The Los Angeles Times is reporting today that President Obama is planning to make two years of community colleges free to students across the country.

The article reports:

“What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who is willing to work for it,” Obama said in a video filmed on Air Force One and posted on Facebook on Thursday.

Obama’s announcement comes ahead of a visit Friday to a community college and technical center in Knoxville, Tenn., as part of a trip designed to preview his policy plans for 2015.

As a parent who paid for three college educations, I love the sound of this. As a person who understands that someone has to pay the teachers, the janitors, the heat and maintenance for the buildings, etc., I  am extremely skeptical. Any time a government official announces that something is going to be free, I wonder who is actually going to pay for it. The government has no money except that money which it takes from the taxpayers. Anything free that the government provides has been paid for with money removed from someone else’s pocket. We need to remember that when we hear someone tell us that something that was fairly expensive in the past is now going to be free.