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'We Have a Better Idea': Sanders Unveils College for All Act as Trump Targets Higher Education
"Instead of increasing the cost of college in order to give more tax breaks to billionaires," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, "we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free."
May 21, 2025
As U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans move to gut federal student aid programs to help fund tax cuts for the rich, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday will introduce legislation aimed at making public colleges and universities tuition-free for most Americans.
The College for All Act of 2025, shared exclusively with Common Dreams ahead of its official introduction, would eliminate public college and university tuition and fees for students from married households earning $300,000 or less per year or single households earning $150,000 or less.
The legislation would also make public community colleges and trade schools tuition-free for all students, and provide grants to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and other institutions to eliminate tuition and fees for eligible students.
Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who will introduce identical companion legislation in the House, presented the bill as a direct counter to Trump and congressional Republicans, whose emerging reconciliation package and proposed federal budget for the coming fiscal year would enact deep cuts to federal higher education funding—while delivering huge tax breaks to the richest Americans.
"Instead of increasing the cost of college in order to give more tax breaks to billionaires, we have a better idea," said Sanders. "We are going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free so that working-class students can succeed and are not burdened with a lifetime of debt."
Jayapal, a senior House Democratic whip and chair emerita of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that "Congress can and must ensure that working families never have to take out crushing loans to pursue an education."
"The College for All Act will free students from a lifetime of debt, invest in working people, and transform higher education across America by making a degree more accessible to poor and working families across this country," she added. "This is more important now than ever as Trump continues to attack education in this country through attempts to strip funding from universities and to dismantle the Department of Education."
"Young people should not have to go deeply into debt to get the education they and our nation need. We must make public colleges and universities tuition-free."
The legislation stands no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Congress, but it represents an alternative vision for higher education that has proven extremely popular with the American public. A 2021 Pew Research Center survey found that 63% of U.S. adults support making public colleges and universities tuition-free.
More recent polling has shown similar support, with Democratic voters overwhelmingly backing the proposal as higher education costs rise and students graduate saddled with massive student loan debt.
Sanders plans to introduce the legislation Wednesday morning at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP Committee hearing on the state of higher education in the U.S., where public college costs more per student than in any other country except Luxembourg, according to the Education Data Initiative.
"Making public colleges and universities tuition-free is not a radical idea," declares a summary of the College for All Act provided by Sanders' office. "Other wealthy countries like France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland made their public colleges and universities tuition-free or virtually tuition-free several years ago."
"Over 50 years ago, many of our most prestigious public colleges and universities were also tuition-free or virtually tuition-free," the summary notes. "In a competitive global economy, we need the best-educated workforce in the world. Young people should not have to go deeply into debt to get the education they and our nation need. We must make public colleges and universities tuition-free."
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GOP Cuts to Medicaid 'Will Kill People,' Advocate Warns and New Research Bolsters
A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
May 16, 2025
Critics who say extensive cuts to Medicaid being pushed by the Trump administration and House Republicans will result in the deaths of people were bolstered Friday by new reporting on a recent study detailing how the key health program for the nation's poor saves live.
As Republicans in Congress pressed ahead this week with a plan that would cause at least 8 million Americans to lose Medicaid as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill desired by U.S. President Donald Trump, a recently published working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, first reported on by The New York Times, shows that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
A provision in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2014, allowed states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to all low-income adults regardless of disability or parenthood status. The change is part of the reason that enrollment in the program rose roughly 50% between 2010 and 2021, according to the authors of the study.
The study, which used a dataset of 37 million low-income American adults, found that expansions increased Medicaid enrollment by 12 percentage points. The study estimates that people who enrolled in Medicaid were 21% less likely to die compared to those not enrolled.
"These expansions appear to be cost-effective, with direct budgetary costs of $5.4 million per life saved and $179,000 per life-year," according to a summary of the working paper.
The researchers told the Times that the timing of the release of the working paper was not connected to Congress' current conversation around Medicaid, though they told the outlet that the debate made their findings especially relevant.
The Times described the research as "the most definitive study yet" on Medicaid's health effects and health economists not involved with the research described it as the most persuasive proof so far that Medicaid and other types of health insurance save lives.
Meanwhile, on Friday, efforts to pass the GOP megabill hit a stumbling block when a handful of Republican so-called "fiscal hawks" voted with Democrats on the U.S. House Budget Committee to block the reconciliation package from advancing through a key committee vote. The Republican hardliners voted no because they want more cuts to Medicaid.
