Free Republic

The 1,100-page report identifies ways to calculate monetary reparations to redress “how enslavement and its enduring legacy of systemic racism cemented structural inequality.” SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s highly anticipated reparations report, released Thursday, outlines how Black Californians can receive monetary compensation for the harms of slavery and systemic racism. The task force proposed more than 100 statewide policies to address generations of discrimination and racial disparities. Still, the report does not issue a concrete dollar amount owed to people "who are able to demonstrate that they are the descendant of either an enslaved African American in the United States, or...

Washington — First lady Dr. Jill Biden admitted Monday that her goal of establishing government-backed, free community college for eligible students is not going to happen — at least not anytime soon or as part of some modified version of President Biden's Build Back Better agenda. Biden told a national association of community college leaders that Congress has so far failed to pass the Build Back Better plan "and free community college is no longer a part of that package.” It is highly unusual for first ladies to wade into policy fights, especially when it's to admit that their signature...

Let's investigate the costs of "free" college education with a look at demographics and incentives to not work.Population Change in Last 5, 10, 15 YearsPopulation Change Details In the last 5 years, the total noninstitutional population age 16 and over rose by 7.68 million. The population change of those aged 65 and older rose by 8.24 million, over 100% of the total increase.The population change of those aged 60-64 rose by 1.39 millionThe 60+ total is 9.63 million.The population of the prime-age workers, those aged 25-54 rose by a mere 219,000.Civilian Noninstitutional Population by Age The above chart highlights the...

House Democrats have released their draft plan to make free community college a reality across much of the country, at a price tag of over $100 billion. The obsession with a zero sticker price for community college is odd, given that community colleges are already one of the most affordable sectors of America’s higher-education system. Average tuition is less than $4,000 per year, and after existing financial aid is applied, the typical student pays no tuition at all. The more pressing concern at community colleges is not the price of admission, but what that tuition payment is buying students. Most...

Editor's Note: This piece was co-authored by U.S. Congresswoman Lisa McClain and Dr. Kent D. MacDonald.A “Baker's Dozen" is synonymous with more, or extra in a transaction. This piece provides (extra) arguments - a baker’s dozen - why government subsidized, free college tuition is bad for all involved. Making the case:The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. Frederic Bastiat Nowhere are Bastiat’s words becoming more evident than with the many in Washington and their fascination with free college tuition. To better understand the naïveté of this harmful and expensive...

Americans took out $1.7 trillion in government loans for college tuition. Now, some don't want to pay it back. President Joe Biden says they shouldn't have to. He wants to cancel at least $10,000 and maybe $50,000 of every student's debt. "They're in real trouble," says Biden in my latest video, "having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying the rent." Poor students! But wait: Shouldn't they have given some thought to debt payments when they signed up for overpriced colleges? When they majored in subjects like photography or women's studies, unlikely to lead to good jobs?...

The state of New Mexico recently canceled its plan to offer free college tuition to all state residents. The proposal, which was originally introduced in September 2019 by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham(D), would have made college tuition-free for 55,000 students in the state. According to a report by Campus Reform, the state of New Mexico has canceled its plans to offer free college tuition to residents of the state. The plan, which was originally announced in September 2019, would have made college tuition-free for the 55,000 students enrolled at state colleges and universities. Recently, the state announced that the plan...

... Only hours before Sunday’s debate, Mr. Biden’s campaign announced that he is “adopting Senator Sanders’ proposal”—from a bill Mr. Sanders sponsored in 2017—to fund tuition-free college for families who earn under $125,000 a year. This probably would cost hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade. It could devastate private colleges and liberal arts schools. It would banish economic incentives, forcing universities to compete, more than they already do, over whose climbing wall is the gnarliest. Lest Elizabeth Warren feel left out, Mr. Biden is adopting her plan “to fundamentally reshape our bankruptcy system.” To pick two of her...

Sen. Bernie Sanders may mix his ideas with love but—in the words of the late, great Sammy Davis Jr.— his expansive plans for government certainly won’t “make the world taste good.” On the contrary, the presidential candidate’s sweeping promises to provide “free” healthcare, “free” college, “free daycare and solve the so-called climate crisis are illusions that, if enacted, would devastate our economy.As Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, says, “When it comes to health care, Democrats are selling snake oil.”Indeed, flesh out the Vermont Democrat’s platform and one sees he’s definitely not peddling gum drops. He’s proposing a...

