Will Free College Bern the Economy?

Before I begin, I would like to clarify that while I have taken opposition to Bernie Sanders and his lately popular promises, I am not doing so out of bashing the liberal or progressive movement. I am simply stating my opinion as a conservative, and explaining why I believe so. This was never meant to be a blindly republican blog or hate on democrats blog, just a place where I can express the policies that make the most sense to me and explain why.

The college-bound youth of America face a dilemma after high school graduation, financing their college education. There are scholarships for those with the best grades, with exceptional athletic talent, with skills in the fine arts, and for a few other elite high school graduates. But there is no financial savior for the average kid that wants to go to college. There is only the scary and uncertain path of student loans. In order to fix this scary problem, Bernie Sanders has promised free tuition at every public college. While the plan is of good intentions, it is simply not worth the damage it will cause our economy and society.

Today, when high-schoolers graduate, they have a variety of choices for the rest of their lives. Many will go to college, but others will go to trade schools and technical colleges, join the military, or enter the workforce directly. The common denominator between the four life paths? Everyone has a high school diploma. It is expected that you graduate high school, and college is an option for your future. But when we hand out college education to every eighteen year old that wants it, the value of college decreases. Everyone has a high school diploma, so it's essentially worth nothing. When everyone has a bachelors degree, it's essentially worth nothing.

Making college free will only increase taxes and make it more difficult to get jobs. The best solution to make college education more affordable is to get the government out of it as much as possible. Let our free market economy drive prices down over time, creating a more plausible financial situation for future students.