Over the next couple of days, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be playing up her new, $350‐​billion proposal primarily intended to make paying public college tuition a debt‐​free experience.


Beware “free”!


According to early information about the plan – I couldn’t find details on Clinton’s campaign Web page yet – under the proposal the federal government would spend $200 billion over ten years on public colleges and universities, with a condition that states also increase their higher ed outlays. The goal would be to make paying public college tuition debt‐​free for all. In addition, the plan — called the “New College Compact” — would give $25 billion to historically black colleges and universities, and other schools with low endowments, over ten years. Next, the proposal would allow all current student debt holders to refinance loans at lower interest rates and sign up for income‐​based repayment plans capping monthly payments at 10 percent of discretionary income and forgiving whatever remained after 20 years. The loan‐​term plan is estimated to cost $125 billion over ten years.


Of course, as with any politically good plan, it seems details on how all this would be paid for – other than to say the rich will cover the $35‐​billion annual price tag – will be announced at some later, likely quieter date. Ditto details on how the plan will ensure colleges spend all the new, forced taxpayer largesse on instruction rather than fluff like climbing walls and water parks that students demand and schools, increasingly, deliver. Putting off these latter details could be especially important politically because while colleges love money, they do not love strings. To keep maximum support from the Ivory Tower – typically a welcoming edifice for Democrats – you’ll want to keep the downside hazy.


Of course, the estimated price tag is just the most immediate, obvious cost of the plan. The more hidden cost would be the plan’s deleterious effects: encouraging yet more people to spend more time in programs even less tethered to real‐​world needs. Quite simply, when someone else pays your bills you are more likely to consume, and less likely to think efficiently about what you are consuming. That’s been the higher education problem for decades, and this plan would have someone else foot even more of the bill.


Already we see massive overconsumption of higher ed: About a third of bachelor’s degree holders are in jobs that don’t require the credential. Lots of employers seek people with degrees for jobs that don’t appear to need college‐​level learning. And “college‐​level learning” has come to mean less and less actual learning. In other words, thanks largely to third‐​party funding, we appear to have a vicious cycle of credential inflation that would almost certainly get even worse as more and more people saw college as “free.” And no, it does not appear that spending more on higher education automatically increases human capital and, hence, economic growth. Indeed, government college spending may well hamper growth by taking money from the individual taxpayers who earned it – and would have used it for their real needs – and giving it away to colleges regardless of what people need.


“Free” always sounds so good. Until, that is, you think through how costly “free” can be.