US: San Francisco to offer free higher education

San Francisco will be the first city in the United States to offer free community college tuition.

The deal made possible through tax on properties, sold for at least $5 million, is expected to begin next fall at the earliest.

Al Jazeera's Jacob Ward reports from San Francisco.

[nurlindafsihotang]

dont waste it cali! proved it that free educations could the best thing! hope to see california become the 21st century library of Alexandria, the centre of world's knowledge

[imrannazir]

Many Universities are already very rich, hold huge investment funds and accept 'donations' from the wealthy. They can easily afford to pay the staff, teach and do research.

[trekkienzl]

Finally. Bernie's ideas are coming to fruition.

[r.a.dalton]

A rationalist viewpoint on this matter. I am a moderate independent voter and a retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant (1972-1993) who voted for Trump. Socialism is one of those things that is great in theory but not in practice. There was a time back in the 1970s when I was both young and very idealistic. That led me to believe that socialism was not a bad idea at all at the time. As I grew older and began to better understand real human nature and behavior through firsthand experience, versus theoretical human behavior and nature, I began to realize that socialism cannot work simply because of the way we humans are. As an example; The commune concept was very popular in the U.S. from the 1960s through the 1970s. Almost all of the communes established at that time failed for the same reasons and very few still exists today. Too many want to enjoy the benefits of communes but not put in the hard work needed to make it happen. Unfortunately, it is a sad fact that with very few exceptions Socialism often leads to development of parasitic behavior among way too many people. You see that in U.S. society now with an ever increasing population that feels “entitled” to everything, even if the government can't afford it, and believes that hard work is somehow beneath them. This is not helped by the fact that most politicians we have to day are quite willing to pander to those beliefs in order to get elected and stay in office. Sadly, I believe we passed the point of no return some time ago and nothing short of a societal economic collapse is going to put us back on the right path once again – if even that does it.

[marutanray]

If this education is free, then you better watch out what quality you can expect. Most likely it will be so bad that no one wants it, which is why it is free in the first place.

[pikesplitman]

An expanded scholarship program requiring top X% academic performance would be better public policy.  Free education is a public investment.  X should be set at a level where the return on investment is positive.  A positive return means that the incremental gain in tax revenue (from graduates earning more) is more than the incremental cost of education.  The value of X can be worked out by statistical analysis of student outcomes.

[vatefairefoutre]

how are the professors and administration going to get paid? is it going to be provided through raising taxes on Californians or something? I wish this clip contained more information...