Free college, or at least debt free college, was a popular idea during the Democratic primaries. Senator Bernie Sanders used it to drive up support among young voters and soundly beat Hillary Clinton among the demographic.
I can understand the appeal. Many other countries have tuition much lower than America, college debt can be overwhelming, and a degree has historically been a good way to move up in the world. Wouldn’t making it easier to get one reduce inequality and help get young people off to a good start in life?
Well, probably not. Or at least not to the effect that Sanders and others claim. At the very least there are better ways to spend a lot of money on education.
To start with, college is mostly only accessible to those who already have a leg up in the world. According to the Pell Institute, parents in the top income quartile have a 72 percent chance of seeing their kids get a bachelor degree. For the poorest quarter of parents, that number is 9 percent. Some of this might have to do with college affordability. But the gap definitely starts earlier.
High school dropout rates are about four times higher for the poorest fourth of students than the richest fourth. They’re also higher for students of color than white ones. Notably, this data excludes youth who join the military or go to prison, which disproportionately affect poor and non-white students. As such, the gap is likely larger than the dropout data suggests.
What I’m getting at is that the people who get to college, and especially those who stay long enough to graduate and thus pick up the most debt, are typically richer and whiter than the general population. Trying to reduce income inequality by making college debt-free would primarily help upper-class and middle-class white students and do nothing for the poor or minority students who get snatched up by the prison system or otherwise can’t get through high school in the first place.
Additionally, we should not really be encouraging more people to go to college. Too many already do right now. Currently, 36 percent of U.S. residents between 25 and 34 have a bachelors degree. A study from Georgetown University estimated that 35 percent of job openings in 2020 will require one. So right now, supply and demand are roughly equal. Adding millions of new students just leads to even more graduates unable to find work requiring their degree.
By contrast, there are fields that are badly undermanned, pay well and don’t require anything more than an associates degree. Welders make almost 20 dollars an hour on average. The average age of a welder is 55. Due to retirements and pipeline building, it is estimated the market will want almost 300,000 more people in welding-related fields than it can find by 2020. As demand exceeds supply, wages will likely go up even more.
More people with bachelors degrees won’t fix that shortfall. Yet, despite knowing most students won’t go to college, we continue to base our educational policies around universities. Our high school system is designed to prepare students for college and not to teach useful skills.
So if we want to use our education spending to reduce inequality and meet the needs of the market, we’d be much better off pouring money into high schools to help lower income and minority students succeed. Then we’d refocus high schools on the trades and work to make associate degrees more socially acceptable and affordable. That would benefit the students with the most challenges; saving disproportionately rich and white college students some money wouldn’t.