South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg's education proposal is more affordable than more expensive ones out there, and more progressive because it is more affordable and better targeted.
Buttigieg released Friday a plan to make two-year and four-year public colleges free for 80 percent of American students. Those hailing from families that earn $100,000 per year or less would see no tuition bills. Families earning between $100,000 and $150,000 per year would see their tuition costs lowered in amounts proportional to their incomes.
Doing so would deliver subsidies to fully 90 percent of students, the Buttigieg campaign reckons.
Buttigieg's proposal would mark a shift in how public higher education is funded, and would require substantial new revenue--he claims from the top 1 percent--to pay for it. Even so, it stops short of the free-college-for-all plans that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have offered, which would hand tuition subsidies to wealthy families who don't need the help.
The result is that Buttigieg can devote some of the money he would raise from the 1 percent to other worthy causes, whereas Sanders and Warren need new and different revenue-raisers to fund their more expansive programs. It is more progressive to target aid to those who require it, conserving federal resources to do the maximum good.
Editorial on 11/13/2019