Is “Free College for All” a Good Idea – Or Just More Welfare for the Rich?

A popular issue on the left these days is free college.  It was a big part of Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2016.  Jeremy Corbyn pledged to abolish tuition fees in the UK during the campaign there earlier this year.  And in the campaign that just ended in New Zealand, the Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern, promised one year of free college in 2018, increasing to three years in 2024.

The usual reasons for this are college affordability and the high levels of debt so many college students are incurring.  With college costs seeming to be on a forever-upward trend, more and more students are incurring more and more debt.  Others don’t or can’t go at all.  And so, the promise of free college: To end the burden of debt and to make sure everybody can go to college.

But is “free college for all” the way to do this?  Separate and apart from the idea of trying to hold down tuition by having colleges actually keep costs down¹, and the point that people who go to college will earn more than those who don’t, so maybe they should pay for their college costs, who does “free college for all” really help?

It seems to me, given that a lot more children of the rich and upper middle class go to college than of the poor, free college for all winds up being just another subsidy for the wealthy.  Many on the left, and on the right and in the middle (me included), complain about all of the “welfare” going to the upper middle class and above.  Well, free college for all would be more of that.  Why should parents who can afford to pay their children’s college tuition get a free ride?²

Hillary Clinton got this, to some extent, when she proposed free college but with an income cap.  That is better than free college for all, but an even better idea is a grant and loan program that really covers college tuition and expenses for those who need assistance – and a serious effort to help/force colleges to keep their costs down.  That’s a way of making college affordable – without providing another government welfare program for the rich.
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¹ The left doesn’t talk much about keeping tuition down, but perhaps that is not surprising given the percentage of college professors and administrators that are on the left.
² Some will say that we can cover the cost of free college for all by raising taxes on the rich.  That doesn’t answer it.  Assuming there is ultimately some limit on the amount of tax dollars that can be collected from the rich (and there is such a limit, even if the progressives don’t want to admit it), is giving free college to rich kids the way you want to spend those tax dollars?