Joanne Jacobs comments on the EdSurge article Free college isn't free by Rebecca Koenig. It makes the all-too-reasonable point that even if tuition and fees are covered, a student taking advantage of such a plan will still have large additional costs, such as books and materials, transportation, and living costs or lost wages. This obviously has an impact on the success of 'free college' initiatives. But it shouldn't be an argument for discontinuing them. Rather, governments and industry should be looking at other ways to lower all these other costs. A broad-based social support system covering everything from daycare to health insurance is needed to support educational outcomes, which is why countries that have these social systems perform more strongly on international education indices like PISA.
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