I'll agree that WS has made a mess of things in recent years, and that the politicians have been chasing after WS money, diverting themselves from their true responsibilities, which is what's in the electorate's best interests, not necessarily WS's best interests. If the elected get that mixed up, you end up with legislative and regulatory abortions such ad Dodd-Frank. Legislation and regulations need to be clean, clear, simple, and easy and cheap to comply with - in essence, they need to make common sense, and in the last oh, 20 years, they haven't.
A year or two of community service isn't going to pay back a 4 year college degree, and I also agree that we need to figure out how to help support the young to excel.
However, Bernie 's vision of free college isn't any good. Who's going to foot the bill? Yet more blood from the already over taxed middle class? The same ones that haven't had a raise in 10 - 15 years? (Not as if you can go and mandate such from DC either). Once college education is free, it will have lost the majority of it's value, and likely the college's response will be to water down the curricula and knowledge, so that it's little more than a more expensive version of high school.
A matter of degree I suppose. Yes, there are some things that socialism bring, such as you mention, which are of benefit, but you can't kill the host, and you can't have too many negative unforeseen consequences (something the legislators really suck at, and are never held accountable for).
