Its a really dumb solution to what on the surface is a somewhat legitimate problem, and I agree with
@rookhawk, the Dems have completely abandoned their position as the "blue collar party", I remember Nadler saying it out loud at a rally at one point.
People always want to compare how in a place like Germany college is free, but what many people fail to realize is in their system... if you don't have the grades or test scores, you ain't getting in to the program you want, and not everyone just "gets to go" to college on the governments dime because they want to. Their colleges also don't have ridiculously expensive athletic programs like here in the US, where people literally choose a college based on a sports team they like, get a pointless degree, and now have outrageous student loans they don't feel they need to pay off. Granted this is more of a cultural thing than a policy issue.
Some more sensible solutions to the college debt thing (in my opinion) could be eliminating interest on student loans, and in turn the government could give tax breaks to the lending institutions loaning the money. Also, the lending institution could have more of a say in who they give money to based off what the aspiring student is wanting to study.
I also think there could be solutions that include some sort of program that sends people to school to be an engineer for instance, paid for by the government, and upon graduation that individual now owes a period (3-4 years?) of employment to the government at... I don't know call it a GS-6 or GS-7 level? This period of employment would be at the needs of the Federal government, so if NAVAIR in Virginia Beach needs an engineer... pack your bags you're moving. If you went to school for civil engineering and there's a 9 month project with the US Army Corps of Engineers on the Intracoastal Waterway, you're up. After the time you "owe" is complete you can submit a package to stay on as a GS as needed or move into the private sector. What something like this would also allow for is the ability to trim the fat off most of what happens in college. There's lots of people who don't even want to go to school because they don't want to sit through 2 years of "Western society is evil" before gaining any real skills, and going into debt to do it.
I use engineering as an example because it's an easy one to articulate, but I can see many opportunities for a program like this. Language programs for our military and Intelligence agencies, biologists, surveyors for the Forest Service, etc. What this also does is lower the number of people who join the military for the sole reason of getting a GI Bill. Not saying the GI Bill should go away by any means, but that shouldn't be the primary reason you join a warfighting organization.
