This is how European countries pay for free college plans
While Democratic national contenders are calling for debt-free college in the US, they offer few details about how they would finance such a plan.
Of course, many European countries like Germany already offer free college, though "free" is a relative term since tax payers absorb that cost.
But those European countries often differ greatly from the US in substantive ways. Their college enrollment percentages, for example, are much lower than in America.
Europe also traditionally has higher taxes than the US, which allows those countries to offer additional social services.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its 2015 report on the tax burden on earnings among member countries.
Their report ranks countries by their tax wedge percentage. The tax wedge is the dollar measure of the income tax rate. The countries below with the red arrows offer free college, with the exception of the US. There are other European countries that offer free college, but the countries below are the most well-known examples.
The percentage is calculated by taking tertiary enrollment as a percentage of the total population of students who graduated within the last five years. For all countries, with the exception of Finland, the US has a much higher percentage of students who have enrolled in post-high school education. This will likely add a level of complexity to debt-free college plans in the US.