Why can't America make higher education free?

Roughly, because there's no such thing as a free lunch, and for the same reason the US cannot hand its citizens bars of gold for free. Education, much less higher education, much less quality higher education, is not a cheap commodity— someone has to pay for it— who? But let's take a different tack. read more

America traditionally wanted higher education to be affordable but never free. This makes higher education a serious decision. American community colleges are still relatively cheap, but students understand they are paying a price to be there. read more

The “Free Higher Ed” paper by Bob Samuels, president of the University of California-American Federation of Teachers, figures out how much it would actually cost to pay the tuition for all Americans in public colleges and universities. read more

Free higher education is an affordable dream. As Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network points out in his “free public higher education” petition, free higher education is not an unaffordable fantasy. read more