Obama’s Latest Handout: Two Years Of Free Community College For Everyone

I could think of a million better programs to offer the American citizen than free community college. Consider the fact that most jobs require a bachelor’s degree and this makes the President’s plan moot. My grandfather graduated from Lansing Community College in the early 1970’s with an associates degree in technology. He then spent the next 30 years working for the city on those huge data computers. By the time the late 1990’s had arrived he was making so much money off that dinky 2 year degree they offered him a nice early retirement package and hired 4 Gen Xers with bachelor’s degrees to replace him.

The last thing America needs is more college graduates. The value of a bachelor’s degree is not worth the paper its printed on when there are few entry level jobs above minimum wage . If government wants to intervene in the economy the public would be better off with infrastructure projects, small business subsidies, and taking away subsidies and tax breaks from big business unless they hired American workers and produce American made goods within our borders. Job growth is not going to be spurred from the top through macroeconomic central planning. Right now our country is like a house with a termite infestation. The house is still standing, it has a new coat of paint and the law mowed, so central planners raise the the valuation and marvel at how much better the house looks on the outside. They boast about the improvements they have made. Eventually the house will erode and decay, then the central planners will scratch their heads and wonder while the house fell despite the fresh paint and their improvements.

But Stucky, that system is unfair to the underprivileged of America! A child will get left behind and have to taking a job manning the fry station. We have an education system based on fairness so both the high school drop out and the engineering graduate both have equal opportunities to man the fry station.

Most likely (going by example of Obamacare) he didn’t consult any governors and Harvard academics think its a brilliant plan based off their years in the private sector. What is really going on is this college bubble is blown as big as it can get and this is a plan to increase money flowing into community colleges. The truth is the biggest demographic of the Millennial generation is either close to graduating or out of school. There is only so much higher education a person who is not a specialist is going to seek. The bulk of the Millennial generation is already out of the higher education system considering those in the first half of the generation already tested the waters by ducking back into school for advanced degrees to hide out from the economy. The chickens are coming home to roost on the Millennial’s student debt and lack of job prospects. The economy can only wobbled on for so long with the youth sitting on the sidelines waiting for their chance to be in the game

The National Center for Health Statistics is reporting that the U.S. birth rate hit an all-time low in 2013. The agency reports that there were 3.93 million births in the United States in 2013, down less than 1% from 2012 and 9% from the recent 2007 high.

The National Center for Health Statistics reported Thursday that there were 3.93 million births in the United States in 2013, down slightly from 3.95 million in 2012, but 9 percent below the high in 2007.

According to the report, the general fertility rate in the United States — the average number of babies women from 15 to 44 bear over their lifetime — dropped to a record low last year, to 1.86 babies, well below the 2.1 needed for a stable population. For every 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, there were 62.5 births in 2013, compared with 63 the previous year.

The decline is especially notable because the number of women in their prime childbearing years, 20 to 39, has been growing since 2007.

“Americans haven’t worried much about birthrates in the past, because we have the faucet of immigration to turn on and off,” said Andrew J. Cherlin, a family demographer at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s a bigger problem in Europe, where countries like Germany and Spain have much lower rates. And even at 1.8, we’re in the ballpark with the highest rates in Europe.”

American women’s rates of childlessness, he said, will probably become comparable to those of the Great Depression, when about one-fifth of women did not have children.

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, also related the fertility rates to the economy.

“On just about every demographic indicator involving young adults, whether it’s marriage, buying a home or delaying childbearing, it’s all been on hold since the beginning of the recession,” he said. “I think it’ll come back up, and each time new numbers are coming out, I think maybe this will be the moment.”

In large part, the statistics reflect a broad shift, with more women delaying pregnancy, often past their prime childbearing years.

So while the teenage birthrate has dropped substantially, and the birthrate for women in their 20s has been declining as well, births to older women are on the rise. Although women older than 44 are not counted in the nation’s general fertility rate — fewer than one in a thousand such women have a baby each year — the report found a 14 percent increase in births to women ages 45-49.

Twin births are increasingly common, now representing about one in every 30 babies born in the United States. And preterm births and cesarean-section deliveries are declining, the report found. White women, who once had the highest rates of cesarean deliveries, now have the lowest rate, and the largest decline, while black women have the highest. Hispanic women, who formerly had the lowest rate, now have slightly more C-sections than white women.

The data from the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, came from birth certificates.