How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free

Reading the title, the answer is obviously "zero". Government could by fiat decide that college education is anything it decides it to be. No money required at all.

But then the author comes up with this 62 billion number, which isn't the cost to make college tuition-free, it's the current private cost of tuition, which is a completely different animal. Hell, it might require an infinite amount of money to pay the tuition on everyone in the country for the next four years -- demand simply outstrips supply. So the article doesn't answer the question.

Finally, the author seems to think this is all just basic math, which I find odd after having screwed the pooch so badly thus far.

It's just a mess of a piece: linkbait headline, confusion of issues, poorly supported thesis, and rambling ending. I don't see it contributing to an interesting discussion on HN, and I wouldn't want to see HN full of articles like this.

It would be hard to quantify the return on investment to the taxpayers, but free quality higher education must have contributed to the thriving California economy and culture.

Of course, our costly rival Stanford has also contributed much, to Silicon Valley in particular. But we have twice as many Nobel laureates :)

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-annive...

""" In fiscal year 2012, public 4- year institutions and administrative offices received 21 percent of their revenues from tuition and fees """

So What your saying is the government could foot the bill for ~20% of college education by doubling its education spending. Also this is assuming that you don't change the value equation of going to school by making it free. How much more demand would you have for those public schools if you made them free ? So lets play a quick mental game here. You make "public" schools free. That means the demand to get into those schools increases. That also means that demand at those private schools will decrease. Kids who would look at both a public and private instuition and might choose to spend marginally more on the private school will choose a public school that has an almost as good program if there is no cost associated with it. Kids who today are getting into public schools paying less and still getting a good education will be forced out by better preforming peers and will either pay _more_ to go to a private school or go without college at all. Good job you just made it so lower income students can't go to school at all. Congratulations.

Note: If your response to this is well the states would build more capacity remember that ~80% of public university funding already comes from the states so every extra student they make space for is money out of their coffers.

I see the sky high college tuitions as a side effect. The real problem we need to tackle first is how these institutions are structured and what they're spending their money on.

From what I learned of the university I attended, huge (HUGE) amounts of the budget go towards administration, and relatively smaller slices go to teachers and facilities.

Before we start subsidizing, or trimming degree programs and services, lets make sure we're re-aligning our higher education institutions around the original mission: education! Once we've gotten our schools back to providing the best possible education, and fostering good teaching faculty, then we can start talking about subsidizing the cost. Then we will know as a society, that we are truly paying to make our citizens more powerful in their pursuit of happiness.

As the state of our education system stands right now, I would not want to subsidize it.

If I had a kid I would make sure they were introduced to programming(including web developement) and the financial markets at an early age; We would also go to church. Yea--I think church matters. The world has enough Trumps and Zuckerburg's(yes--I think he stole the idea, but college taught me we all steal it's called Behaviorism, but I feel Mark went farther than subconsciously thinking he came up with a good idea. ). I think I flunked grammer though?

One more thing about school. I went to Chiropractic School and lasted a little over a year. With in a few months I realized I made a huge mistake(their are no Subluxations, well maybe a handful of real subluxations caused by accidents). I had one teacher tell the class, "there are over 17 different upper cervical techniques,--And they All work equally well". I was floored. It works on a placebo level. I went home had a break down, and dropped out. Paid back the 12 grand to the government. I has a break down for other reasons than the lie of Chiropractic School, but What always amassed me was the amout of denial among the students.

I couldn't figure out if they didn't know about the Placbo Effect, didn't want to admit they were duped, didn't care as long as it was legal, or they just wanted to be called Doctors?

I had one classmate die of a stroke while biking on a Sunday. He was a nice Midwestern kid. He was going to Chiro school along with his wife, but she was beyond cool. The ironic and sad part of his early death is I think he was seeing a Chiropractor weekly, and getting "adjusted" by a technique called a Rotary(snap your neck ligaments--Gases escape?), but patient believes bones are moving. This is what Sharon Stone was having done to her when she had an extremely rare bilateral stroke. I heared the only reason she is alive is because by luck, a visiting vascular surgon happen be in San Franciso on attending a conference? Some how the hospital got him to repair the vessels.

I was looking for some "truths" while I went to college, and all I took away from the experience was summed up too well in the movie Superstar, by Molly Shannon, "a bunch of cliff notes, and a lot of drinking". That was an extreme statement, and I think finishing a bachler's degree in anything is important, especially for low income families. Rich kids can fall back on their parents, or use their parents connections--usually.

I'll stop. I'm still confused, and just venting, and praying I have a few more healthy years.