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Bernie Sanders has made waves among potential voters—especially millennials—for his plans to make tuition at public colleges and universities free. But is he promising too much?

Paul Reville, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, thinks so. "It's probably unrealistic in the near-term, given the state of the economy, to make a promise like that," Reville said. "It's unlikely to be fulfilled."

He would know—he was Secretary of Education when Governor Deval Patrick proposed free community college for all students in the state way back in 2007. That plan, though warmly received at the time, still hasn't happened.

The major issue is political will, Reville says. Sanders' plan is impossible "without a significant change in disposition of the Congress to make an entitlement out of something we've paid for to date," he explained.

Instead, he recommended a more focused program directed at improving access to community college for lower-income students, rather than trying to make it free for students who can already afford it.

"Instead of trying to make it free for everybody, including people who don't need us to make it free for them, I'd focus on an aggressive program to make it available to everybody who currently needs assistance in order to do it and sometimes is prevented from doing it because they can't afford it," Reville said.

Paul Reville is the Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the former Massachusetts Secretary of Education. He also runs the Education Redesign lab. To hear more from his interview, click on the audio link above.