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Free Community College? Here’s How That Might Work In Oregon

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Rob Manning OPB

Many in Oregon likely sat up and listened recently when President Barack Obama made this announcement in the State of the Union:

“I’m sending this Congress a bold, new plan to lower the cost of community college to zero!”…

Oregon can’t wait for Obama to get something through Congress, said Mark Hass, chairman of Oregon’s senate education committee…

We Respond & Your Comments

As we’ve said before, nothing is “free.” Somebody pays for everything. If it’s a government program we taxpayers pay every cent of it. We’ll now add that you can’t change the “cost” of anything unless you’re the provider of it. A thing costs a seller of it what it costs. Only the price changes.

Here’s another iron rule of economics: If you want more of something, subsidize it. What Sen. Hall wants to subsidize is tuition.

We saw this movie with four year college tuition. Federal and state governments subsidized it through scholarships, grants and loans. What happened? Colleges, knowing they could get tuition bucks from government entities, hiked tuition prices to the moon.

We guess Sen. Hass (D-Beaverton) wants to see the same movie again, this time starring community colleges. We guarantee that the ending will be the same. And very expensive.

 

 

 

 

 

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