Free college sounds nifty, and Democratic presidential candidates, such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, are touting its glories to potential voters. What, after all, could be better than free?

Bzzzt. Not so fast. A new study out, reported by the Washington Free Beacon's Yuichiro Kakitani, shows that free college would stiff more students (more than 86% of them) than it helps. He writes:

The "free" college plans touted by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and other Democratic presidential hopefuls will require radical tax hikes and leave 86 percent of American households worse off, a recent study found. Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) often promise tuition-free higher education and student debt cancellation on the campaign trail. However, a National Bureau of Economic Research study conducted by University of Wisconsin researchers found that free college translates to a hollowed-out higher education system that leaves many Americans worse off.

They found:

"Over 86% of all households would lose while about 60% of the lowest income quintile would gain from such policies," the study found. In both scenarios, the free tuition policy benefited a group of the poorest Americans at the expense of everyone else. For the vast majority of U.S. households, any benefit derived from a free college plan was outweighed by its negative consequences. Those negative consequences include tax hikes, and money diverted from K-12 education to pay for the boondoggle.

Apparently, this doesn't even get into the incentive for 'free' schools to hire administrators, something that has left higher education in a bubble state. Those administrators for all that free stuff will come at the expense of kindergarteners getting left with no resources.

It's an important study, and good ammunition against the non-stop banquet of free stuff being offered by these mountebanks. Free stuff, as it happens, is never free. Read the whole thing here.