Jill Biden, in Commencement Address, Claims Community College Should Be Free

In the famous novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," science-fiction author extraordinaire Robert Heinlein pointed out a fundamental law of economics: "There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch," which gives us the acronym TANSTAAFL. This is a principle most political figures seem incapable of absorbing, and no one is less capable (in any number of things) than Frau Doktor Professor Jill Biden. The good doctor spoke Saturday at Arizona's Mesa Community College, where she professed (hah) that community college should be free.

Sorry, Mrs. Biden; in this as in everything, TANSTAAFL applies.

"On behalf of President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the Second Gentleman: Congratulations, Class of 2024, we are so proud of you," Biden said.
"I teach at a community college for the same reason students go to community colleges. They’re flexible and meet people where they are. And, as my husband, President Biden, says, they provide the 'best career training in America.'"
Biden praised Mesa Community College's "Promise" program, which its website describes as a needs-based commitment from the city of Mesa to residents that eligible students can attend the school without paying tuition or registration fees.
"Community colleges should be free in America," she said.
The first lady's remarks come as the Biden administration continues to take heat over its machinations to cancel student loan debt.

There are several things that the Upholstery Who Walks Like a Woman gets wrong here.

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First, credit where credit is due: She's correct about community colleges being great career training. If one were to place bets on the lifelong occupational success of a kid who graduated from a community college with a welding certificate or an associate's in tool and die work set against a graduate of Oberlin with a Gender Studies degree, I'd put my money on the community college graduate every time. Community colleges do indeed give some of the best career training available; on that score, the Bidens have discovered an acorn.

The problem is that Mrs. Biden kept talking. "Community colleges should be free in America," she said. Wow. That kind of economic illiteracy should be physically painful. The flaw in that statement is that nothing is free. TAANSTAFL, like the Moon, is a harsh mistress. Everything must be paid for, one way or another, including facilities, utilities, instructors, and administrators, without which community colleges wouldn't exist. In a sane world, those things would be paid for by the tuition paid by students. Instead, the Bidens have proposed to make them "free" for some time by taking money from the taxpayers, filtering it through a few dozen layers of political figures and bureaucrats, and then trickling it back out to pay these expenses — a criminally inefficient process.

Second, we have the Biden administration's attempt to "cancel" student loans in an illegal and unconstitutional power grab — and when we say "cancel," we mean "transfer the burden of debt from the young skulls full of mush who signed contracts to the taxpayers, who did not sign any such contract.

Education, like any other purchase, is an economic decision with economic consequences. There are only three ways in which an economic transaction can take place: Someone can take another's property by force, which is theft; someone can take another's property via deceit, which is fraud; or two people can arrive at an equitable agreement for a free and voluntary exchange of value in which both parties realize a perceived gain; that is trade.

Forcing the taxpayers to pony up to pay for another's education or to pay off another's student loans is theft. That's all it is and all it will ever be. It's a shame that Frau Doktor Professor Jill Biden seems incapable of absorbing these fundamental truths.