Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called for tuition-free public colleges and universities across the country, framing it as the only real lever to pull against private-school tuition that has run completely off the rails.
Speaking Sunday at a More Perfect Union town hall at Cornell University, Ocasio-Cortez was asked what her team and the Democratic Party are "doing to ensure that middle and low-income families can continue to afford a quality, higher education." The question landed as Cornell "recently broke $100,000 a year for tuition."
Ocasio-Cortez said the figure was "far more than what many households make in a year in this country." She argued that a lot of colleges and universities "do with their funds is more of a real estate investment strategy, than an educational strategy," pouring money into "new buildings, and facilities that are often marketed as luxury" while adjunct faculty is "barely paid a living wage" and the quality of education goes downhill.
The event was titled "Students vs. Billionaires Town Hall."
Ocasio-Cortez pushed for tying federal funds to educational investment rather than bottom lines, saying schools sometimes charge $100,000 so students can pull in more financial aid that flows back to the institution. "That money needs to be tied to investments in education, not investments in people's bottom lines," she said. "The best thing that we can do to rein in runaway cost at private institutions is by having fixed, affordable, high-quality services of public institutions. Which means, tuition-free public colleges and universities across the United States of America."
For anyone who wants to say that that's pie in the sky and unrealistic and just another expensive, progressive wish list, this is literally what baby boomers gave themselves.
She noted that public colleges in America were tuition-free in the 1960s and 1970s, and said the defunding began when institutions started to become racially integrated.
Breitbart News noted that Ocasio-Cortez has previously defended the idea of free college for all children in the United States, including wealthy families.