Create a plan to make public college tuition-free. Making public colleges tuition-free and preventing further debt isn't just a smart investment in our future -- it's less expensive than what our federal government spends to make college "affordable" now. It's a lot cheaper than the $69 billion we spent in 2013 on Pell Grants for low-income students, and work-study funding, without even including federal loan subsidies. Some parts of Europe have free tuition.
If we can afford to pour billions into wasteful defense programs, endless wars without hesitation, subsidize big oil, big agriculture, and other corporate enterprises, we can afford to make public college education tuition-free. The time is now to demand that President Obama and congressional leaders make it happen. It can happen.