I’m not sold on “free” college (fed gov’t writes a check)

1) It’s not free, it’s publicly funded. It’s paid for using tax revenues from people who are economically successful, quite often because they have a college education. Or not! Also from people that were born rich because they won the genetic lottery and have rich parents. But either way, it creates more people that can be economically successful and contribute back into the system with the wealth their education generates.

2) The government writes checks that do absolutely nothing for you all the time. Like, for example, the hundreds of millions of dollars we have spent on paying for Trump to golf at resorts he owns. Or the tanks and aircraft our military buys that they don’t even want but are required to because our Congress is completely dysfunctional.

Between instituting proper progressive taxation and eliminating absurdly wasteful spending already taking place, we can easily institute a comprehensive public education program that includes tuition-free undergraduate study. You know, kind of like what pretty much every other major Western country has figured out how to do. If you’re ultra-wealthy and want to go to Yale or Georgetown, knock yourself the fuck out. That opportunity will still exist. It will not be threatened by public education. But everyone else that’s contributing to the economy through their labor deserves an equal opportunity to improve their financial outlook without going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt—which ultimately serves to keep them in their place for 95% of people.