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This week, Mary Clare Amselem, a policy analyst in Heritage’s Center for Education Policy, talks about why free college tuition policies don’t work and how to help Americans stop accumulating so much student loan debt.
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The biggest reason free college tuition is a bad idea is that each student then has no “skin” in the game, and is not invested in their own education. There is no reason to take college seriously, as there is no consequence for doing nothing but partying on the taxpayers dime (soon to be dollar) and postpone growing up for another undetermined span of years. One could say, yes but they would have to at least get passable grades to stay in school. But that is only barely true:
The net effect will be to lower, likely by a lot the already diminishing value of a bachelor’s degree, and soon enough the graduate degrees as well. Everything will soon enough look like the notorious “studies” programs do today.