Regular readers (should they exist) will recall that I have been urging the Democrats to stand for something other than being the party that is not crazy (which, oddly enough, is not a compelling selling point in this country). In particular, I've urged forgiveness of student loans and free college tuition in public institutions. So, you can imagine I'm quite pleased that Obama has taken up the call:
Introducing his proposal here on Friday, Mr. Obama vowed to make college affordable for all Americans by investing $60 billion over the next 10 years to provide free community college tuition to as many as nine million students a year across the country. If Congress and the states adopted his plan, the president said, “two years of college will become as free and universal as high school is today.”
Obama loses half a cheer for confining his proposal to community colleges. I suppose this is strategic; his firmly held belief that he should always propose what he feels he will get after negotiations are over, but that makes little sense here for two reasons. First, it is a nonsensical way of bargaining, which has been proven repeatedly during his tenure. More importantly, he must be aware that nothing he proposes will pass this Congress, unless it is something like the TPP, designed to screw average Americans. Given that reality, he should recognize that this proposal is a PR move, designed to stake out positions that he can sell to the American people as the Democratic alternative to the Republican mix of theocracy and oligarchy. Given that reality, why propose giving people half a loaf, when you can propose giving them a full loaf just as easily and can justify it on policy grounds just as well.
But the point of this post is not to criticize Obama. He has brought the issue to the fore, and already progressives are using his proposal as a rallying point to push for universal free public college education. What struck me was the slant taken in the Times coverage, which started out be emphasizing the fact that some people would gain more than others from Obama's proposal:
In California, community college tuition and fees average less than $1,500 a year, the lowest in the nation, and with government grants, most students pay nothing. In Florida and Michigan, the cost is over $3,000, yet poorer students still attend free. But in Vermont and New Hampshire, prices are around $7,000, well over what government grants cover.
That broad range means that President Obama’s proposal to make community college tuition-free nationwide — if Congress and the states were to embrace it — would benefit every student of the two-year colleges, but that far greater benefits would go to students in the states with the highest tuition. And while it would aid the economically hard-pressed, it would also effectively extend federal aid to millions of middle- and upper-income students who do not qualify for it currently.
Almost any social legislation benefits some people more than others. There seems to be a widespread need in the press to try to set one group against another. Sure, the Times says, everyone will benefit, but some will benefit more than others, so let's stir up some resentment. Well, let's look at this a little more closely.
First, let's look at this from the perspective of the individual students involved, rather than the states in which they reside. Right now, the students in the high cost states are being screwed to a greater degree than those in the low cost states, though they all are being screwed. They have every right to complain about the injustice of their plight; far more right than low cost states will have to complain about equalizing the playing field. Obama's proposal merely puts each individual on the same level. If you want to look at it in terms of the flow of money to the various states, my guess is that, California aside, it would amount to a reversal in the normal flow of money from blue states to red, a result that no rational person should complain about. Finally, the implication that middle and upper income students should not benefit from this largesse is typical American thinking. We argue initially when creating welfare programs that they should be needs based. A few years later, we condemn them as welfare and try to undermine them. Social Security has, so far, proven impervious to right wing assault because everyone's ox gets gored if it is undermined. In the case of education, no one argues that the middle class (to the extent it exists) or the upper class should pay for public primary or secondary education. Obama is merely extending that widely accepted premise (currently being slowly undermined by the for-profit charter school industry) to college level education. As a nation, we are about 50 years late in starting this discussion, but better late than never.
Of course, the way in which this is implemented would be critical. If the Feds are paying, and the states are setting the costs, then it's pretty obvious that the states can start gaming the system. But that's of academic interest right now. The important thing right now is to get this discussion started. Nothing is going to get passed in the next two years. Here's hoping that the inevitable Hillary will see this as a populist issue she can embrace without upsetting her banker friends.
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