What's Wrong With Free Public College?

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Enabling Access: Ethics and Higher Education (Table 5)

Abstract

Advocates of tuition-free 4-year public college assert that it would be paid for out of taxes on the very wealthy. We establish two criteria for comparing alternative policies using new revenues: which increases the overall level of educational goods? and which reduces inequalities of educational goods? We compare tuition-free public college with two alternatives: increased spending in pre-k and k-12, and expanding the Pell Grant Program. Both are superior with respect to reducing inequalities. Spending in pre-k and k-12 is superior with respect to increasing the overall level of educational goods. Even if tuition-free 4-year public college were be superior to expanding Pell Grants at increasing the overall level of educational goods, still, we argue, expanding Pell Grants would be better.

Authors

• Michael Brighouse, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Kailey Mullane, Independent Scholar