We can't afford 'free' college

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or free college. But that didn’t stop President Obama from pushing it (again) in his final State of the Union Address, or presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in a recent interview. The biggest problem with “free college for all” is that college degrees would become as expensive and meaningless as many high school diplomas are today.

American public elementary and secondary schools spend more than $13,000 per pupil per year on average — slightly more than two-year colleges spend. That’s hardly the kind of “free” any of us can afford, even if public secondary schools were getting results — which they do, of course, but the wrong kind.