Here's Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic

Here's Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic:

Here's Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free

And the grand total is...

 

Reuters

A mere $62.6 billion dollars!

According to new Department of Education data, that's how much tuition public colleges collected from undergraduates in 2012 across the entire United States. And I'm not being facetious with the word mere, either. The New America Foundation says that the federal government spent a whole $69 billion in 2013 on its hodgepodge of financial aid programs, such as Pell Grants for low-income students, tax breaks, work study funding. And that doesn't even include loans. 

If we were we scrapping our current system and starting from scratch, Washington could make public college tuition free with the money it sets aside its scattershot attempts to make college affordable today.

Of course, we're not going to start from scratch (and I'm not even sure we should want to make state schools totally free). But I like to make this point every sooften because I think it underscores what a confused mess higher education finance is in this country. On the whole, Americans seem to want affordable colleges that are accessible to all. But rather than simply using our resources to maintain a cheap public system (and remember, public schools educate 75