David Deming on why free college is a good investment

Harvard Kennedy School Professor David Deming, whose research focuses on the economics of education, recently wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “Tuition-free College Could Cost Less Than You Think.” Making college education widely affordable in the U.S. is vital, Deming says, because a degree will likely be a prerequisite for the labor market of the not-too-distant future.

Professor Deming recently sat down with PolicyCast host Thoko Moyo to discuss not just how to lower college costs, but also how to improve educational quality and what that could mean for students across the socioeconomic spectrum. In addition to being a professor at HKS and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Deming is also the new faculty director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at HKS and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He recently won the David Kershaw Prize, which is given to scholars under the age of 40 who have made distinguished contribution to the field of public policy and management.

To learn more about the Malcolm Wiener Center, please visit: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/wiener

PolicyCast is hosted by Harvard Kennedy School Associate Dean of Communications Thoko Moyo. The show is produced by Ralph Ranalli and Susan Hughes.