Sanders: We Are Going to Make Colleges Tuition Free

>> Senator, senator Sanders, we’ve heard a lot about this, your offer— you want to offer free tuition to public universities and colleges. A couple of questions about this. 63% of those who enroll graduate. First question, isn’t this throwing a lot of money away if we’re looking at a third of these people are not going to complete college?
>> No, it is not throwing— it is an extraordinary investment for this country. Germany, many other countries do it already. In fact, if you remember, 50, 60 years ago, the university of California, city university of New York were virtually tuition-free. Here is the story— it’s not just the college graduate should be $50,000 or $100,000 in debt. More importantly, I want kids in Burlington, verm, or Baltimore, Maryland, who are in the sixth grade or the eighth grade, who don’t have a lot of money, whose parents— like my parents— may never have gone to college. Do you know what I want, Kevin? I want those kids to know if they study hard, they do their homework, regardless of the income of their families, they will in fact be able to get a college education because we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. This is revolutionary for education in America. It will give hope to millions of young people.
>> Well, one of the things you want to do is to have the states pay for about a third of the $70 billion plan, correct. There are 16 states running budget deficits right now. Where are are they expected to come up with this?
>> I think they will be pretty smart. I think a lot of the states will do the right thing and I think those states that don’t will pay a heavy penalty. Bottom line, in the year 2013, we should look at a college degree the same way we looked at a high school degree 50 or 60 years ago. If you want to make it into the middle class— I’m not saying in all cases. We Meade plumbers and carpenters and electrickses, that’s for sure. But but the bottom line now, in America, in 2015, any person who has the ability and desire should be able to get an education, college education, regardless of the income of his or her family. And we must substantially lower, as my legislation does, interest rates on student debt.