Public college used to be debt-free right here in America. We have funded public college and we have experienced fully the benefits of a well educated, talented workforce. In the 1950'S, 60'S and 70'S, millions of families were able to send their kids to college and be the first ones to graduate and they did it debt free.

The GI bill for returning veterans was an investment in people that paid off for society. $7 for every dollar that was invested. That investment and making college virtually free for everyone helped unleash the greatest middle class that the world had ever seen.

And yet, somehow, all we seem to be able to do is cut, cut, cut. Tuition has tripled over the course of a generation and student debt has sky-rocketed, surpassing over 1 trillion dollars.

So what happened? Racism.

Or more specifically, the way racism evolved to become a political weapon. Dog whistle politics has always centrally involved public education and integration. From the very beginning, dog whistle politics turned on stoking resentment of integration, of education in all settings.

It starts with a dog whistle phrase like "States' Rights" which was the right of Southern states to resist integration ordered by the federal government. It includes "Forced Busing," a Northern analogue which pretended that the issue was putting children on buses rather than the integration the bussing was designed to achieve. Dog whistle politics helps explain how the wealthy and the powerful have used a simple formula to sell their economic agenda in a way that hurts all of us. Fear people of color, hate the government, trust the market. And as we've scared whites about integrative public education, we've built support for politics that says cut public funding to public schools, to public colleges and indeed, to just about everything public.

Over the course of one generation, states have cut about a quarter out of every dollar they used to spend on funding public college. What's made up the difference? A tripling of tuition and an average of almost $30,000 in student debt, which makes it harder for them to start a business, buy a house and save for retirement.

How is that good for America? It's obviously not. When we disinvest from the public, the costs of college go up for everybody, student debt goes up for everybody and that means for white students too. Racism as a political tool hurts everybody of every color and of every background.