Free Community College

[ss20ts]

$1000 hammers will become $1000 pencil sharpeners.

[Alpha]

The origin of the phrase "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is variously attributed but there's no mystery about it's meaning.  We all know the money for funding "free" community college comes from taxes.  But drill down a bit deeper.  The next question is "Whose taxes?'  Most of the plans that have been proposed either directly increase taxes on the very richest people, much, much richer than me,  or they tax Wall St. transactions, or some combination of both.  This would appear to cost me nothing directly as I do not have that great of an income nor do I make many Wall St. transactions.  It might be argued that it cost me something indirectly but by then the cost is spread out rather thinly.  Beyond that I can only say that I am willing to spend a few dollars per year to fund such an endeavor as I believe it will yield larger benefits to society as a whole regardless of whether I or anyone in my family ever earns one of these free degrees.

[LevelUP]

My TV was free, I stole it from the neighbors while they were on vacation. Their fault for leaving their door unlocked.
"Hey, that's immoral!"  "Oh I'm sry, you're right, I'll leave it on their doorstep next time they go out"

My education is free.  The government stole/taxed other people to pay for it.
"That sounds moral to me"  "When the govt steals or takes things from other people, it's ok" 

"Oh wait, I'm being a hypocrite, stealing is wrong no matter how it's done"

BUT the counteragruement

The COVID shot is free, the government stole/taxed other people to pay for it.
The question is does the cost to society as a whole, health care bills long-term, loss of lifetime taxes from people dying of COVID, exceed the cost of providing the vaccine?

School K-12 is free.  If it wasn't free, how many people would just turn into criminals, not have skills to work even basic jobs because they were born poor, and the loss of government tax revenue over a lifetime exceeds the cost of providing free education?

According to Statista the 2019/20 Pell Grant expenditure was $27.8 billion which the NCES says covers 34% of college students.

To give the Pell Grants to every student would require around $66 billion extra dollars per year which would make college free or drastically reduce the cost for many students.  The question is if spending $66 billion would be less than the cost to society in terms of $'s of not spending the money?

In the end, the country needs to be strong while at the same time people need to have basic human rights such as I believe not to be taxed more than 50% of your income no matter how rich you are because taxing the rich people/businesses to the extreme risks killing the goose that is laying the golden egg.

So there is a balance between taxes, society, and human rights. 

Well, there are some thoughts for you guys.

[rachel83az]

Sometimes, taxpayer-funded free things cost taxpayers less in the long run than "saving" money and not putting it towards that project. For instance, housing all homeless with no stipulations has been calculated to cost less than locking them up for sleeping in the park or under bridges.

With more college graduates, you'll have more taxpayers eligible to enter the workforce. Instead of struggling to make money on the side in untaxed hustles, they'll be able to be taxed from their paycheck. I'm pretty sure that this is a net gain for society, even though it might initially seem like a loss to some people.

[BrianFallon]

The basis of a good public policy cannot be what the personal benefit is to me because as a human being I’m always inclined to act in my own best interest.

But as a member of a society, the basic bargain that we make is that I surrender some of my personal liberty to the society and that I am willing to pay for items that benefit the greater good. I don’t use roads in each of the 50 states, or utility grids, or charitable healthcare organizations, or any of the other services we collectively provide.

But I’m willing to have my tax dollars go to that because as a whole it benefits society.

I am perfectly willing to pay more tax today to make community college universally available to students without cost to them. I’m smart enough to understand that the cost is borne by society as a whole and not willing to engage in a sleight of hand arguments that for free isn’t free. No rational thinking person believes that professors and janitors and support staff work for free, we just understand that collectively we can pay a little something towards that through our tax dollars.

As to the argument that we are saddling a future generation with wild amounts of debt, that does not need to be the case. If that’s the only argument that one can make against universal community college, you’re being selfish. I am not saying I want community college free to the student and debt to be saddled, I am saying I want universal community college and I’m willing to pay more in taxes today to accomplish that.

If one was serious about not settling future generations with collective that, you would call for much higher income taxes and the elimination of practically every tax benefit in the tax code. But we normally don’t advocate against our own interest do we?

If you don’t believe in collectively each of us paying a little something so that we all can benefit and that no one is disadvantaged, then I suggest you cancel your life insurance, you cancel your homeowners or fire insurance, you cancel your flood insurance, and you cancel your car insurance.

Because the Lord forbid, you pay some thing that you don’t directly benefit from and somebody else gets a little pennies of your money out of your pocket from that insurance company.

The concept is exactly the same - we each pay a little so all can benefit.




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[Swoneus]

Maybe we could all relax a little and stop speaking in total absolutes on the subject? The suggestion that taking one side implies more intelligence than the other is extremely condescending and just entirely untrue.

No one person in the world is smart enough to lay out this plan that will outreach to over 300 million people. The good news is that there is a team working on it, likely more knowledgeable on the subject and more equipped than any of us to do so.

I personally think the government is going to underperform on this one. But is it really worth absolutely going at one another's throat over? It's not like we're talking about something that is hypothetical. It's going to happen most likely. Why can't we just wait until then instead of insulting one another?

[dfrecore]

If you don’t believe in collectively each of us paying a little something so that we all can benefit and that no one is disadvantaged, then I suggest you cancel your life insurance, you cancel your homeowners or fire insurance, you cancel your flood insurance, and you cancel your car insurance.

Because the Lord forbid, you pay some thing that you don’t directly benefit from and somebody else gets a little pennies of your money out of your pocket from that insurance company.

The concept is exactly the same - we each pay a little so all can benefit.

Actually, life insurance, homeowners insurance, and car insurance are all personal, through private insurance companies, and only benefit yourself.  If I own my house free and clear and cancel my HO insurance, and my house burns down, nothing happens to anyone except me.  I'm the one with a lot and no house.  If I have HO insurance, I can rebuild.  There is no effect on anyone other than my family.  Nobody else pays anything, or benefits.  If we don't have life insurance and my husband dies, then I get nothing.  Nobody else would benefit.  Nobody else pays off my house for me.  I'm the one that suffers for not having insurance, nobody else.

So I'm not sure how this concept is the same in any way.
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I also did not say that I don't think having community college paid for by tax dollars isn't a worthwhile goal.  I think the government is going to completely screw it up, as they usually do with just about anything they do.  And I said that we should stop calling things free when they are not. 

I also think you are completely wrong when you say that people understand that.  They don't.  I hear every year as people getting tax refunds - it's like they got free money from the government.  Ummm....no, you OVERPAID your taxes and you're getting a REFUND.  It's not a freaking gift!  If you owed $2,000 on a credit card and paid $2,200, and they sent you back a check for $200, it was not a gift from the credit card company.  SMH

[eriehiker]

This could have been free four year college. That is what a lot of Democrats wanted during the campaign. I think the fact that it is free community college is a pretty reasonable intermediate position on this issue.

[LevelUP]

The problem is none of these politicians have the balls to cut our existing bloated government programs to pay for FREE new stuff.

[Vle045]

I think making community college extremely affordable would be sufficient.  I’m not sure about Free.  People tend to take “free” things for granted.  Although, kids in Ohio have the opportunity for dual credit classes starting in 7th grade. The class is free... as long as you pass. If you fail or drop it, then you pay.  So far, my son has not taken advantage of this opportunity. He’s in 8th grade now. But I really hope he does some before he graduates.