College for All Act: Provisions, Funding, and Status

The College for All Act is a federal bill introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal that would eliminate undergraduate tuition and required fees at public colleges and universities for most American families. The current version, introduced on May 21, 2025, would make community college tuition-free for everyone and four-year public college tuition-free for students from single-income households earning up to $150,000 or married households earning up to $300,000. Sponsors would pay for it through a new tax on Wall Street financial transactions.¹

The bill has been introduced in four consecutive Congresses since 2017. It has never received a hearing or a committee vote in either chamber.

What the Bill Would Do for Students

The core of the College for All Act is a federal-state partnership. The federal government would offer grants to states that agree to eliminate tuition and required fees at their public two- and four-year institutions and at tribal colleges. Under earlier versions of the bill, the federal government covered roughly two-thirds of the cost and states covered the rest.²

Community college would be free for every student regardless of family income. Four-year public institutions would be free for students from households below the $150,000 single / $300,000 married thresholds. Sponsors describe this as covering roughly 95% of students.¹

Tuition is only part of the price of a degree, so the bill layers on several changes to existing federal aid:

The maximum Pell Grant would double, and recipients could use the money for books, housing, transportation, and other non-tuition costs.¹
Mandatory funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and other minority-serving institutions would double. A separate stream in earlier versions provided at least $1.3 billion a year to eliminate or reduce tuition for low-income students at private nonprofit HBCUs and minority-serving institutions where at least 35% of the student body is low-income.²
A $10 billion equity grant program would target underfunded public colleges.¹
Federal TRIO funding would triple and GEAR UP funding would double, expanding college preparation programs for low-income and first-generation students.¹
Earlier versions cut all student loan interest rates in half, capped undergraduate rates at 5% and non-undergraduate rates at 8.25%, and let existing borrowers refinance at the lower rates available to new borrowers.²
Earlier versions also tripled federal Work-Study funding, aiming to reach 2.1 million students.²

The bill also touches who teaches the classes. Participating public institutions would have to work toward having at least 75% of instruction delivered by tenured or tenure-track faculty within five years, with priority given to hiring from existing adjunct and contingent faculty.³ Participating states would be required to maintain their existing funding levels for instruction, need-based aid, and institutional support, so federal money could not simply replace state spending.⁴

How It Would Be Paid For

Every version of the College for All Act has been paired with a financial transaction tax, sometimes called a Wall Street speculation tax. The proposed rates have stayed the same across bills: 0.5% on stock trades, 0.1% on bond trades, and 0.005% on derivatives.²

Sanders has projected the tax would raise $2.4 trillion over ten years, well above the legislation’s estimated $600 billion cost over the same period.² Independent analysts have put the number much lower. The Tax Policy Center, reviewing a 2016 version, estimated the tax would raise about $400 billion over a decade, because a 0.5% stock tax would push down the volume of equity trades subject to the tax by roughly 85%.⁵ The Congressional Budget Office, analyzing a separate 0.1% financial transaction tax, projected about $777 billion over ten years and warned that doubling the rate would not double the revenue because trading volume would drop.⁶

The bill includes an income tax credit meant to offset the transaction tax for lower-income households, applying to individuals earning below $50,000 and married couples earning below $75,000.⁵

Where the Bill Stands

The 2025 version carries the numbers S.1832 in the Senate and H.R.3543 in the House. The Senate bill has been referred to the Finance Committee. The House bill was referred but had received no committee action, hearings, or votes as of early 2026.⁷⁸⁹

That pattern has held since the beginning. Sanders and Jayapal first introduced the bill on April 3, 2017 (S.806), where it was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and saw no further action.¹⁰¹¹¹²

The bill’s endorsers include the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, SEIU, AFSCME, the United Farm Workers, the NAACP, the Children’s Defense Fund, the American Association of University Professors, and Public Citizen, among others.¹³

Criticisms

The National Taxpayers Union has argued that the financial transaction tax would fall on ordinary Americans rather than on wealthy traders, because more than half of U.S. households own stock through 401(k) accounts, pension plans, and 529 college savings plans. The group called it a contradiction to tax the 529 plans the bill is meant to make unnecessary.¹⁴

The NTU also pointed to foreign experience. Sweden enacted a financial transaction tax in 1984 and repealed it in 1991 after about 30% of market activity moved to London. France’s transaction tax generated far less than projected. The NTU argued these results suggest reduced market liquidity and higher costs for businesses raising capital.¹⁴

Criticism has also come from adjunct faculty advocates. While the American Federation of Teachers endorsed the bill, some adjunct groups argued that the 75% tenure-track instruction requirement does not actually protect current adjuncts, because the provision uses the word “priority” rather than “mandate.” In practice, they said, institutions could hire new tenure-track faculty externally instead of converting existing adjunct positions.¹⁵

How It Differs From Other Free College Bills

Several federal free college proposals have circulated in recent Congresses, and they are not interchangeable. The America’s College Promise Act covers only two-year public institutions. The College for All Act covers both two- and four-year public institutions and extends grants to private nonprofit HBCUs and minority-serving institutions. It is also the only major proposal to double the Pell Grant, extend Pell eligibility to DACA recipients and TPS holders, triple TRIO funding, and impose the 75% tenure-track faculty requirement.⁴

One feature unique to the College for All Act is a recession-protection mechanism that would recalibrate the federal-state cost-sharing formula during downturns, increasing the federal share based on national employment and unemployment indicators.⁴ None of the provisions above are law. If you are budgeting for college, plan against current federal aid programs, not this bill.

1
U.S. House of Representatives — Rep. Jayapal. Jayapal, Sanders, Colleagues Introduce Bill to Make Public Colleges and Universities Tuition-Free
2
U.S. Senate — Sen. Sanders. The College for All Act Fact Sheet
3
Modern Language Association. Statement on Proposed College for All Act
4
The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). Comparison Chart: Free College Bills
5
Tax Policy Center. Can Sanders Financial Transactions Tax Raise Trillions and Cut Speculation
6
Congressional Budget Office. Impose a Tax on Financial Transactions
7
U.S. Congress. H.R. 3543 — College for All Act of 2025
8
U.S. Congress. S.1832 — College for All Act of 2025, Cosponsors
9
GovTrack. H.R. 3543 — College for All Act of 2025, Cosponsors
10
U.S. Congress. S.806 — College for All Act of 2017
11
U.S. Congress. S.1963 — College for All Act of 2023
12
U.S. Congress. H.R. 4117 — College for All Act of 2023
13
U.S. Senate — Sen. Sanders. College for All Act Supporting Organizations
14
National Taxpayers Union. The Numbers Don’t Add Up in the College for All Act
15
Adjunct Nation. Proposed College for All Would Be a Disaster for Adjunct Professors