Tom Perriello: Let’s Make Community College Free!

Tom Perriello for Governor: More free stuff!

Tom Perriello for Governor: More free stuff!

Tom Perriello, Democratic Party candidate for governor, is right about one thing: The cost of attending college is far more expensive today than it was when his father, a son of Italian immigrants, got a scholarship to the University of Virginia and graduated debt free. And he’s right that many young people today are graduating with staggering amounts of debt that make it harder for them to buy a house or start a business. The runaway cost of college education is creating a social crisis.

But one of his proposed solutions — providing two years of free vocational training, apprenticeships and free community college — is fiscally reckless.

Meeting with students at the University of Mary Washington as part of a 16-campus tour, Perriello touted his plans for free community-college tuition and also the refinancing of existing student debt to reduce monthly payments, reports the Free Lance-Star.

The refinancing-student-debt idea may have legs. The idea has been floated to create a student loan financing authority that would sell tax-free municipal bonds to raise money to refinance student debt. There are some tricky issues here — how exposed would such an authority be to student defaults? — but the idea is not fiscally absurd on its face.

But paying two free years of community college would be a budget buster. According to the Virginia Community College System’s 2016 unaudited financial report, student tuition and fees generated $361 million to operating revenues. Perriello offers zero details on his website on how he would pay for such a sum. Here’s what he says:

To make post-secondary education more affordable and improve the career prospects for all young Virginians, I will make vocational training, apprenticeships or community college available debt-free for a minimum of two years. I will work with our universities to ensure that we do not continue to pile up the burden of tuition on the backs of students and their families.

Oh, he’ll “work with our universities” to control tuition. Great. While he’s at it, maybe he can work with Israel and Palestine to bring about Middle Peace.


There’s another problem with offering free tuition. If your criterion is helping students acquire certifications and degrees that get them jobs in the workplace, a lot of the money is wasted. The chart above, taken from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia website, shows the percentage of students who complete their two-year degrees within four years. The rate varies between 30% and 60% by region of the state.

As a matter of principle, students should put some skin in the game to demonstrate that they’re serious. The world is full of goof-offs and dilettantes who enroll in college because they can’t think of anything better to do, and it’s loaded with people who can’t complete their degrees due to disordered personal lives or lack of academic aptitude. Free tuition encourages non-serious people to enroll, not only wasting the state’s money but time they could put to better use elsewhere.

One last point: By making tuition free, the state would destroy any market discipline. If the state were stroking the checks, community colleges would have no reason to limit costs. As night follows day, to keep costs from running out of control, the state would have to impose cost controls. Does anyone want Richmond calling the shots on every decision?

Tom Perriello’s promise of free tuition may play well on college campuses, but it has more holes than a wiffle ball.