Washington Monthly - September/October 2020 - 33

er tuition and enroll many well-off students than to regional universities and open-access community colleges where
tuition is already low. By excluding private nonprofits, it
would leave out hundreds of schools that serve racially and
economically diverse students, including many historically
Black institutions.
Finally, some people can and should pay for college. Higher education is both an essential public service that should be
accessible to all and an expensive private good that is bought
and sold for large amounts of money in the free market. Other
things work this way, which is why many people believe affordable housing is a basic human right but few, if any, believe that
all houses should be free.
There's a better way, one that would bring private nonprofit colleges into the fold, make higher learning affordable
for everyone, and greatly improve the quality of education that
students, especially the most vulnerable, receive. Here's how it
would work.

T

o start, the federal government should create a new program that provides a direct annual subsidy of $10,000
per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student to any college,
public or private nonprofit, that agrees to certain terms. It's
important, here, to distinguish tuition prices from tuition revenue. Colleges often provide scholarships and discounts that
bring prices substantially below listed rates, and most students
attend public institutions that charge much less than the eyepopping rates at some private colleges. As a result, the majority
of undergraduates today attend a college where tuition revenue
is less than $10,000 per FTE student.
The first condition would be to adopt a uniform pricing
system. ("Free college" is an exceptionally simple form of uniform prices, in that there aren't any.) Anyone with a household income below $75,000 would pay nothing. From there, tuition would increase on a sliding scale and cap out at $10,000-
roughly the average tuition price at public four-year
universities-for households earning more than $250,000 per
year. At public universities, prices would be the same for inand out-of-state-students, eliminating the financial incentive
for colleges to recruit wealthy students from far away at the expense of local taxpayers. The existing Pell Grant program would
be maintained, providing lower-income students with additional funding to pay for books, housing, and living expenses.
"Free college" would keep school funding levels roughly
the same. In this plan, by contrast, the combination of tuition from the uniform price schedule and the annual federal
subsidy would be more money than most public and nonprofit colleges receive in tuition today. For some, it would
be much more. That's a good thing. Colleges that currently charge low tuition-mostly low-cost community colleges
and regional public universities-also tend to get less state financial support. These institutions have been shortchanged
for decades by political neglect. They serve large numbers of working adults, students of color, first-generation
collegians, and students with academic challenges.

This plan would provide those colleges with a huge boost
in new resources that could be used to improve facilities and
laboratories, increase the number of course sections, reduce
class sizes, improve faculty pay, and increase the number of
full-time tenured professors. We know that less-selective colleges can make impressive gains in helping students learn and
graduate-if they have the resources to do the job (see Jamaal
Abdul-Alim, "Higher Ed's Most Successful Failure," page 36,
for one example of a successful program). "Free college" would
make college cheaper, but not better. For many students, better
is what they most need.
For colleges closer to the break-even point between existing revenues and what they would receive under the new plan,
there would still be many good reasons to participate. Transparent lower prices would make them more attractive in the
market. Competition with neighboring states would give local
legislatures incentives to provide their colleges and universities with enough money to participate. But because the plan
allows individual colleges to opt in, no institution would be
forced into a financial and regulatory arrangement not to its
liking, preserving the long and worthwhile tradition of college
autonomy. This plan would also avoid the Obamacare problem of putting governors in the position of saying yes or no to
funding for the entire state.

"Free college" is essentially
a bailout for tax-cutting,
government-hating
right-wingers.
In a stroke, the plan would eliminate uncertainty, anxiety, and confusion for millions of students and parents struggling to pay for college. College would be cheaper or free for
many, and it would be far easier to compare prices, since colleges would use the same tuition fee schedule and be required
to use an identical format when describing other expenses like
room and board.
Including private nonprofit colleges in the plan would
broaden the political coalition for reform and help preserve the
distinct character and economic diversity of cities and towns
that rely on local colleges, many with long faith traditions and
expertise in serving Black, Hispanic, and other groups. Forprofit colleges would not be eligible.
The plan would be expensive, in the tens of billions of dollars annually, depending on how many colleges opted in. But
because students would have less need to borrow, the cost
would be partly offset by less money spent on subsidized loan
interest rates, fewer defaulted loans, and fewer loans forgiven
at taxpayer expense.
Colleges receiving the subsidy would be held accountable
for baseline measures of quality and success. While the federWashington Monthly  33
Washington Monthly - September/October 2020

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