Everyone Should Support Free College
Previously, I explained why more people will need to get more advanced degrees over time, and how that’s led to an increase in the number of people going to college. I’m sure it’s not news to anyone that millennials and gen z are dealing with massive amounts of student loan debt. It can be tempting for those who don’t have student loan debt to say “that’s not my problem”, and oppose any sort of loan forgiveness or tuition subsidy effort, but that’s missing the most important point about this student loan debt burden: it impacts everyone.
I’ve already made posts on why inequality is a problem, and how demand is what drives the economy, so I won’t rehash them, but those ideas are critical when thinking about student loan debt. The reason is fairly simple: if the younger generations have massive amounts of debt, they won’t be spending as much money on other things, which means demand for consumer goods and services is decreased, which slows the economy down. Also, they’ll have a harder time buying homes, which means those homes instead get bought up by companies or wealthy individuals as rental properties, which increases inequality. Both of these will have a negative effect on the economy as a whole, which is felt by everyone, even those without student loans.
Before anyone accuses this of being an attempt at deception for person gain, I am lucky enough to not have any student loans. I would be no more impacted by loan forgiveness than the “not my problem” crowd, so this argument is coming purely from conviction that it is, in fact, my problem, because it’s everyone’s (except the ultra-wealthy, who, like with so many other policies in the US, are the only ones who benefit from the current system).
First, let’s start with the potential benefits from loan forgiveness/free college, then I’ll address the perceived downsides.
Economic Stimulus: 45 million Americans have student loans, or about 20% of people over 18. That’s a huge portion, and if you forgave those loans, you’d have an immediate jump in discretionary spending, providing a permanent stimulus to the economy.
Home Ownership: Recently, wealthy people have been buying up houses as rental properties at an increasing rate. This may not immediately seem like a concern, but think about this: those investors wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t profitable, so where do the profits come from? Renters, of course. This causes two issues: One - it further reduces the amount of money those renters can spend on things that actually stimulate the economy (see previous point). Two - it creates another avenue for money to flow up from average Americans to the wealthy, increasing inequality (which is a problem, as explained here).
Also, do you really see the wealthy people ever willingly giving up those properties to private ownership again? If this continues, there will be fewer and fewer houses available to buy even if you have the money to. This will make people increasingly dependent on renting, which will allow them to be taken advantage of by rent hikes. The concentration of the ownership of housing, or any basic necessity, within a small group of people should be concerning to everyone, and is exacerbated by our current higher education costs.
Social Mobility: Social mobility is the measure of how easy it is for people to move up in the socioeconomic hierarchy. One of the best ways to increase social mobility is to have a better education system, as education is the most reliable way to escape poverty. The US currently has low social mobility compared to other developed countries, which is pretty ironic for a country that calls itself “the land of opportunity”. If you’re not someone trapped in the cycle of poverty, social mobility might not seem that relevant to you, but it is when you think about the societal implications. Right now, we have a system where those at the top, the leaders who determine the direction we go in, are decided in no small part by what amount of wealth they were born into rather than their own merits. If we increase social mobility, the smartest, hardest working, most capable people will rise to the top, and we’ll be led by our best people, instead of our luckiest. Of course, making college more affordable wouldn’t suddenly solve every issue with social mobility, but it would be a step in the right direction.
Skilled Workforce: If education becomes more affordable, more people will go, and a more educated workforce is a stronger workforce. The economy is becoming more information-based, with many jobs being automated away, making a well-educated workforce increasingly important to maintain a strong economy. Again, a strong economy benefits everyone. Higher levels of education are correlated with higher income and longer life expectancy. Making the population more educated is really one of the most obvious slam dunks for how you can improve a country.
Educated Electorate: A well-designed democracy will result in leadership that roughly reflects the average sentiment in that democracy. With a more well-educated electorate, the elected officials will likely favor policies backed by science, facts, and evidence. Science, facts, and evidence are what gave us clean water, clean air, medicine, electricity, cars, airplanes, skyscrapers, phones, computers, and so much more. In 2020, it’s nearly impossible for someone to go a day without using countless testaments to the value of science, facts, and evidence. There’s no reason these same ideas shouldn’t be applied to politics as well, rather than basing policies on emotional rhetoric. Education teaches people the value of science, facts, and evidence, so a more educated electorate would vote based on those values.
