Free College Would Destroy Nation, Ben Carson Says

Ben Carson, a Republican presidential hopeful, on Wednesday blasted Democrats’ various plans for debt-free or tuition-free college, saying they would hasten “the destruction of the nation.”

Speaking at Liberty University, Carson warned against the dangers of uninformed voters who would believe “propaganda” from “unscrupulous politicians and news media.”

“If they don’t really understand the financial situation of the country and somebody comes along and says, ‘free college for everybody,’ they’ll say, ‘oh, what a wonderful person,’” Carson said. “They have no idea that all you’re talking about is hastening the destruction of the nation.”

Separately, one of Carson’s opponents in the GOP primary, Senator Marco Rubio, on Wednesday doubled down on his criticism of traditional higher education in Tuesday’s debate. His campaign sent out a fund-raising email reiterating Rubio’s call for “more welders and fewer philosophers.”

The New York Times, meanwhile, interviewed a philosopher turned welder who rejected the distinction between vocational skills and the liberal arts.

“It’s obviously kind of a reductive approach to think of your course of study in college as merely a means to a paycheck,” Michael Crawford, who earned his Ph.D. in political philosophy before becoming a mechanic in Virginia, told the Times. “And nobody goes into philosophy because they think it’s going to make them rich.”