Friday, May 22, 2015

College doesn’t need to be free

The WaPo’s Charles Lane looks at the economics of Bernie Sanders’s “free” college plan:

  
(Washington Post

Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator and Democratic presidential candidate from Vermont, says spiraling college tuition is “a national disgrace.” He’s running on a promise of free in-state tuition at all public colleges and universities, to be paid for by a new federal tax on financial transactions, including stock, bond and derivative trades.
As the parent of a high school senior, I can’t dispute Sanders’s assessment of college affordability. Too bad his cure would be worse than the disease, even if it weren’t politically unrealistic.