“Most Christians would agree that more flourishing is good and that educational choice is important for us to enhance our God-given creativity,” says Anne Rathbone Bradley in this week’s Acton Commentary. “The question over which many Christians disagree is the means for making these desires possible. Are the tools of policy the best mechanism for increasing educational choice and quality? Or is that better left to the market?”

The debate continues but now with a new policy twist. On April 7, the state of New York passed legislation initiated and pushed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to make college “free.” Well, not really free. The Excelsior Scholarship, as the program is known, attempts to provide free tuition to New York public universities for families making $125,000 or less.

This legislation is billed by the governor himself as “First-in-Nation Tuition-Free College for the Middle Class.” Cuomo signed the bill in hopes that other states will adopt this bold policy to help the neediest students get to college. Will it work?

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