This has the same problem as most seemingly-good ideas: unintended consequences.
If you give every US citizen who attends a US college $20K/year, think about what happens to popular universities with fixed numbers of slots like Stanford or UC Berkeley. They have every incentive to raise their fees by $20K/year. It would still improve the financial situation of students: the universities would probably use some of the extra funding to ensure they don't price out people who can't afford it. It just wouldn't improve it as much as you might anticipate.
Second, consider who you are giving this money to: college graduates are the top earners in the US. Giving subsidies to those who will be richest is a deeply unfair idea. (Needs-based subsidies to help poorer families afford college and provide an opportunity to join the richer classes, by contrast, does make sense)
Free community college is the way to go. Give everyone an opportunity to see if they can make it in college, and do it at a reasonable cost without promising a fully free ride. Just don't fund it the way the President proposed by raiding the money I saved away for my children's tuition.
Part of 'funding' college for everybody isn't just giving them the money to go to college, it's making sure public institutions have enough capacity to handle those students.
Instead of increasing grants, I think directly lowering tuition cost for public universities would force private universities to become more efficient and lower their tuition costs too... non-zero tuition makes for an interesting tension where public and private can compete in different ways (possibly making the system as a whole better than one with only, or mostly, free public colleges)
If you give every US citizen who attends a US college $20K/year, think about what happens to popular universities with fixed numbers of slots like Stanford or UC Berkeley. They have every incentive to raise their fees by $20K/year. It would still improve the financial situation of students: the universities would probably use some of the extra funding to ensure they don't price out people who can't afford it. It just wouldn't improve it as much as you might anticipate.
Second, consider who you are giving this money to: college graduates are the top earners in the US. Giving subsidies to those who will be richest is a deeply unfair idea. (Needs-based subsidies to help poorer families afford college and provide an opportunity to join the richer classes, by contrast, does make sense)
Free community college is the way to go. Give everyone an opportunity to see if they can make it in college, and do it at a reasonable cost without promising a fully free ride. Just don't fund it the way the President proposed by raiding the money I saved away for my children's tuition.