By Benny Morris (Author), Roger Owen (Editor), Edmund Burke (Editor), Michael C. Hudson (Editor), Walid Kazziha (Editor), Rashid Khalidi (Editor), Serif Mardin (Editor)
Right at the point when they are most needed, our second-chance institutions are being severely threatened. Across the country, community colleges, adult schools and literacy programs are reporting record enrollments at the same time they have to trim staff, classes and services.
Students now piece together a degree at different schools the way the underemployed desperately piece together a paycheck with a string of shifts at different employers.
At 14.1 percent, Michigan’s unemployment rate is the highest of any state. So it was a fitting setting for the president to announce his plan to spend $12 billion retraining the unemployed in community colleges. This plan would be a lot more exciting if its budget didn’t inevitably have to be compared with the trillions we’ve thrown at lousy banks.