The great surge in college enrollment after World War II led to the end of free college in America.
Financial reality hit when college students surged from about 2 million in 1959 to 15 million today, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
When higher education was a training school for the wealthy, rather than the great equalizer, costs were restrained and universities weren’t the (non)-profit maximizers they are today. The surge of students resulting from the G.I. Bill changed that.
“Financial pressures eventually forced states to charge tuition or raise it from relatively nominal amounts,” James Pethokoukis wrote.
In light of financial restraints, he argued, “free college for all” isn’t expanding access so much as it is rationing access that favors middle- and upper-income students over low-income students. It would threaten the existence of small, private colleges who struggle financially and make them more reliant on students from upper-income families.
Beyond the financial arguments, the results of free college haven’t been discussed. Aside from platitudes about how college is a path to a better life, empirical results have been fleeting.
European graduation rates tend to be higher, though graduation comparisons are sometimes comparing apples to oranges. American higher education is a different beast than European systems of higher education. In terms of access, however, the United States beats them. The American higher education system is radically democratic, the only barrier being whether students can access financial aid from the government.
In Scotland, when the government abolished a post-graduation fee in 2007 to promote access, the action “has done surprisingly little to widen access to higher education,” in the words of The Economist. Abolishing fees makes it cheaper for students, but not necessarily the students who couldn’t afford the previous costs.
There’s a certain tension among the Democratic presidential candidates that illustrates the tensions within higher education financing. Hillary Clinton has a “debt-free” vision where students pay for their education, albeit with more generous funding from the federal government. Bernie Sanders wants to make public college free for students, full stop. Clinton refuses to embrace that vision because she doesn’t want to pay for rich students who can afford college regardless.
Implicit in the demand for free college is the assumption that shortages don’t exist. College is an obvious and effective path to improving the plight of any prospective student, rich or poor, regardless of prior academic success.
Ignoring the changes in college since the 1940s, the lackluster success of free tuition, and the real concerns over low-income student access that results, the debate over free college has ignored bad outcomes for good intentions.
Free college will officially make college a middle-class entitlement. Expensive, bloated, and less useful than its advocates suggest, it will lock out those they presume to speak for: poor students.
