Bernie Sanders’s “free college for all” plan to give America the most educated workforce in the world is gaining criticism, and it’s not all from conservatives.
In a recent fact check, NPR questioned how effective the plan would be.
“Would getting rid of tuition at public colleges and universities, by itself, really give the United States ‘the most educated workforce in the world?’
“Probably not. Let’s look around the world and find out why,” Anya Kamenetz wrote.
Notably, the countries with the highest share of 25- to 34-year-olds with a college degree charge tuition. Norway and Sweden offer free college tuition, and 47 percent and 45 percent of young adults, respectively, hold degrees. The United States’s rate is 45 percent. Finland and Germany do worse than the United States, with 40 percent and 30 percent of young adults holding degrees, but they offer free tuition.
Comparing graduation rates internationally can cause difficulties, but it indicates that free tuition isn’t necessarily an improvement. High tuition and student loan debt isn’t an American phenomenon. Australian and British students have been known to cross continents and remain outside their native countries to avoid repaying loans, and both governments have pledged to collaborate to improve repayment collections. A college degree improves the economic prospects of a graduate, regardless of their country. When it’s more accessible, more students enroll, and the demand pushes tuition and fees to higher levels. Making tuition free, in America or in Finland, shifts costs from students to governments.
Given the variations in graduates among countries, focusing on the structure of higher education could make Americans the most educated workforce in the world quicker than focusing on free tuition.
Graduates, NPR notes, bring a wide range of benefits to the societies in which they live. Improved skills lead to stronger economic productivity. Graduates and students, however, aren’t synonymous. Only 59 percent of students graduate within six years. Without improving completion rates, or making higher education a more productive path for students, free tuition isn’t so likely to magnify the benefits of higher education. Free isn’t so strong a panacea as the Sanders campaign has declared it to be.
