Getting to Free College

I wrote this paper for the Center for Economic and Policy Research. What I think is a key insight is that the cause of “free college” — meaning the elimination of tuition and fees for public universities — lends itself to progressive organizing.

The salience of “free college” is that university tuition can be an obstacle to students who get their two-year Associates Degree at a community college and become eligible to transfer to university. Academically, transfer is feasible. Financially, not so much.

The secret is that the rise in tuition at the university level over past decades is substantially due to the reduction of funding from state governments. Community college is much more accessible financially. The organizing opportunity lies in the fact that university tuition can be reversed in increments, in individual states, depending on varying local political conditions. It does not have to happen all at once, everywhere, as in the Sanders-Jayapal bill.

Indeed, a fatal flaw in the politics of Democratic Socialists of America, is that proposals for reform have to be all or nothing, which you are either for or against, moral or a sell-out. In fact, some DSA voices contend that elected socialists should not be in the business of enacting reforms, only espousing reforms that are nearly impossible to enact. With thinking like this, DSA is teetering on the brink. It likes to pretend it follows Bernie Sanders’ politics, but that is a scam. It doesn’t, and Sanders himself will have nothing to do with it.

I tried a little test run of my theory as part of my abortive campaign for the Virginia state legislature. With my lone volunteer, we tried leafletting the local community college. This was my pitch.

The trip was wasted. The campus seemed deserted. We went at noon, hoping to catch people going to and from lunch. Maybe we should have gone in the evening. More than one passer-by refused a free leaflet, saying “I’m good.” I stayed in good humor but thought, “What the fuck? . . . You are not even curious enough to accept a free piece of paper??” This did not improve my attitude, which is never too sunny in any event. Maybe it was just me. Or maybe community college students are just too damn busy to mess with politics. They tend to have jobs as well as classes.

I’ve always known you can’t foment uprisings. You just have to be ready when they happen. It was not happening for my campaign.

A learned friend in academia is cooking up a Virginia-specific proposal. I’m hoping it will be something that Democrats in Virginia can use this year. And if college students decide to rise up, I’ll do what I can to pitch in.