[throwaway342526]

It's not wrong. Making something free means paying for it in a transparent fashion.

Bernie Sanders is not talking about changing the institutional structure of college such that it somehow has no cost to provide. He is talking about the government paying that cost on behalf of students.

I agree with free education, by the way. We currently spend our budgets on much less useful things. But let's be honest about what it means and how it works.

[logician76]

Yes it is wrong, paying the cost of education at cost (for a government), or paying students to pay market prices (inflated by perception of value) is a huge difference. Which do you think Bernie Sanders was implying?

[throwaway342526]

Bernie is not suggesting nationalizing all american colleges. That would be absurd.

[logician76]

In real life there are more possibilities in between 0 and 1.. Also look at how its done in other countries. Apparently americans can go to Germany to study for free in a recent article. Absurd indeed.

[throwaway342526]

You do understand that all of those options require someone to pay for the services? I don't know why we're still having a conversation about this. An institution with employees costs money, unless the institution is entirely comprised of volunteers (in which case the volunteers are paying with their time).

Germany pays.

Bernie's plan is to pay institutions.

That's all well and good, but that's what it is.