As you can see, all five of the cases made above are things that impact our entire society. We’re all missing out on these society-wide benefits, not just those who own the debt. Like it or not, the high cost of college in America is your problem, even if it doesn’t show up in your tax filings.
So what’s not to love? Why haven’t we made college affordable yet?
Well, the key reason, as noted above, is probably that the ultra-wealthy know that expensive colleges keep the rich rich and the poor poor. These people can fund politicians and media organizations and tell them to oppose subsidizing college. That’s not the only reason, though. Let’s look at some of the arguments against subsidizing colleges more.
How do we pay for it? This has been the Republican party’s go-to critique of any proposal from Democrats for as long as I can remember. The thing is, we can afford it. Biden’s loan forgiveness/free college program will cost $750 billion. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to corporations cost us almost twice that amount, and didn’t give us any real benefits, which is no surprise to anyone who understands that trickle-down economics doesn’t work. So by just reversing that corporation tax cut, you could keep whatever income tax cuts you got in 2017, we could subsidize colleges, and we’d still have about $600 billion to spend on other government programs, like perhaps improving primary education as well, or expanding capacity at public colleges so that more people can attend.
Additionally, in the long term, this could very well fund itself. People with a college education make on average $1 million more than high school grads over their career, and taxes are paid on those additional earnings. If we assume a conservative federal tax rate of 16% on that million dollars, we’d get $160,000 additional tax dollars generated as a result of funding someone’s college who wouldn’t have otherwise gone. This is enough to fund four years of $40k/year tuition, without increasing anyone else’s taxes. We’re the wealthiest country to ever exist. Far poorer countries than us provide free college. We can afford it.
It’s Socialist! When “how do we pay for it?” doesn’t work, this is often the next go-to. “Socialist” has become a completely meaningless word in the US, thanks to people co-opting it to mean basically any example of the government helping people. This makes it hard to refute, but only because it’s a meaningless argument in the first place. If you’re saying “socialism” is bad because “socialism” has been tried and failed in other countries, then you’re just getting lost in the ever-changing meaning of the word. Simply changing the cost of college has nothing to do with actual socialism. If you’re taking the “anything the government does to help people is socialism” stance, then I don’t see what the problem is - shouldn’t the entire point of government be to make society better, if it can?
I had to pay for my college education, why don’t they? Our ancestors had to die of tuberculosis and polio, why don’t we? Some had to walk/run anywhere they wanted to go, why don’t we? Others had to write letters and wait days for a response, why don’t we? This is a strong contender for the most idiotic stance I’ve heard Americans take on any issue. Do we really want to hold back progress because people in the past didn’t have the same luxuries? If our ancestors thought this way, we would still be living in caves.
They knew about the cost when they decided to go to college: If we discovered a way to regrow lost limbs of war amputees, would we say “Don’t do that, they knew losing limbs was a risk when they signed up”? I sure hope not. This is just another anti-progress stance like the last point. The key here is that our current system is giving many people the choice between poverty if they don’t go to college, or crippling debt and a hope of a good job if they do go to college. In that case, the latter very well may be the better choice. The system that exists is pushing people toward taking on this debt, so we’re left with a decision: perpetuate that bad system, or make it better. Why wouldn’t we make it better if we could?
We shouldn’t subsidize rich kids’ education: Biden’s plan for free college is income-dependent, not an across-the-board price tag of $0 for college. Children of parents who can afford to pay for college will still be charged.
People won’t take college seriously: I don’t want my tax dollars to go toward subsidizing college students slacking off any more than anyone else, but luckily there’s a simple solution to that: include requirements like minimum GPA. In reality, I think this concern is overblown anyway. As stated in the above point, this will apply to lower-income students, who typically have a harder path to get to college in the first place, meaning if they got there, they’re probably pretty ambitious to begin with. Plus, they have the most to fight for, because college is their ticket to a higher income, while kids born into wealth typically have more career options just based on family connections. These two factors suggest the students who would be subsidized wouldn’t be likely to slack off.
Path Forward
This one is simple: vote for politicians who support student loan forgiveness and more funding for free/affordable college. Progressive Democrats are the ones that most often support this, and a good portion of non-progressive Democrats, like Joe Biden, do as well.
