Bernie Sanders' idea for free tuition at public colleges deserves an A

[Corporate666]

64. So when you said

that it worked (free college) for years and years in Europe, what you actually meant was that a few countries in Europe had low cost college?

Not exactly the same thing.

Take a look at the ranking of those free institutions and you will see they score badly. The reason is mostly because they are being run on a budget which denies them access to the latest facilities, materials and tools and of course denies them access to the top educational faculty.

Furthermore, even the countries where it's "free", it's not free.. you still have to pay for room and board, which comes out to around $10k/year.

Now, we have plenty of very low cost state universities in the USA. Florida State Jacksonville is $2,500 per year. New Mexico state is less than $1,800/year. Arkansas State is $2,500/year. These are very affordable schools, and I don't think there are many people who can't afford to go there (the vast majority could easily get loans, grants and scholarships to go).

The problem is that people don't want to go there. They want to go to top schools like Penn State, UCLA, Virginia Tech, Chapel Hill, Georgia tech and the like... and they don't want to have to pay for it.

Life just doesn't work that way. The reason the latter schools are so good is because they are expensive and they can afford top facilities and teaching talent.

People want their cake and to eat it too - that's the problem. And Bernie is right there telling them they CAN have their cake and they CAN eat it too. And people believe it because confirmation bias and because they would like it to be true.