State Rep. Scibak talks up tuition-free education bill

State Rep. John Scibak joined Boston Herald Radio’s “The Rundown” program yesterday to talk about a bill aimed at providing tuition-fee higher education.

Q: There are some serious questions about how this bill would provide a free year of college education. What can you tell us about it?

A: This is part of a movement that is occurring in a number of states across the country, and the original rationale is if you go back a century or a century-and-a-half, there has been no question that a free public education should go K-12. And the question today is, is K-12 sufficient or do people need K-14? Do they need an associate’s degree? Do they need a bachelor’s degree? And should states be providing the same sort of supports that they did for K-12? A number of states have tried it.

Q: Are the states benefiting from it?

A: We haven’t gotten to the point of looking at what the impact is. But all of these programs vary. New York, for example, says, “if we’re going to do this we’re going to do it for families that have an income below $125,000 and we’re going to expect you to stay in state and work in state for five years.” So some programs are looking at one year, working in state for every year that

we give you. This is not a “one size fits all.”

Q: Do we have a sense of how much this might cost if we wanted to do this on a state level?

A: No. I haven’t gotten to that point yet. We just had the hearing yesterday. What we had yesterday, virtually everybody testified on a bill called The Finish Line Grant, which is an interesting proposal that’s different from other states. You’re not eligible in your first year, you have

to have had at least one year of college already and you can choose to wait until your junior or senior year to utilize it.

Q: Do you support sort of a cap as well on the quality of students who qualify?

A: That issue came up during the hearing. Some states that are looking for a minimum GPA to be eligible, and others are looking for minimum grade point to remain eligible. One person who testified yesterday said there are some kids who may have a bad year in high school for whatever reason and maybe graduating with a 2.0 or a 1.9 or a 2.3, and wondered if that meant they’re not eligible or never eligible?

Q: Is the goal to get the student a degree or to get the student a job?

A: I think it’s both, because I think the degree is certainly an important way in terms of getting a job.