Should Public University Education Be Free?

Students from the top income quartile are 8 times more likely to earn a four-year degree than those from the bottom quartile. Making tuition free does not remove the non-tuition barriers — housing, food, childcare, foregone wages — that keep low-income students from completing. The countries with the best educational mobility (Denmark, Finland) pair free tuition with robust living stipends — a far more expensive package than tuition elimination alone.

The $80–120 billion annual cost of free public college would have to be financed by new taxes. That money could alternatively fund universal pre-K, subsidized childcare, or community college — investments shown to produce larger economic returns per dollar than four-year degree subsidies for students who already intended to enroll.

Community college is already affordable for most low-income students on Pell Grants. The students carrying the heaviest debt burdens are often graduate students and attendees of private universities — neither of whom would benefit from free public tuition. Means-tested Pell expansion would be cheaper and better targeted.

“Should” politely proposes an action while implying a “must” that entails state compulsion. The word “be” frames the debate around utilitarian consequences associated with magically eliminating cost. A debate around utilitarian consequences associated with magically eliminating cost can neither be won nor lost. It’s simply a question of preferences. Imagine debating the same proposition, reworded as follows, to an audience comprised of those who maintain our society’s infrastructure: Should the state use force to compel men who never attend university to pay the costs of those that do?