Perspective: 'Free tuition' is the opposite of progressive policymaking
By Sandy Baum and Sarah Turner May 3 at 1:57 PM To make college affordable, should we create a scholarship program that gives the biggest financial rewards to students from rich families? Put that way, it’s hard to imagine such a program becoming politically popular, particularly on the left. Yet some of the “free college” plans touted by many Democratic presidential contenders would do just that. They generally would provide the largest benefits to those with the greatest capacity to pay.
Headline-grabbing proposals like Warren’s underscore the legitimate public concerns about college affordability. Rising prices at public colleges and universities and stagnant incomes have made paying for college a huge challenge for most working-class and middle-income families, not just for the very poor.
This means the largest rewards go to students who do not qualify for financial aid. In plans that include four-year colleges, the largest benefits go to students at the most expensive four-year institutions. Such schools enroll a greater proportion of well-heeled students, who have had better opportunities at the K-12 level than their peers at either two-year colleges or less-selective four-year schools.
All told, in terms of dollars spent, an estimated 38 percent of the benefits of a straightforward national free-tuition program for full-time students would flow to those from families with incomes above $120,000. About 8 percent of the benefits would go to students from families with incomes below $35,000.
Young people from high-income families benefit disproportionately from free-tuition programs not only because they are more likely to attend college than their lower-income peers but also because they complete more years of college. Students from the top quartile of the income distribution are about 2.75 times as likely as low-income students to receive a bachelor’s degree.
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