Reconcilable dilemma.  As a college professor, I indirectly pay my mortgage, buy groceries, put gas in my car, and otherwise provide for my family [in part] on the backs of indebted college students who are drowning in student loans and increasingly struggling to find satisfactory employment.  Students for whom the rate of return of a college degree is decreasing.  Higher education (in public universities) should be FREE.  “Free” like public elementary and high schools that are financed mostly by the State via property taxes, etc.  I am not referring to MOOCs (massive open online courses), I mean zero tuition for traditional face-to-face classroom higher education.  20k, 30k, even 40k a year at a public university does not make it “public,” it makes it “impossible” for most.

Taxpayer costs per year (per inmate) in state prisons in California is about $47,000, Illinois is $38,000, New York is $60,000, and so on.  Costs of attendance at the Univ. of Illinois-Urbana this year is $29,500.  I KNOW there are all sorts of issues with this commonly made false equivalence.  And, I don’t want bad guys roaming the streets.  But damn, could college students at least get an interest free loan?  It is about priorities; i.e., government investment in corrections and decreasing support for higher education.  Prison for inmates is “free.”  Public higher education should also be free for qualified students…even French Lit majors.