http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/04/21/benefits-of-bernie-sanderss-free-college-plan-bigger-for-wealthy-analysis-finds/Advocates of tuition-free college are having a bad week.
First, a leading think tank on tax policy picked apart the numbers in the Bernie Sanders proposal, saying the math didn’t add up. Now comes the left-of-center Brookings Institution, which says the Vermont senator’s plan would give nearly $17 billion in aid to the upper half of U.S. earners, while giving less aid to the poorest
The analysis undercuts a central theme of Mr. Sanders’s Democratic presidential campaign, which has called for shifting tax benefits from the rich to the beleaguered middle class and poor. Brookings contributor Matthew Chingos says the Sanders plan would actually be tilted toward the wealthy, a charge that has been made by the senator’s chief rival, Hillary Clinton.
Specifically, dependent students from households in the top half of U.S. earners would get $16.8 billion in tuition relief under the free-college plan, Mr. Chingos concludes. Students from households in the bottom half would get $13.5 billion.
The Sanders campaign called the analysis deeply flawed, saying that under its own analysis, 70% of the benefits would go to those making less than $100,000 a year. “Unlike, the Clinton plan, Senator Sanders is clear on who will benefit from his plan: everyone who has the ability and the desire to receive a higher education,” Warren Gunnels, the campaign’s policy director, said in an email. Mrs. Clinton has proposed allowing making college debt-free for students, rather than tuition-free.
Mr. Chingos’s explanation is simple. The Sanders plan would relieve students of paying any tuition at public colleges and universities, both at more-selective schools that tend to be more expensive, and less-selective schools that tend to be cheaper. (Mr. Sanders would levy a tax on Wall Street trading to pay for it.) “At public four-year colleges, dependent students from higher-income families tend to attend more expensive institutions,” he writes. As a result, they would get most of the aid if college tuition were free.
Lower-income students tend to go community colleges and less-expensive public schools, and thus would receive less aid.
Mr. Chingos points out that making college tuition-free would still leave students on the hook for rent, transportation and books, which often comprise the biggest costs for students.
But Mr. Gunnels contended the Sanders plan would require public colleges to meet “100% of the financial needs of the lowest-income students.” Those students would be able to use federal, state and college financial aid to cover living expenses, he said. “It is simply false to say that the Sanders’ plan would not adequately cover room and board,” Mr. Gunnels said in an email.
Mr. Chingos analyzed federal that breaks down how much students from different backgrounds borrowed. The analysis focuses on dependent students, since it’s difficult to determine the family background and wealth of independents. (For example, an independent student whose parents are wealthy would be considered a low earner if he works part time or has no job while in school.)
The benefits of the Sanders plan, in dollar terms, rise as household income rises. Among all public institutions, dependent students in the bottom quarter of earners would get, on average, $3,678 in tuition relief. Students in the top quarter would get $5,308.
Mr. Chingos says the takeaway is that declaring a benefit universal, rather than targeting it toward a specific group, usually leads to huge benefits for the wealthy. “There are tradeoffs here,” he says in an interview. For college to be free for everyone, “you have to give billions of dollars to wealthy people.”
Mr. Chingos points out that a more progressive version of Mr. Sanders’s plan would use the $16.8 billion in aid for upper-income households to instead cover living expenses of lower-income students.