The father of a college student was seen confronting Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren about her plan to cancel student loan debt in a video that went viral earlier this week. The dad chastised Warren over her plan, and got especially heated after the senator and 2020 presidential candidate told him he could not get the money back that he saved to pay for his daughter’s school. “My daughter is in school. I saved all my money. Am I gonna get my money back?” the dad asked. “Of course not,” Warren replied. “So you’re gonna pay for people who didn’t...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has already pledged that, if elected president, she would erase student-loan debt for the vast majority of the 45 million borrowers in America. On Tuesday, she went one step further, saying she would use executive authority to begin wiping out student debt on the first day of a Warren presidency. She appears to be the first 2020 presidential candidate to have a day-one plan to use presidential executive authority on student-debt relief. In all, borrowers currently hold more than $1.5 trillion in student-loan debt in this country, a slow-motion crisis that economists say dampens home purchases,...

Free community college is a big hit on the campaign trail as candidates battle over student debt plans but there’s a downside — schools could be overwhelmed by a tide of new students who’d still wind up without degrees. Most of the Democratic presidential candidates back free tuition for two-year colleges but they’ve skipped over how it would really work. If too many students show up, the system will buckle, even if more cash accompanies them, and students run the risk of being shut out of packed classes, college leaders say. No one has yet figured out how to efficiently...

... When students realize that they will get into college no matter what they learn in grade school or high school, they will have no incentive to forgo activities that are more fun than attending school, listening to teachers, and doing homework. As Albert Shanker, the late president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote in 1993, “Kids are just like adults: they will work to get what they want. If they know they have to work hard, listen in class, and come to school every day with their homework done to get into college, they’ll do that. If they...

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg of espousing Republican philosophy in regards to free education. Ocasio-Cortez, who has previously endorsed Buttigieg's competitor in Sen. Bernie Sanders, supports both tuition-free college as well as canceling student debt. Sanders also supports both policies. In a campaign video tweeted out on Thursday, Buttigieg agreed that college should be "affordable for everybody," but questioned the feasibility of implementing a tuition-free system for all. "There are some voices saying, 'well that doesn't count unless you go even further, unless it's free even for the kids of millionaires,' but I only want...

ALBUQUERQUE — In one of the boldest state-led efforts to expand access to higher education, New Mexico is unveiling a plan on Wednesday to make tuition at its public colleges and universities free for all state residents, regardless of family income. The move comes as many American families grapple with the rising cost of higher education and as discussions about free public college gain momentum in state legislatures and on the presidential debate stage. Nearly half of the states, including New York, Oregon and Tennessee, have guaranteed free two- or four-year public college to some students. But the New Mexico...

“Socialism does not mean government owns everything,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained earlier this summer during an Instagram live stream.... Three months prior to Ocasio-Cortez’s declaration, a Harris Poll provided exclusively to Axios showed that 61% of Americans ages 18 to 24 have a positive reaction to the word “socialism,” while 58% responded similarly to the word “capitalism.” Conversely, only 27% of people age 65 and older had a positive reaction to the word that most of them still associate with the Red Scare. The poll also showed that millennials and Gen Zers are more likely than previous generations to accept...

Never before have presidential candidates offered voters so much “free” stuff.Kamala Harris wants you to “collect up to $500 a month.”Elizabeth Warren says, “We need to go tenfold in our research and development in green energy.”No one has tracked the cost of all of the promises. So my video team did!Who will spend the most?Here are the new spending proposals from the five most popular (according to ElectionBettingOdds.com) candidates.In my latest video, we break it down by category, education spending first:Joe Biden wants to “triple the amount of money we spend for Title I schools” ($32 billion) create “universal pre-K”...

Democratic candidates for president, in their impressive expansiveness, are promising free college. Some limit their proposals to community colleges, others to state-run schools, and a few, going for broke, want also to forgive student debt for private-college tuition. Since no realm of American life has undergone greater inflation in recent decades than higher education, this is no piddling promise. The cost to taxpayers could be in the trillions, though the prospect would please a nephew of mine who this autumn is sending a son to Dartmouth at the annual price of $76,000. If government is going to pay for college,...

... Yet city leaders have found the benefits of the Kalamazoo Promise, as the free college plan is known, go only so far. Just 38% of students who finished high school between 2006 and 2012 earned a college degree or certificate, according to the Upjohn Institute, a nonprofit research center that has studied the program. This was up only slightly from the 34% average for the three years before the program existed. Among black students, just 23% from the classes of 2006 through 2012 earned a college credential, compared with 22% before the program. The percentage of Kalamazoo residents living...

ABC's Jonathan Karl recently interviewed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. Karl asked no question and did not call for a clarification when Ocasio-Cortez, presumably referring to the Mueller report, spoke about "the abundance of evidence, 10 counts of obstruction of justice, four with rock-solid evidence" against President Donald Trump. A "count" means a specific accusation of a crime. The Mueller report made no such accusation. Even worse, Karl, with not one follow-up question, allowed Ocasio-Cortez to rattle off her progressive agenda -- which includes free college tuition, government health care for all and a $15 minimum wage indexed to inflation. After...