the catch with a free public college education

Despite what many readers might think, the only reason why the politics I advocate on this blog come across as fairly liberal is because nowadays, ideas like better education funding or public competitions for worthwhile government contracts to improve our infrastructure or advance the scientific and engineering engine of an advanced economy are now considered lefty goals. Not too long ago, all these things were being promoted by Republican politicians as answers for the future in which automation and globalization were devouring jobs, but now it’s the liberals ready to at least talk about doing both, particularly about making public colleges free by closing some corporate loopholes which allow huge corporate behemoths to avoid paying billions. If just like these companies say, we need more and better education for their future employees, let them put some skin in the game and put up the required $30 billion per year out of the $2 trillion that sits in overseas bank accounts, or has been deducted from their taxable income.

Now we don’t have to get punitive and I’m sure we can work out some deal by which American companies doing business overseas get to claim taxes paid to the countries in which they have been doing business as a deduction, or even some sort of massive tax holiday to encourage a major asset migration. Better still, we could even let companies get deductions and tax credits if they directly invest in colleges as they’re moving their money over. The point is that with literally trillions involved, surely 1.5% of that could make it to colleges. We’re basically insisting on every student going to college in order for them to get gainful employment, why then make college an expensive, life-hindering proposition? We’ve given students 12 years of free schooling and now we’re going to make them pay through the nose to get a job that keeps them worrying about an extremely toxic, non-dischargeable debt? That’s just asinine and transparently predatory.

While I’m sure college loan companies will protest all of this bitterly because public colleges are no longer going to be a steady income source, it’s hard to feel sorry for them, much like it’s not easy to have compassion for a loan shark losing his business to a new community bank. And a even though a few million dollars from them can definitely bolster a campaign, the ire of future voters who remember you as the politico who voted to keep them trapped in debt they had very little choice but to take, is going to matter a lot more come election time. So there is momentum behind this issue, and as the college loan bubble expands, expect the issue to get raised again and again. Free public colleges won’t happen overnight, but there’s way too much pressure not to do something to make them easily accessible. It’s really the only way to move our otherwise battered and deeply unequal economy towards sanity. But there is a big catch.

Before we even consider making public colleges a free service for high school students with the grades and skills, we need to have a conversation about what the successful college education should look like and how proper accreditation should work. If we don’t, we risk giving away that hard-won cash to institutions what will waste it on ads, put little towards education, pocket most of the remaining funds, and do a massive disservice to their students over the long run. We can already make a huge step towards free public colleges by shutting down for-profits, which leach billions of dollars from the government and spend close to four times as much on branding and marketing than they do on actual education, which shows when their students pay tuition on par with Ivy League schools, but have a 22% graduation rate and an 18.7% loan default rate for the two thirds of their students who have to take on loans to be able to attend.

We also need to figure out what gainful employment looks like. Again, we do understand that it should be a job that can pay the bills and gainful employment rules caught the aforementioned for-profits counting working part time at a fast food place as gainful employment to avoid fines and legal actions. But traditional colleges have similar problems, with half of their grads ending up underemployed and in debt. A lack of debt would definitely help already, but if we are going to be paying for their education, we need to make sure it actually leads somewhere. This would also mean ending the now decade-long issue of companies and colleges talking right past each other on what should constitute a proper degree program by agreeing on a set of standards by which degrees should be judged. Making college education free is a great idea, but there is so much potential for it to go wrong that we can’t simply insist on free colleges, we need to design better college educations and then fund the best and most viable programs. Anything less is a politically suicidal and economically non-viable misuse of $30 billion per year…