When Hillary Clinton was struggling to win the
Democrat party nomination against upstart Bernie Sanders, she co-opted his idea
of free college tuition for all. To appease Sanders supporters, she allowed the
idea to become part of the Democrat Party platform on which she is now running.
If she really attempts to promote this idea, it will be a disaster for higher
education in the country. Connecticut with its longstanding private school
tradition will be especially hard hit.
Although free college tuition is a popular idea,
very few people have noticed that the Democrat platform only calls for free
tuition at public or state supported schools. Inevitably such a law would drive
most private institutions of higher learning in this country out of business.
Perhaps prestigious and well-endowed institutions
like Yale might survive but most private schools would have to close their
doors. In my home town of Fairfield, Sacred Heart University, in the midst of a
massive building program, would go out of business. The University of
Bridgeport would not be able to survive. Even Fairfield University, a popular
Jesuit school, would be hard pressed. In the New Haven area, the University of
New Haven, Quinnipiac College, and Albertus Magnus college would probably have
to close their doors. Upstate, Wesleyan and Trinity would find it difficult to
keep going, and the private University of Hartford would most likely fail.
If these schools close down, where will their
students go? Obamacare provides a good frame of reference. States will be
mandated to provide higher education for all and bear the costs since there are
no such things as Federal colleges and universities. The various states and
municipalities would have to expand their facilities and staffs to cover the
huge influx of new students. Or else, the various private schools will have to
be taken over by the State and become public schools.
If free college tuition is such a good idea, why
did Governor Malloy and the Democrat legislature fail to propose it already for
Connecticut. On the contrary, budget constraints have caused Malloy to raise
tuition at UCONN and other state schools throughout his term in office.
Connecticut is one of the wealthier states in the country. If we can’t afford
it, how can we expect poorer states to help us?
According to the Democrat platform the Federal
government would somehow find the means to pay the tuition costs at these
public educational institutions. Also, can there be any doubt that if the
Federal government pays the tuition, it will be the boss. It will determine the
amount of tuition that the states can charge in the same way that it sets
medical costs in Medicare and Obamacare.
In addition, the Federal bureaucrats will inevitably
cave into activist demands that there be no admission standards. Actually, this
is the case in most state universities today. In Connecticut, for example, the
State promises that it's university system will provide a place for every
applicant. Of course, only the top students can go to the flagship UCONN
campus. Less qualified students go to a variety of less prestigious schools.
Once the Federal Government takes over, such an arrangement will likely be
declared discriminatory. The lesser schools are separate but not equal.
Recently the Wall Street Journal partnered with an
educational think tank to rate the various colleges and universities in the
country. Four Connecticut private schools were in the top 100. Yale was 5, Wesleyan
was 45, Trinity was 64, and Connecticut College was 95. The University of
Connecticut was a respectable 109 but none of the other Connecticut public
colleges made the list.
Finally, free public school tuition will also bring
centralized control of curriculum and standards. When President Obama pushed
his medical care plan back in 2008, he claimed that if you liked your current
plan, you could keep it. We now know how false that promise was. Under the Democrat
free tuition proposal, the Alma Mater that you love will either go out of
business, or descend into government directed sameness and mediocrity.
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