Free money and handouts for all!
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced legislation Tuesday to make all four-year public colleges and universities tuition free.
“We live in a highly competitive global economy. If our economy is to be strong, we need the best educated work force in the world. That will not happen if every year hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college and if millions more leave school deeply in debt,” Sanders said in a statement.
Sanders called for two free years of free college tuition back in February, but now the Democratic presidential candidate is taking the idea even further.
Under his proposed legislation, the federal government and the states — with a 2-to-1 split — would pony up $70 billion a year to replace what public colleges and universities currently charge in tuition and fees.
Sanders believes that the federal share could be “offset by imposing a tax on Wall Street transactions by investment houses, hedge funds and other speculators,” according to a news release.
Sanders also promised to overhaul the current student loan system with his new legislation by eliminating federal profit on loans and offering incentives to colleges and universities to keep costs down.
With this idea, Sanders, a self-described Socialist, is taking President Barack Obama’s free community college idea to the next level. Obama introduced his $60 billion free community college proposal during the State of the Union address.
Sanders’ bill follows a similar federal-state cost sharing plan, but does not limit it to only community colleges and does not place restrictions on the students who take advantage of the free tuition.
The bill is unlikely to make serious headway in the Republican-controlled Congress. But Hillary Clinton, Sanders’ challenger in the 2016 Democratic primary, is also expected to introduce a “debt-free college” initiative soon and it was likely brought up to drag her further left.
