The Issues, No. 47 - Free College

A friend of mine suggested today, while we were watching a piece on the local TV news about how expensive it is to send a kid to college, that maybe college ought to be free just like our public schools. At first I thought the idea didn't make much sense because the tax payers would end up paying for it. But then, after we talked about it for a couple of minutes, I thought it made a lot of sense.

Our kids already go to public schools, from kindergarten to grade 12, free. Obviously it's not free because we pay for it in our federal and state taxes but it's essentially free and it includes what would be called "tuition and books" in a private school or a college or university. In other words our kids go to public schools and their classes and the books they are required to have are free.

Wouldn't it make sense if we simply extended the free classes (tuition) and free books to college undergraduate and graduate level classes. Colleges and universities would still maintain their entrance level requirements but kids who are accepted by the institution would have their tuition and books payed for by the taxpayers. If they are accepted by an institution away from their home, they, or their parents, would still have to pay for their room and board in either school facilities or in private facilities.

I'm not sure how much more we would have to pay in taxes but I don't think it would be that significant. The major benefit would be that everyone who could get him or herself accepted into college would be able to go. No one would not be able to go because they couldn't afford it. The individuals would obviously benefit because they would be able to earn more after their education and the nation would benefit also because we would have more people with college educations contributing to our society. It just makes a lot of sense to me for us as a society to pay for our children to get as much education as they can without them having to worry about going in debt or not being able to afford to go to school after high school.