Several European countries already offer free (or nearly free) college education … but their tax rates are quite a bit higher than the USA’s, and they don’t enroll as many college students.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-do-european-countries-afford-free-college-2015-6
A relatively large percentage of American college students are enrolled in private institutions. So we’d be facing a large percentage (as well as large absolute numbers) of students who would need to be newly-covered by tax dollars (if that’s how we wanted to finance higher education for all).
I wonder, though, how the total annual cost of college education in America compares to, say, defense costs.
According to one Wikipedia article,
“The total cost of all higher education in 2002 was $289 billion” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_the_United_States#Cost_and_finances)
In the same year, total US military spending was ~$329 billion.
(http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904490.html)
I don’t know if that figure even includes spending on intelligence community activities.
What would it take to offer a free Harvard education just to every college-age ISIL affiliate?
Could that compete with the 72 virgin deal?