After the vote, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a panel member, vowed that Democrats would "keep fighting to protect Medicaid and the American people."
In response to the House Budget Committee vote, Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy group Social Security Works said on Friday: "Make no mistake, Republicans still plan to bring it to the House floor next week."
Lawson blasted the proposed Medicaid cuts, writing that "their plan will kill people."
"The ripple effect of these cuts will hit every single person in this country," he added. "Unless you are a billionaire, your standard of living and your health care will get worse if this despicable plan becomes law."
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'Embarrassing': GOP Fails to Pass Their Own 'Cruel' Budget Plan Out of Committee
"It is the biggest tax cuts for billionaires in American history paid for by throwing 13.7 million Americans off their healthcare coverage," said the panel's top Democrat, Rep. Brendan Boyle.
May 16, 2025
Multiple Republican "fiscal hawks" on Friday voted with Democrats on the U.S. House Budget Committee to block the GOP's budget reconciliation package—and while high-level negotiations are expected to continue, members were reportedly told they could go home.
"They couldn't agree on how many people to take healthcare away from in order to give billionaires a tax cut," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a panel member, after the vote. "Embarrassing. We'll keep fighting to protect Medicaid and the American people."
The five Republicans who voted no were Reps. Josh Brecheen (Okla.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Chip Roy (Texas), and Lloyd Smucker (Pa.)—though, unlike the others, Smucker changed his vote from yes to no for a procedural reason.
"To be clear—I fully support the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). My vote today in the Budget Committee is a procedural requirement to preserve the committee's opportunity to reconsider the motion to advance OBBB," he explained on social media.
According toThe Hill, Smucker also said that "we're working through some remaining issues here, there are just a few outstanding issues I think everyone will get to yes, and we're going to... resolve this as quick as we can and hopefully have a vote, ideally on Monday, and we can advance this bill."
The House Freedom Caucus said on social media Friday that "Reps. Roy, Norman, Brecheen, Clyde, and others continue to work in good faith to enact the president's 'Big Beautiful Bill'—we were making progress before the vote in the Budget Committee and will continue negotiations to further improve the reconciliation package. We are not going anywhere, and we will continue to work through the weekend."
Friday's failed vote comes after various GOP-controlled panels advanced parts of the package this week, in the face of protests from Democratic lawmakers and constituents outraged that Republicans are trying to pass massive tax giveaways for wealthy individuals and corporations while adding $3.8 trillion to the national debt they claim to worry about and gutting programs like Medicaid that serve the working class.
"The House Budget Committee's vote is a necessary—but largely performative—step that bundles the 11 different bills Republicans have approved over the last few weeks through their policy committees, including the piece the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee advanced this week and the measure the Energy and Commerce Committee approved after an all-night markup of Medicaid policies forecast to strip healthcare coverage from more than 10 million people," Politicoreported.
As the Budget Committee's markup began on Friday, Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) charged that "this is a big bill for billionaires."
Boyle continued:
Now, we will hear over the course of this hearing a vigorous debate, and frankly, there is a strong divide between Republicans and some other Republicans. There is also a divide between both sets of Republicans and this side of the dais, I can speak at least as to why it is every Democratic member will be voting no on the bill for billionaires.
Simply put, besides all of the other important issues involved in this bill, this is the overarching truth. It is the biggest tax cuts for billionaires in American history paid for by throwing 13.7 million Americans off their healthcare coverage.
Now, those aren't my claims, that is not subjective. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just this week confirmed that at least 13,700,000 Americans will lose their healthcare if the GOP bill for billionaires becomes law. That is bad economics. It is unconscionable.
Several other Democrats have spotlighted the GOP's attempt to strip healthcare from millions of Americans in their critical comments about the megabill, which is backed by Republican President Donald Trump.
"This budget is disastrous and cruel, and we stopped it from moving forward," declared Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), a committee member, on Friday. "Republicans have no mandate to rip away health care and food assistance from families."
Another panel member, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), said after the vote that "even some GOP recognized that this is an ugly lie atop a mountain of lies and dangerous trillions of additional national debt."
"They'll be back with another scheme next week, and we'll be ready to fight," he added. "Limiting this bill's benefits to 98% of Americans and denying them to Elon Musk and the 2% richest would cut this bill's cost in half and protect the healthcare of millions, which the GOP would otherwise deny."
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