How Washington Could Make College Tuition Free (Without Spending a Penny More on Education)

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/how-washington-could-make-college-tuition-free-without-spending-a-penny-more-on-education/273801/



***SNIP

We Already Spend the Money

Here's a little known fact: With what the federal government spent on its various and sundry student aid initiatives last year, it could have covered the tuition bill of every student at every public college in the country. Doing so might have required cutting off financial aid at Yale, Amherst, the University of Phoenix, and every other private university. But at this point, that might be a trade worth considering.

Let's start with a quick survey of the numbers. Between graduate students and undergrads at both four-year and community colleges, students paid just under $60 billion in tuition to attend state institutions of higher learning in fiscal year 2012. That's the giant magenta slice of the graph below, released this week by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. And just in case that figure sounds suspiciously low to you, the Department of Education reports that in the 2009-2010 school year, public colleges made about $57 billion off tuition (page 268, for those interested).



That's our threshold: About $60 billion. Now how much does Washington spend on aid? According to the New America Foundation, Washington appropriated some $77 billion worth of it in 2012 via a giant salad of tax breaks and grants, shown in yellow and orange below. The money we'd need for this grand experiment is already there.

[marmar]

1. Just as with health care, the US government spends gazillions on higher ed......

....... in the most ineffective, inefficient way possible because all of these privatized third parties have their snouts in the trough.

[xchrom]

2. +1

[bemildred]

3. But that would be welfare. People would be lazy.

And the Constitution says we cannot haz entitlements because we are "free".