Education Next – Michael J. Petrilli
“Nothing in life is truly free—but don’t tell that to dogmatic liberals and their pandering politicians, who would turn the first two years of college into a new universal entitlement. This idea has the same fatal flaws as universal preschool: a needless windfall for affluent voters and state institutions that does very little to help the needy. Start with the expense. Today, millions of families save their own pennies and dollars to pay for kids’ college. While they would surely love to slough this burden onto taxpayers, doing so would probably shift billions of dollars every year from programs that help talented poor kids access higher education and improve our schools. In a time of scarce resources, why is this a priority? Nor would it help disadvantaged students. Most “free college” proposals focus on community colleges, turning them into “grades thirteen and fourteen” of a new public education system. Yet these schools have the worst track record with poor kids, especially those with exceptional academic promise. (They’re also already “free” to poor students today, thanks to federal Pell grants.) We know from a ton of research that these students do best at more challenging state schools and private colleges.”(more)