This probably wouldnt apply to education through health services like a hospital.
My response is somewhat off the cuff, but as a community college adjunct instructor I couldn't be happier about the prospect of offering more help to my students or making their education free -- or close to it. My students at the community college level have been some of the most infuriating and most rewarding I've ever taught. So many of them have come from poor backgrounds, overcome tremendous obstacles (addictions, prison, abuse, etc.) to become academics, and so I feel that anything we can do to afford them a better chance at success is worth exploring.
Now, to their infuriating aspects: they quit; they give up too easily sometimes; they disappear and abuse the system. What we would give them as assistance would necessarily need to come with restrictions, qualifications, and accountability. Some of these students are master manipulators of persons and systems; skills honed in a lifetime of struggle.
I don't mind paying more in taxes or cuts in other less crucial areas to make our schools better. I think our schools (all of them; not just colleges) should be castles of learning and free-thinking. Here's the rub for me: what to do with the other college students, namely those going to state universities. If we make community college more affordable or "free", then we should extend similar help to those students at the 4-year colleges, because I've seen that student body get crushed under the rising costs of college. So, for me I don't object to making community college free (especially since more of them are training future cops, investigators, EMS personnel), but I think the vision is too narrow.
The last piece that is relevant I suppose to EMS is that if we make community college free so that it benefits the budding EMT or paramedic, then we as a profession need to raise the education bar for our profession. Allowing persons to earn an emt certificate for free, for instance, without raising the educational bar for our profession will result in a lot of persons holding a certificate they didn't really earn and would serve only to devalue our profession all the more. One of the biggest reasons we can't demand more money for what we do is because our educational standards are not universal and are set so low that most anyone can earn a certificate -- even if they really can't DO the profession. We operate too much with a McDonald's business model: fill out the application and you've got your job. Know what I mean? If we invest in educating our EMS personnel the way we should we could demand more pay and respect. We might stand a better chance of communities seeing us for what we want to be: well-educated, well-trained, serious professionals doing serious medicine to the best of our abilities.
M.
I think the idea itself is cool, but the logistics are not.