Free College is controversial – democratic leaders and voters have polarizing opinions
Yglesias 19 Matthew Yglesias; co-founded Vox.com with Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell in the spring of 2014. He's currently a senior correspondent focused on politics and economic policy. “Democrats’ ongoing argument about free college, explained,” Vox, June 24, 2019. https://www.vox.com/2019/6/24/18677785/democrats-free-college-sanders-warren-biden; 7-10-2023; AA]
In the 2020 field, Elizabeth Warren has joined Sanders on the free college bandwagon. Joe Biden was an early endorser of this idea in 2015, though he hasn’t talked about it much in the current cycle. Pete Buttigieg says he’s opposed, favoring instead a dramatic expansion of Pell Grants to make college much more affordable for students from low-income families. Amy Klobuchar has been more dismissive, saying she’s not “a magic genie” who can just give expensive stuff to everyone (although the federal government’s ability to create and spend money is not magic but just how the financial system works).
It’s a debate that cleaves two philosophically distinct approaches to politics: one a mentality of hoarding scarce resources for the most efficient uses, and the other a broad, aspirational vision of public luxury in which there’s little need to quibble about exactly who gets what.
But it also speaks to the generational divide in Democratic politics. To older voters, accustomed to the cheap college tuition that prevailed decades ago, “free college” sounds quixotic and frivolous; to younger people burdened by today’s much higher tuition structure and loan-based financing system, it’s a clear commitment to fix a broken system.