Bernie Sanders launched his campaign for president a couple of weeks ago. Since then, he’s been throwing red meat to starved liberals and progressives.
He talked of trying to ease the student loan debt burden that many college graduates now carry and he’s proposing something even more radical: free college tuition to students who attend four-year colleges and universities.
Sanders plans to present his proposal later this week as a way to encourage future labor participation and to combat the ever growing problem with student loan debt.
In his press release about his college tuition bill, Sanders also said that he believes passage of this legislation will help place the United States back at the top of the world in the percentage of people who graduate from college.
According to the Boston Globe by way of commondreams.org, the class of 2015 will carry a student loan debt of $56 billion and is “the most indebted class in history.”
Sanders’ bill has a close to zero percent chance of passing. Still–one has to admire his way of thinking. Student loan debt is out of control and so is the price of tuition at many of the country’s best colleges and universities. For lower income students, they are usually preyed upon by for-profit institutions with promises of attaining a college degree and future job placement.
While some students do graduate with a degree, the college diploma is sometimes worthless and no better than a high school certificate.
This bill is a good start to addressing a complex yet simple issue. The United States government will soon be forced to deal with the student loan debt crisis now or when the bubble finally bursts.
