In a speech at Liberty University Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson reinforced the need for the United States to have a well-informed populace while simultaneously dismissing the notion that government should provide free college education.

Noting that the Founding Fathers considered a well-informed populace a “vital requisite” for freedom, Carson told the audience, “If people are not well-informed, all it takes is unscrupulous politicians and news media — and off the people go in a completely wrong direction.”

Carson warned that an uninformed populace will absorb propaganda “into their method of thinking,” adding it then “becomes real easy for them to swallow things.”

“If they don’t really understand the financial situation of the country,” Carson continued, “and somebody comes along and says, ‘Free college for everybody!’ They’ll say, ‘Oh what a wonderful thing!'”

“They have no idea that all you’re talking about is hastening the destruction of the nation,” Carson concluded.

This isn’t the first time Carson spoke about his position on higher education. In October, Carson told conservative radio host Glenn Beck he would require the Department of Education to monitor colleges and universities, and withhold government funding from institutions that display “extreme political bias.”

In defense of his position, Carson told NBC’s Meet the Press his proposal was “not a violation of the 1st Amendment, because all I’m saying is taxpayer funding should not be used for propaganda.”

Watch the video above, via C-SPAN 2.

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