafts
42
Community College Facts at a Glance. U.S. Department of Education, 25 Oct. 2005. Web. 20 May 2016.
<http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/cclo/ccfacts.html>.
43
"Community College FAQs." Community College Research Center. Teachers College Columbia
University, n.d. Web. 20 May 2016. <http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Community-College-FAQs.html>.
Patel 52
the community college as a career center or professional development program, not a
venue for genuine, necessary civics educations.
What is lost in this college-to-job narrative is the broader purposes of American
higher education. The question is not just “Do you have access to college?” It is what
kind of education do you have access to and what purposes does this education
serve? Centering the conversation on the price of community colleges assumes the only
narrative for the obstacles facing our education system is a financial narrative. The
assumption is that the deficit in American society is a deficit of skilled workers, a deficit
of workers who are trained to meet the needs of business. However, there are also other
sorts of deficits in American society, including active, engaged, informed citizens who
can both advocate for their communities and hold down a job. Community college
students need jobs, but they also need access to the freedom to have some sort of
ownership over their lives. The skillset these students seek are not just the skillset
demanded by the employer, but also the skillset that will allow them to negotiate with
their employers and protect their own rights. These students require skillsets, which
would allow them to engage in the democratic process, and engage in their rightful place
in a democratic society.
The national narrative that prioritizes jobs as an outcome of the community
college education misses out on the regionally-specific outcomes students seek. For
example, in Silicon Valley, community college students come from a wide variety of
racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Yet, all students are facing similar regional
challenges, including the ongoing housing crisis. In the valley, these students will need
Patel 53
the necessary democratic skills to protect themselves and their communities from
displacement.44
Take, Chicago, for example. In the windy city, the demographic composition of the
community rapidly changed between 2000 and 2010. The community colleges of the city
serve as hubs to meet regional needs, which may include needs that would otherwise not
directly served by community colleges that solely function as economic engines. In the
state of Illinois, the Latinx community has grown by 28.9% and the Asian community has
grown by 32.5%. In Chicago, the community college will need to help equip the Latinx
and Asian communities with skills to get jobs, but also with the democratic skills to
secure adequate local representation. In a city where, 29% of the population is Latinx
and only 15% of representation on the city council is Latinx, Latinx students’ interests lie
in learning the skills that would not only get them a job, but would also allow them to
ensure that their rights are protected by their local leadership.45 In both cases, Silicon
Valley and Chicago, there is a strong overlap across regionally specific demands and the
demands of a democratically engaged citizen.
In some senses, Obama’s framing of community colleges as economic engines,
which would increase overall equality of opportunity, is motivated by existing inequity.
Obama’s rhetoric about the role of higher education in strengthening the middle class
reveals an underlying dissatisfaction with individuals’ quality of life at the lower ends of
the wage distribution. The president thinks narrowing the wage distribution and creating
a strong middle class can occur if enough Americans have the right skills. French
44
Phillips, Dawn, Luis Flores, and Jamila Henderson. Development without Displacement: Resisting
Gentrification in the Bay Area. N.p.: Causa Justa::Just Cause, 2014. Web.
45
Matthew Hall, Population Change during Trying Times: Illinois’ New Demographic Reality,
Unpublished paper, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois.
https://igpa.uillinois.edu/system/files/Illinois_Population_Change_IGPA_0.pdf
Patel 54
economist, Thomas Piketty writes, “the principal mechanism for convergence of incomes
and wealth at the domestic level is the diffusion of knowledge.” Piketty directly reflects
the President’s theory in his writing, “the poor catch up with the rich to the extent that
they achieve the same level of technological know-how, skill, and
education.46” However, the President does not justify his implicit assumption that the
vocationalization of the most accessible sector of our education system is an avenue for
reducing economic inequality. Without this justification, the President’s language of
economism throughout the State of the Union Addresses may not provide a trustworthy
framing of community college educations.
The issue I see with the economic turn in our community college system is not the
verity of the claims made by Obama or Piketty. Rather, the concern is that when asked,
“what community college is for?,” the President’s vocational narrative has excluded civic
alternatives. American society contains a variety of inequalities of opportunity, including
access to education or the political process. A multi-purpose education could help reduce
the barrier in these unfairly structured arenas47 – perhaps even a well-rounded community
college education. Unfortunately, the President’s narrowed rhetoric implicitly contends
there is one dominant, exigent form of inequality in the U.S., an economic form.
There is reason to doubt the President’s college-to-career community college
paradigm. Dani Rodrik, an economist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard, posits severe economic inequality is the product of poorly designed resource-
46
Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press, 2014.
Merisotis, Jamie, and Dan Greenstein. "Education Does Reduce Inequality." Wall Street Journal. N.p., 9
Apr. 2015. Web. 20 May 2016. <http://www.wsj.com/articles/education-does-reduce-inequality1428619552>.
47
Patel 55
distributive policy, which, in turn, is the result of politics.48 Rodrik’s view flies in the
face of economists like Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAffee who, in their coauthored book Race Against the Machine, argue that severe income inequality is the
product of workforce automation and globalization.49 Under this view, reaffirmed by
Danielle Allen, correcting economic inequality requires correcting economic policies:
“The civic conception of education suggests a very different way to understand the link
between education and equality. This understanding begins with the recognition that fair
economic outcomes are aided by a robust democratic process and, therefore, by genuine
political equality. Thus an education focused not merely on technical skills, but also on
what I call participatory readiness, provides a distinct and better way to promote equality
through schooling.50”
The debate about the purposes of higher education is an ongoing conversation
amongst American philosophers and political scientists. In a recently released set of
essays, Danielle Allen opens a debate about the reasons for demanding a humanities
education. Her conversation traces the historical purposes of education through two
paradigms: “equality and the vocational paradigm” and “equality and the participatory
paradigm.51” Philosophers of education and politics, Rob Reich and Deborah Satz,
engage Allen’s conversation with a deeper discussion about the purposes of education
and higher education.
48
Rodrik, Dani. "Good and bad inequality." Social Europe, www. socialeurope. eu/2014/12/goodbadinequality (2014).
49
Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee. Race against the machine: How the digital revolution is
accelerating innovation, driving productivity, and irreversibly transforming employment and the economy.
Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2012.
50 50
Allen, Danielle. "What Is Education For?" Boston Review. N.p., 9 May 2016. Web. 20 May 2016.
<https://bostonreview.net/forum/danielle-allen-what-education>.
51
Allen, Danielle.
Patel 56
Within the bounds of this more recent conversation amongst American
philosophers, the consensus seems to be that the economic ends of education forcefully
leave no room for discussion of the civic ends of education. In my discussion, I take a
more conservative view: it seems that we are just forgetting to talk about the civic
purposes of these community college institutions. I think there needs to be further study
about the nature of these civic and economic ends before philosophers can make claims
about whether or not one can necessarily exclude the other.
Still, within the ground covered by the recent set of essays and my own thesis,
there is a broad set of questions, which have yet to be asked. In further consideration of
this topic, I would hope philosophers take up a more close study of how exactly
economic and civic ends interact in an age of industry that demands more of its
workforce in terms of skills and training. What is the new civic? Perhaps, the reason why
civic purposes seem underserved in our new system is because we continue to apply an
old set of understandings about what counts as a civic education.
Patel 57
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