[protomyth]

It seems we play plenty of taxes if the opening quote to the article can be believed: "Neat fact: If the federal government were to take all of the money it pours into various forms of financial aid each year, it could go ahead and make tuition free, or close to it, for every student at every public college in the country."

[lukeschlather]

That statement sounds somewhat deceptive, since it likely means we could make tuition free for current students at public colleges, but does not account for the current private-school students who would flock to now-free public schools.

Also, I think the gap in actual cost of tuition between private colleges and public colleges is somewhat overstated, the primary difference being that public colleges are maybe 30-50% subsidized, while private colleges are more like 20-30% subsidized.

[superuser2]

If the government were to make the current cost of attendance available to students, colleges would just double their prices (unless you implemented gasp price controls).

[vinceguidry]

I'm highly doubtful people would put up with that. Essentially people would be paying for college twice.

[superuser2]

People will put up with anything if it's a prerequisite for being employable, as we've seen from the massive rise in tuition already.

[jbooth]

A quote like that, I want to see how they added up their sums for "all of the money it pours into.." and "tuition free, or close to it, for..".