Read Carefully

Bernie Sanders made a name for himself painting an ambitious picture of the America his Democratic Socialist vision would create. One big selling point, universal higher education. This policy, among other universal programs, garnered Bernie Sanders significant support among millions of Americans. However, young people in particular became the bedrock of Bernie’s base and one reason is his approach to college tuition and student loan debt more generally.

This is the same tact he is taking in 2020 and he has already clearly and emphatically backed tuition free college. Just as it did in 2016 which this puts him stark contrast from at least some of his opponents. Perhaps most notably Amy Klobuchar.

A Tale of Two Town Halls: Amy Klobuchar Tells Voters They Can’t Have it all, Bernie Sanders Sticks to Long Held Commitment to Tuition Free College for All

Recently CNN hosted town halls for a number of potential presidential candidates. Specifically, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders. They also hosted a town hall with some no-name random coffee dude, who has no claim to political legitimacy or our attention, outside a big bank account, so he doesn’t count. In fact, for our purposes, Kamala doesn’t really count either, because we’re interested in the significant difference between how Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders handled the issue of tuition free college in their respective town halls.

As you could probably guess, they each took the exact opposite approach. A student asked Amy Klobuchar about student debt, told her about his friends with 6 figure student loan bills and the ever growing average student loan debt per person. Klobuchar responded with lots of nice platitudes about affordable college. She gestured to “refinancing and extending pell grants to more students.” She turned to community college and the need for other options outside a four year degree, which is all well and good. The real problem though, was Klobuchar’s dismissive attitude to universal higher education as a concept. When pressed on why she doesn’t support universal tuition free education at four year universities, her response? “If I was a magic genie, and could give that to everyone I would, and if we could afford it I would.”

That’s the lie though, we could afford it, easily. Klobuchar approved more in military spending INCREASES under Trump than it would cost to fund tuition free college, by quite a wide margin. Before we get into the numbers though, it’s worth contrasting her approach to that of Bernie Sanders because Bernie’s response seems far more in line with the tone and tenor of the Democratic Party and frankly, more in line with fiscal reality. As counter intuitive as that might seem given the warm response to the “hard-nosed realism” Klobuchar tried to project.

In Bernie’s CNN town hall he was asked a similar question. His response was not to tell the student saddled with 6 figure student loan debt that “he’d been there, he got through it.” Instead he spoke to the structural problem present in American education. For millions of Americans college is simply not an option and for millions more it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bernie remembered painfully stories of a doctor in Vermont with over $100 thousand in student loans and a dentist in Iowa with over $300 thousand. Adding a human element to the crisis Klobuchar seemed to ignore. Additionally, Bernie stressed if we want to compete in a globalized 21st century economy, we have to have the best educated workforce in the world. In Bernie’s estimation, “returning to what we did decades ago” and providing free tuition to every student in the country is the only logical way forward.

Bernie doesn’t outright say it, but the fact that he packages his tuition free college plan as “what we used to do” gestures to it. Bernie won’t lie like Amy Klobuchar, tuition free college isn’t too expensive at all. In fact it’s pretty affordable, even without considering the return on investment that comes with funding people’s educations. Bernie knows it and he wants you to know it as well, we used to pay for it and we can do it again.

Tuition Free College Costs Less Than Trump’s Military Budget Hikes

It’s easy to lecture people on what is realistic when you’ve just bought the status quo without questioning it at all. Half steps like community college and refinancing are nice, but student loan debt has increased 828% since 1999 and the total student loan debt in the U.S. recently passed $1.4 trillion dollars. And over half those who owe are in default or delinquent on their payments. This is a serious issue holding an entire generation down. Klobuchar was glib in the face of that and doesn’t seem to appreciate the structural problem at the core of it all. It’s simply a matter of misplaced priorities, we could do it.

The argument that tuition free college is too expensive, is flat out dishonest. The money is there and if you take a look at the increases in military spending over the last 3 years, they far outpace the cost of tuition free college education. It’s kind of complicated given how funds are appropriated. Military spending is usually done annually while programs like tuition free college are paid for in 5 or 10 year increments, especially in the white paper stage, where most college for all plans remain. So we need to do a little math.

In 2016 the military budget was $585.3 billion dollars. In 2017 Trump’s budget raised military spending by $115 billion to $700 billion a year. In 2019 Trump’s budget raised it another $15 billion and has suggested another $50 billion in spending heading toward 2020. If Trump gets the spending he requested, which he probably will, that will represent over $400 billion in military spending based on the increase from 2016 spending levels alone. So in 4 years, congress increased military spending by over $400 billion dollars, which is more than 5 years of tuition free college costs, as we’ll explain below. However, shockingly I know, you can bet people like Amy Klobuchar didn’t find that pie in the sky. In fact, she voted for it every step of the way.

Bernie’s tuition free college plan costs less than these spending hikes. Specifically, the Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center estimated that Bernie Sanders’ tuition free college plan would cost $807 billion over 10 years. So in 5 years, it would cost $403.5 billion. So for the money we spent on our increased military budget over the last 4 years, plus another $3.5 billion, we could have bought 5 years of tuition free education for every student in the United States. At least as a matter of spending, politics and the art of what is possible is a different story though.

Almost everyone says tuition free education is unaffordable, it was a common line of attack against young Bernie supporters. Nobody questions this narrative, but they should. Many pundits and politicians take the pie in the sky line of attack at face value. It’s not a fair critique though, the money is there. We spend more money than many universal programs cost in various ways, every single year. We lose enough money to fund various universal programs through tax havens and a grossly inequitable tax code, every single year. That’s not even considering new revenue things like Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax, AOC’s 70% top marginal tax rate or Bernie’s estate tax proposal could bring. It’s incredibly disingenuous to be in Amy Klobuchar’s position and say we can’t afford these programs and she knows it, or at least she should.

The fact is, college for all is affordable, anyone who says otherwise is lying or uninformed. It’s imperative we solve the student debt crisis, and anyone who offers a half step in the face of that isn’t worth your time. So whether it’s Bernie Sanders or someone else, support a candidate that takes student debt seriously, because it’s a big issue for millions of us, it’s got a stranglehold on our economy, and if Amy Klobuchar is any indication, our politicians won’t take that seriously until we demand it from them.