system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Maryland and free college tuition

I've heard that economists mostly frown on free college tuition because it:

1. Mostly benefits the affluent - people that are wealthy enough to afford it anyway.
2. Doesn't provide much benefit to low income students, because the students that might benefit from tuition free college often aren't prepared to complete a four year degree anyway.
3. Does not address the problem at its root, which is earlier in the educational pipeline. The money would be better spent enhancing grade school middle school or high school to prevent issue #2 from ever happening.

So lately I've been thinking about Maryland. Ben Jealous, a gubernatorial candidate for Maryland, wants to install free college there for state residents (2 year schools are already tuition free). And Maryland has is one of the highest rated public school systems in the US. IIRC they held the #1 spot for several years until recently when they dropped to #6.

So I'm thinking that its possible that Maryland is kind of an optimal place for enacting this type of legislation. Incomes in Maryland are generally higher than other areas, so the policy might not only favor the affluent. Maryland prepares its students better than nearly anywhere else in the country, so more of them are likely to be capable of completing degrees and actually take advantage of the free tuition.

So, in this type of scenario, what do the experts here think of a free tuition program?
gpt
> Incomes in Maryland are generally higher than other areas, so the policy might not only favor the affluent.

This seems rather backwards to me.  If you are concerned that students that would otherwise do well in college are not going for financial reasons you'd want to target areas that have a higher proportion of lower income students.