For free or not for free, that is the question.
The answer could be worth a small fortune to college students. One of the major policies vetted by Democratic presidential candidates is the viability of free public college.
It seems obvious that poor and middle-class people would benefit from college without the burden of student loan debt, but one argument against free public college is that it is unfair for the children of wealthy adults to get a higher education for free.
Not so.
Sure, they might have parents with a lot of money, but that does not necessarily translate to the children themselves being rich and having the kind of freedom wealth brings.
Rich people are able to control the lives of their children through education. They treat their children’s educations as another investment and send them to expensive private schools to inundate them in the culture of privilege.
College for many people is a chance to explore who they are and what they want from their future. This kind of freedom should not be sacrificed by the children of rich people just because they had a privileged upbringing.
Most college-aged people have been taught since childhood that college was one of the main pathways to success. Research has shown, however, that academic success is not dictated by inherent ability or academic skill, but by the affluence of their parents.
A Georgetown University study, “Born to Win, Schooled to Lose: Why Equally Talented Students Don’t Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be,” concluded that the smartest students from poor families achieved less socio-economic success than the least academically successful students from a privileged background.
“Among the affluent, a kindergartner with test scores in the bottom half has a 7 in 10 chance of reaching high (socio-economic status) among his or her peers as a young adult, while a disadvantaged kindergartner with top-half test scores only has a 3 in 10 chance.”
By eighth grade, 60 percent of underperforming privileged kids raised their test scores, but 69 percent of poor kids never raise their scores. Being able to afford private tutors and provide extra resources to their children is a significant boon.
When it comes to college, 35 percent of students from a high socio-economic status who had low math scores in high school earned a bachelor’s degree within 10 years, compared to 30 percent of students with low-economic status who had high math scores.
It all comes down to the material support students receive. Poor students often have to work many hours a week and have minimal parental support of their education. (Their parents also work). Students of a higher socio-economic status often do not have to work to support themselves, freeing up their time for studying. They also tend have more access to resources meant to ensure academic success, such as expensive tutors.
The data shows that academic success is more closely tied to economic privilege, so an equalizer like free college would disrupt this trend by removing the economic burden of higher education.
It is important that college not serve as a way to divide the population into separate classes, but to be a forum where people from all walks of life can interact and know each other.
Free public college would allow students to travel across the country and access the kind of education they truly want without the economic limitations of out-of-state tuition costs or helicopter parents who want to control their lives.
Many children, including rich ones, would also be able to come out of the closet without fear of being totally disowned by their parents. LGBTQ children of all backgrounds are incredibly vulnerable. A study by Chapin Hall of the University of Chicago titled “Missed Opportunities: Youth Homelessness in America” found that LGBTQ youth have a 120 percent higher risk of homelessness. Hall’s study quantified what most of us already suspected, namely that any form of housing insecurity is dangerous to a child’s development.
“Adolescence and young adulthood represent a key developmental window. Every day of housing instability and the associated stress in the lives of young people… represents missed opportunities to support healthy development and transitions to productive adulthood.
Free public college would serve as an effective safety net for anyone vulnerable to housing insecurity.”
But when politics are involved, even the best ideas will be attacked.
In 2015, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticized Senator Bernie Sanders for his plan for tuition-free public college. She said she wanted students to have “debt-free tuition,” but not free college, which she suggested would benefit the children of billionaires.
“I’m not in favor of making college free for Donald Trump’s kids,” she said at a “Today” show town hall.
Clinton is correct that it would help the children of wealthy people, but wrong that it would be a bad thing. There are a lot of advantages to free public college, even for rich kids.
Sanders’ education plans to eliminate student loan debt and provide free public higher education are not just gifts to the poor and working class. His website, berniesanders.com, presents details on how his plan would work, and why the country needs free public college.
His “College for All and Cancel All Student Debt” plan would “guarantee tuition and debt-free public colleges, universities, HBCUs, Minority Serving Institutions and trade-schools to all.”
It would cancel all $1.6 trillion of student loan debt for 45 million Americans and cap student loan interest rates at 1.88 percent.
His plan also invests $1.3 billion every year into private, non-profit HBCUs and minority-serving institutions and ending equity gaps in higher education attainment by expanding Pell Grants, tripling funds for Work-Study Programs and more to cover the non-tuition costs of attending school.
Sanders’ plan is simpler, smarter and has staying power, much like the candidate himself. Like Sanders’ healthcare proposals, the education system would benefit from cutting red tape and reducing bureaucracy.
For low-income students, it makes a lot of sense why free public college would be so attractive. The ability to attain a higher education without being saddled by massive debt would change millions of students’ lives.
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren also seeks student loan debt forgiveness and increasing meaningful access to higher education.
Almost every other candidate opposes them, but it was Senator Amy Klobuchar and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg who have repeated Clinton’s 2015 criticisms that signal distaste in the idea of the children of millionaires and billionaires having the right to attend a public college on the taxpayer’s dime.
That would be a good thing.
When the rich use the same public utilities as the poor, they tend to be better funded, better maintained and less vulnerable to meddling by conservative politics.
When a program is universal, it is less likely to be degraded over time by conservatives in power.
When the children of the rich and poor interact as equals, they learn to see each other’s shared humanity and class conflict is less likely.
There are two dozen countries that provide free or nearly free at public colleges and universities. Some of them, like Germany, Finland and Iceland, are even free to international students. These countries understand that education is a human right and an educated population is highly desirable.
People must demand free public college from their local and state representatives and to change our education system to one of equity and inclusion. Higher education should no longer serve as a tool for exacerbating the class divide in this country, but to unite people of disparate backgrounds to create a better future.
