Issue Position: Higher Education for All

Issue Position

Roughly every 100 years, the United States expands its public education system to match its increasingly advanced economy. It's now time to expand our national education system to include tuition-free public college and trade school.

In fact, we've had this system before: The University of California system offered free tuition at its schools until the 1980s. In 1965, average tuition at a four-year public university was just $243 and many of the best colleges -- including the City University of New York -- did not charge any tuition at all. Alexandria's plan would make tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout the country.

In tandem with making public colleges tuition-free, Alexandria supports a one-time policy of student debt cancellation, in which the federal government cancels the loans it holds directly and buys back the financing of privately owned loans on behalf of borrowers to liberate generations of Americans trapped in student loan debt and holding back from participating in the greater US economy.

A policy of debt cancellation could boost real GDP by an average of $86 billion to $108 billion per year. Over the 10-year forecast, the policy generates between $861 billion and $1,083 billion in real GDP (2016 dollars).

Source