Free Affordable Community College for All

Making college more affordable is a hot topic right now. Student loan debt is soaring into the trillions of dollars and 4.7 million borrowers are in default on their student loans. We all know that the cost of college today is not at all close to equivalent of the cost 30 years ago. Thirty years ago we could pay for college tuition with a summer job. Today our students can’t even come close to tuition with their summer jobs.

So what do we do about it?

There is a lot of talk about free community college for all. But we all know that free doesn’t really mean free. The money has to come from somewhere. We already have 10-37% of our paychecks go to the federal government.  So we don’t want to do it with a tax increase.

Where should the money come from?

The Trump Fiscal Year 2018 Discretionary Budget Request allocates $61 billion for education and $679 billion for military.  Did you know that $4 billion dollars goes to missile defense alone? Really?!

Maybe we should rethink what we are spending our money on. I am no Department of Defense expert but something tells me we could reallocate some of this money and help get the cost of higher education under control.