Study: Free college would help the rich more than poor

Published April 21, 2016 5:25pm ET



According to a report published by the Brookings Institution, Bernie Sanders’ plan for tuition-free college would help wealthy families more than low-income families.

“Students from higher income families would receive a disproportionate share of the benefits of free college, largely because they tend to attend more expensive institutions,” Urban Institute Senior Fellow Matthew Chingos writes. “My results indicate that families from the top half of the income distribution with dependent students attending public in-state two- and four-year colleges would receive $16.8 billion in dollar value from eliminating tuition, as compared to $13.5 billion for students from the lower half of the income distribution, a difference of 24 percent.”

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