Why is free college such a crazy idea? (Hint: IT'S NOT)

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People against the idea act as though it's insane. How exactly is it insane? It's definitely not an evil idea, and if you think it is, what the hell is wrong with you?

Usually though, people seem to think it's impossible, it simply can't be done. But I wonder how much tuition currently is already covered by federal loans, federal grants, military benifits like tuition assistance, GI Bill, ROTC scholarships, etc. Seems like the government already shells out a lot of money for it as it is, so why not just cut out the middle man and pay for it directly?

Also, apparently we can afford to bail out Wall Street criminals and fund unethical invasions of other countries, and probably loads of other things that are a total waste... but tuition free college for those who can't afford it? Are you out of your mind!?

I want all people to have access to higher education regardless of how rich their parents are. How crazy of me.

One wrong doesn't justify another. Yes, "free" college sounds like such a good and noble thing, doesn't it? How about just have a college of volunteer professors and whatnot else where it's actually free rather than have "free" mean that the money to pay for going through the overpriced format of college is taken out of other people's pockets? Really, autodidacticism allows for learning most of the same stuff that can be learned from a formal environment. Apart from medical schools and whatnot else that require accountability and oversight, you can teach yourself languages, mathematics, much of the sciences even without labs, programming, etc, all on your own without having to pay $2,000 per class in schools where most of the students and professors don't even know how to spell and care more about format than content for papers, never even spotting all the fake references just so long as they're formatted correctly. Yes, "free" sounds good, but as Heinlein said in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, "there's no such thing as a free lunch". Yes, lots of other legalized theft and other reallocation of other people's money happens by means of the government and all its slush funds and agencies, but theft is theft regardless of whether it's one person to another directly or it's by a giant faceless agency under threats of extortion, imprisonment, and death at gunpoint even against hundreds of millions of people. "free" sounds nice only to the people who think they're benefiting from it.

In order for it to be free, the federal government would have to assume control of all public colleges. I view this has a very bad idea.

The ONLY way that ANYTHING will become truly and genuinely "free" has to do with automated PRODUCTIVITY levels. UNLESS your Electricity is being generated for FREE for the population (Free-Energy Devices that everybody has in their OWN own hom to generate their own electricity), food is being grown for FREE for everybody to be able to feed themselves (everybody having something like a hydropnic-system or Urban-Cultivator to automatically grow their own food), shelter being provided for FREE to everybody (wrested from CORPORATE-control, and into the hands of those who need a place to live, FREE from rent and TAX-FREE), I assure you, free is NOT as free as you seem to want to believe.

KEY = PRODUCTIVITY of the ESSENTIALS (for survival, such as Shelter, Energy, Heat, Electricity, Food, Transportation, Fuel, Communications, etc).

It is crazy since college shouldn't be prerequisite to ever working, we should actually educate our children while their in public schools and prepare them for jobs. Think of all the money spent on higher education in this country, the inflation it has gone thru and the decline of schools and communities. We shouldn't be literally building these ivory castles. What needs to be done is that student loans should not be federally guaranteed and should be dischargable in bankruptcy, that would eliminate 99% of the problem right there.

Not intending to be belligerent but this has already been thoroughly discussed in intellectual-circles...

For this part...

Apparently people don't understand what I mean by free. I mean tuition free, meaning all the costs of college are still paid for, just through different means. Not literally free. How hard is this to understand, seriously? Rather than expecting kids who barely have any job experience or money to be able to pay tens of thousands of dollars for an education (and forcing them into ridiculous amounts of debt as a result), our society should just agree that it's better if we all chip in to help provide education to people who have the ability to succeed in college, but don't have that kind of money. It's not "theft", it's society working together to improve our nation. We already fund public schools up to 12th grade, and nobody calls that theft. But I guess consistency is too much to ask for.

@Ban-Dodger You think a ten-minute video on Fox News qualifies as "thorough discussion"? Uh, no. Also, are you seriously saying that anything on Fox counts as an "intellectual circle"? That's a good one. Look, this was one conversation with one college girl, who doesn't have all the facts. I think she could have researched much more adequately. But just because one person was not able to provide all the information does not mean the idea should be tossed out the window.

basic income is a much more laudable goal than 'free college' which is a racket to begin with

I assure you the College-SCAM has been thoroughly discussed (now click here to read an entire related thread).

Around here the better students are learning to become electricians before they graduate high school in apprenticeship programs.