Yglesias: How Bernie Sanders convinced me about free college

[Recursion]

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/10/11194158/bernie-sanders-free-college

In its early months, Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign suffered from the impression that it was a protest candidacy more about discussing issues than about electing a president. More recently, it has looked more like a genuine effort to deny Hillary Clinton the nomination — an effort that seems likely to fail. But judged by that earlier standard, Sanders has been highly successful. I'll use myself as an example: Thanks to Sanders — and specifically thanks to his campaign — I've come around to the idea that the correct tuition for qualified students at public colleges and universities is $0.

If the government is going to be in the business of encouraging people to go to college and spending money on making it affordable, the right way to do that is to make it free.

...

Wealthy elites have formal and informal means of influence wherever you look. When they are invested in actually using public services, the odds that the services will actually be decent go way up. Trying to save money by keeping rich kids out of public school or refusing to build libraries in affluent neighborhoods or having police departments charge a finder's fee when they investigate crimes committed against rich people would be penny wise and pound foolish.

We should also consider the possibility that a public commitment to subsidizing college without mandating that it be free actually encourages excessive spending on the part of administrators. In static terms, creating a free public service obviously requires more money than a partially subsidized one. But with a firm "this needs to be free" rule in place, administrators are now limited to the amount of money that's actually been appropriated, and if they want more funds for some new initiative they need to explicitly make the case that it's valuable.

[hollysmom]

1. I get very upset when people say it is impossible for college to be free

When I was younger before the Vietnam war blossomed up - still no comparison to today's military wastes, California had free state colleges, More states had scholarship programs to entice people to go to college. When I went to Rutgers I only met 2 people who were not on a full scholarship, for some reason these 2 rich people decided to go to the state college (it was good college, but not fancy)

[JonLeibowitz]

2. From my reading on Tobin taxes, I think the funds required are too onerous

to be levied simply on sales of securities. Perhaps taxes on higher earners would be well spent.