President Obama’s $90 billion proposal for “free” community college, introduced in Congress last week, may be dead on arrival (as CNN claimed last January), but bad bills have a way of getting passed. And even if they don’t, they can have influence. (Tennessee already has such a program.)

Ironically, for very low-income students tuition at community college is already free. For those students, the funds for tuition and fees would be added to Pell grants, which already provide up to $5,730 per year. Thus, the Pell grants would be used to cover living expenses—but since many community colleges charge less than $5,730 now, those students already obtain more than tuition and fees from Pells.

The most interesting thing about the bill is how it has changed since it was announced in January. There is now a $1 billion-per-year system of grants to historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions—a total of 280 schools.

Officials of HBCUs had been disappointed with the president’s plan because their schools compete with community colleges and some are in financial trouble as it is. So they lobbied the White House and changed the proposal.

This introduces a new component, Inside Higher Ed remarks—the bill if enacted would support private schools as well as public ones. It would also cover the first two years at a maximum of $9000 (the average tuition and fees for a four-year public university)—far above what the community colleges typically charge but less than the tuition of many HBCUs. Is there some imbalance here?

This is beginning to look like a push for free college for everyone.