Rangel: No Young Person Should Have to Pay for College

Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY), offered a modest proposal in response to Barack Obama’s suggestions on education policy Thursday. 

Speaking on MSNBC’s Martin Bashir show to substitute host Joy-Ann Reid, Rangel opined that no young people should have to pay for their college education.

Rangel said of Obama’s proposal:

I think it’s exciting, and certainly it’s going to bring in accountability. You know, we have universities scattered all over the world. Sometimes you think that tuition means nothing to a large group of people who pay these enormous salaries to college presidents. But if you’re talking about production, if you’re talking about what is the college really giving someone that doesn’t want a worldwide education, they just want to be able to compete, this makes sense.

But you know something, Joy? There is no reason why a young person should have to pay for college education, because who does it benefit except a nation? Who are we competing against? Not ourselves, but China and other industrialized countries, they decide what they need, and they provide the incentives. Here we don’t have nurses and doctors, and then when a person gets out of health school, I mean out of medical school, they can’t get the money to pay off their debt. It doesn’t make sense. [emphasis added]