WASHINGTON, May 21 – As President Trump and congressional Republicans are working overtime to make college unaffordable and unattainable for millions of working-class families in order to provide tax breaks to billionaires, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and nine Senate colleagues, today introduced legislation to make public colleges and universities tuition free for 95% of students. The College for All Act would be the most transformative investment in higher education in 60 years and would substantially improve the lives of millions of students throughout the United States.
Joining Sanders as cosponsors are Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
“In a highly competitive global economy where technology is changing the very nature of work and the jobs we perform, we need the best educated workforce in the world,” said Sanders. “Our nation used to lead the world in the percentage of adults with a college degree. Today, we are in 11th place behind countries like Japan, South Korea, Canada, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. That is not a prescription for a strong American economy of the future. It is a prescription for failure. Instead of increasing the cost of college in order to give more tax breaks to billionaires, we have a better idea. We are going to make public colleges and universities tuition free so that working class students can succeed and are not burdened with a lifetime of debt.”
“Congress can and must ensure that working families never have to take out crushing loans to purse an education,” said Jayapal. “The College for All Act will free students from a lifetime of debt, invest in working people, and transform higher education across America by making a degree more accessible to poor and working families across this country. This is more important now than ever as Trump continues to attack education in this country through attempts to strip funding from universities and to dismantle the Department of Education.”
Making public colleges and universities tuition free is not a radical idea. In 1944, as World War II was coming to an end, the U.S. government made free higher education available to all those who served in the armed forces. That act not only improved the financial well-being of the Greatest Generation, but it also laid the groundwork for the greatest expansion of the American middle class in U.S history. Moreover, over 50 years ago, many of our most prestigious public colleges and universities were also tuition free or virtually tuition free.
Since this legislation was first introduced ten years ago, several colleges and universities in America have provided free tuition for working class and middle class students including every state college in New Mexico, the State University of New York, the University of Texas, the University of Wisconsin, and Arkansas State University.
Other wealthy countries like France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland have made their public colleges and universities tuition free or virtually tuition free because they understand the value of investing in their young people.
The College for All Act would guarantee tuition-free community college for all students and allow students from single households earning up to $150,000 a year, and married households earning up to $300,000 a year, to attend college without fear of being saddled with student loan debt.
The College for All Act would also:
- Double the maximum Pell Grant award for students enrolled at public and private non-profit colleges;
- Establish a $10 billion grant program to improve student outcomes and address equity gaps at underfunded public colleges and universities;
- Triple federal TRIO program funding;
- Double GEAR UP funding; and
- Double mandatory funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and other Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs).
Read the bill text here.
Read a summary of the bill here.
