DES MOINES, Iowa — Education, particularly free college, is a key pillar of Bernie Sanders's resurgent second White House bid.

But as a private citizen four decades ago, the Vermont senator, an independent who rejoined the Democratic Party in order to seek its 2020 presidential nomination, decried schools as "mind-destroying" institutions shortly after leaving his home state's main socialist political party at the time.

"In 1978, as in other years, I hope to be able to play some role in making working people aware that the present day reality of poverty, wage slavery and mind-destroying media and schools is not the only reality — but simply a pathetic presentation brought to us by a handful of power-hungry individuals who own and control our economy," Sanders, now 78, said to the local newspaper Rutland Daily Herald that January for a New Year's resolution story.

Sanders, who is on the precipice of winning a slew of delegates in Iowa on Monday, has built his campaign this cycle on the foundation he established in 2016 during his failed run against Hillary Clinton. That includes his education platform and its central planks of "College for All," canceling student debt, and investing heavily in public education.

"What Bernie believes is that the American people deserve freedom — true freedom," his 2020 website states.

It adds, "You are not truly free when you graduate college with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt. You are not truly free when you cannot pursue your dream of becoming a teacher, environmentalist, journalist or nurse because you cannot make enough money to cover your monthly student loan payments. And you are not truly free when the vast majority of good-paying jobs require a degree that requires taking out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to obtain."

The self-described mediocre student and former Head Start preschool teacher, who held a string of odd jobs before joining the Liberty Union and embarking on his political career in 1971, mused about education and freedom in an essay for the Vermont Freeman, advocating against basic schooling standards.

“State after state requires children to stay in school until a minimum age, and more of our young people attend college than in any other country on earth," he wrote for the alternative publication in 1969. "Nonetheless, people have little confidence in themselves and are fearful of freedom. Mothers with twenty years of education are fearful of holding their children without ‘consulting their physician’ and ‘experts’ are assuming control everywhere."

He continued, "Year after year the population receives more and more education, and year after year the people have less control over their own destinies."

Sanders later campaigned on the issue in 1972 during the first of his two ill-fated bids as Liberty Union's gubernatorial nominee in Vermont. He also unsuccessfully contested the state's Senate seats as a third-party candidate before leaving the party in 1977.

A spokeswoman for Sanders's 2020 efforts did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner's request for comment.

Sanders, first elected to the House in 1990 and the Senate in 2006, likes to tout the fact that he's Congress's longest-serving independent despite caucusing with Democrats so he can sit on committees, has a rich history of making colorful statements. Many of those remarks are being dredged up ahead of Iowa's kickoff caucuses as he holds a 3 percentage-point lead on closest rival Joe Biden in the first-in-the-nation state, according to RealClearPolitics polling averages.

A recent example is a Daily Beast report into how the ex-mayor of Burlington once compared the experience of Vermont workers in the 1970s to that of black slaves in 18th and 19th centuries.