“I think what we need to do is say, ‘Yes, higher education should be a right,’ ” Sanders said on HuffPost Live

Sanders argued special interests controlled the current U.S. academic landscape. It is their meddling, he claimed, that prevents momentum for free, universal higher education from taking hold.

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“The folks who control the politics in America, the people who control the media aren’t particularly interested in that discussion,” Sanders charged.

“They’re doing just fine,” he said. “The top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.”

Sanders’s remarks come as he weighs a potential 2016 White House bid. He argued Americans might prove too set in their ways for the massive education reform he was advocating.

“But that’s democratic socialism,” Sanders said of Denmark, a country he said reflects the higher education system he seeks.

“We don’t want to talk about that, do we?” he asked. “We love the current system, where we have massive wealth and inequality.”