We have had a series of posts here relating to the idea of “free” college. I’ll add one more. Last Friday, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and Tennessee governor Bill Haslam had an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Let’s Agree on Free Community College.”
Emanuel is, of course, a very prominent Democrat and Haslam is a Republican, so they apparently think that there will be overwhelming support for the idea of making community college “free” — no cost to students, that is. (Both authors either don’t know or forget that all resources have opportunity costs.)
But I don’t agree that this is a good idea, for several reasons. I’ll just state my main objection here. Making community college “free” deepens the government’s involvement in one of the many areas where it has no business at all: education and training. Market actors have strong incentives to provide the most efficient modes of postsecondary education and training and if students have to pay for what they want, they will look for and find whatever suits them best in a competitive field. Turning community college into an extension of high school will politicize it, dumb it down, and damage the non-free market alternatives now available to students.
Emanuel and Haslam say that their idea will “increase educational attainment,” but America’s problem is not that we don’t have enough “attainment” of degrees. Our problem is that, due to government involvement, it takes our young people longer to learn what they need to learn, and at much higher cost.