During an interview released on Monday’s edition of the “Fox News Rundown” podcast, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said that the free college program he has proposed shouldn’t only apply to people of higher-value jobs so that we don’t subsidize things like gender studies degrees because America has outcompeted China because “we’re more innovative, we’re more creative, we’re more willing to take risks because we don’t just churn out engineers, we churn out entrepreneurs.”
Host Jessica Rosenthal asked, [relevant exchange begins around 10:50] “If it were free, should there be any rules regarding what someone majors in? Like, to our point about bringing tech jobs and tech companies to different areas of the country, Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida argued against student loan debt forgiveness, saying that taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize gender [studies] degrees, if you get a free college education, should the free part only apply to those who want to get a job that’s maybe of greater value?”
Khanna responded, “Well, no, because I think that the liberal arts education and tradition has been great for America, in terms of being innovative and creative. I mean, the reason we outcompete China, they have everyone churn out engineers, but we’re more innovative, we’re more creative, we’re more willing to take risks because we don’t just churn out engineers, we churn out entrepreneurs.”
He continued, “But what I will say is that we need these public colleges to be incentivized to work more with their local businesses, to be integrated with them so that there is a clearer pathway for people getting jobs, that there do need to be requirements to continue to be in these free colleges…in terms of attendance, requirements in terms of completion, so that people are working hard in the public colleges.”
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