BERKELEY, Calif. – President Obama’s “free” community college proposal has an unlikely opponent: A Berkeley leftist community college professor.

“President Obama’s proposal for ‘free’ community college should excite me, as a community college professor who works daily with those students perched precariously on the outermost edge of higher education,” writes Adam Bessie, Berkeley, California community college English professor, according to his Twitter bio.

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He fears Obama’s proposal would follow the way of his K-12 “Race to the Top” stimulus initiative which provided funds if states passed school reforms favored by his administration.

School districts quickly found the money came with strings attached and increased the role the federal government has over local schools.

Bessie says the “free” community college scheme will follow the same path.

I worry that “free” college may be a Trojan horse for implementing a Race to the Top (RTTT) for higher education, which has been a disastrous policy for K-12 education. RTTT, which is essentially No Child Left Behind rebranded, uses the force of the federal government to institute a regime of standardized testing and so-called “competition,” which has narrowed the curriculum (especially in poor schools, which many of my students come from), emphasizing only reading and math, and tossing aside the arts, sciences and other areas which can’t be tested. Beyond this, RTTT has wrested control of classrooms out of the hands of educators and communities, and placed them into the hands of distant technocrats in the federal government and corporate America.

“‘Free’ college might mean that community colleges would cede local, community control to the federal government; thus, the policies of Washington and corporate America would drive the curriculum, rather than the needs of the community,” according to Bessie.

He adds it would end up turning community colleges into “junior colleges – designed primarily as trade schools, or for transfer, with a focus on getting students in and out the door as fast as possible, using standardized, impersonal methods more focused on efficiency than education.”

Politico reports the administration doesn’t actually know what Obama’s “free” community college plan would cost, other than to say it would be “significant.”

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College of William & Mary Professors Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman note the proposal will actually make the cost of four-degrees increase.

“One of the program’s goals is to break down the financial barriers that keep many students from pursuing a useful certificate or degree. Two free years at a community college supposedly will make a four-year bachelor’s degree more affordable. Yet four-year colleges and universities depend on larger classes taught to first and second year students to keep cost down,” they say.

Bessie concludes: “I worry that my students are most likely to get the wrong end of this bargain. While community college may be free, will it still be community college?”