Free Community College isn't Free, Its a Bad Idea

President Obama seems bent on creating new problems for our country and economy under the guise of trying to solve a related problem. The latest installment is his proposal to give a two-year "Free Community College" education to any student with a "C" average or above, subsidized 75 percent by the federal government (i.e. taxpayers) and 25 percent by state governments (i.e. taxpayers).

This is analogous to his approach to "solving" our healthcare issues. Instead of addressing rapidly rising costs, he has focused on increasing access which drives up costs. And this approach, once again, is insane.

No Such Thing as Free

"Free Community College" is just as "free" as everything else that is deemed "free" — it isn't. Someone has to pay for the costs of the program and those paying for it will be the taxpayers. That means that both the people who opt for free community college will pay for it — as well taxpayers at large — at inflated prices down the road. The federal government has already created a debt load that saddles future generations with more debt than the country's GDP. This type of "free" will cost dearly later.

More government-sponsored "free" college will inflate the cost, but not the value, of a community college education. It's basic supply and demand. If you put more demand into a fixed supply of colleges, costs will increase. And removing the ability for the people paying for the education system to vote with their dollars, so that they do not send money to providers where the value isn't worth it, serves only the purpose of driving up costs with no obligation on the providers of education.

We've already seen this within the post-secondary education system. There are free funds to students in the form of Pell Grants and student loan availability abounds, regardless of whether the investment makes sense and can be paid back. That easy money increased demand in the relatively fixed college supply system and has led college costs to skyrocket far beyond almost anything else in the economy. When the economy was struggling, college costs were still going up. And in community colleges over the past few years, by many accounts, costs have increased at more than double the inflation rate.

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