Education Secretary Betsy DeVos criticized liberal proposals to make public colleges tuition-free.
While delivering remarks at the 2020 Federal Student Aid Virtual Training Conference, DeVos argued that efforts to cancel student loan debts would place a burden on U.S. taxpayers, describing it as an “insidious notion of government gift-giving.”
“We’ve heard shrill calls to cancel, to forgive, to make it all free. Any innocuous label out there can’t obfuscate what it really is: wrong. The campaign for free college is a matter of total government control,” Devos said. “Make no mistake: It is a socialist takeover of higher education. Now, depending on your personal politics, some of you might not find that notion as scary as I do. But mark my words: None of you will like the way it will work.”
DeVos also argued that free college would force universities to establish quotas for a smaller number of students and require others to pay full price. She earlier said it would prevent students from choosing their preferred degree program.
“In this sense, you are no longer counselors, but rationers. You’ll be forced to merely oversee rationing of state-approved, higher education options. After all, government doesn’t control anything only halfway,” she said.
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized DeVos’s comments and the “capitalist takeover of higher ed.”
Tuition-free public college is a dangerous socialist takeover of higher ed, as opposed to the far superior capitalist takeover of higher ed, which reliably buries millions of Americans in trillions of dollars in debt & graduates them into low paying jobs without good healthcare?? https://t.co/dcu6PIRKcC
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 1, 2020
DeVos spoke less than two months before Inauguration Day, when President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take office and some believe could help make free college a reality.
