In his State of the Union speech, President Obama proposed making tuition free for two years of community college. John Boehner has already declared the idea dead, without even discussing it in Congress. It's just more of the GOP's automatic opposition to anything the president proposes. They will try to claim the country can't afford it, but that is just an excuse. They government will get much more back in taxes off the increased income of the graduates than it would spend giving the free tuition.
But there is another aspect the Republicans would do well to consider. They are once again taking a position in opposition to what the American public wants. Nearly half of all Americans (46%) know someone who is capable of doing college work and has the desire to go to college, but cannot do so because they can't afford it. And a whopping 68% of Americans like the president's proposal, and want to see it implemented. They know it would improve the country overall, and would help people to climb the ladder to success.
The Republicans are already on the opposite side of the fence of the American public on raising the minimum wage, protecting Social Security and Medicare, repealing Obamacare, raising taxes for the rich, making corporations pay their share of taxes, letting the rich buy elections, lowering the wealth/income gap, cleaning up the environment, providing funding for alternate energy development, and the exporting of good American jobs. They really don't need another issue to disagree with the public on -- but they can't seem to help themselves.
Another aspect of this that I find interesting is that the public, while they support the president's plan, don't think it goes far enough. About 55% would like the program to be applied not just to community colleges, but also to 4-year colleges. I agree.
These charts reflect the numbers in a recent YouGov Poll -- done between January 10th and 12th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults (with a margin of error of about 4 points).
