A well-known Portland-area retailer used to splash across Eastern Oregon television screens with a pithy pitch.

“Free is a very good price,” Tom Peterson once proclaimed.

Peterson’s unforgettable television commercials from the 1980s and 1990s still resonate today as do his slogan about beating the price of free.

When one ponders the recent proposal by President Barack Obama regarding free tuition for two years for community and technical college students, Peterson’s mantra also echoes. Free, is indeed, a hard price to beat.

The president’s plan works like this: community college and technical college students must at least attend school halftime and maintain a 2.5 grade point average while demonstrating progress toward a degree in return for free tuition. The plan, dubbed “America’s College Promise,” appears to be another one of those educational, government-sponsored initiatives like the World War II GI bill that will create millions of more college educated students.

We do not doubt that the proposed program – modeled on a similar agenda in Tennessee – will generate millions more college educated students. That is a good thing. We, as a nation, pride ourselves on our educational opportunities. We should all support education. Educating our youth, producing independent, free-thinking adults is just one more element to our democracy that makes us stronger.

And yet this plan may end up being a non-starter with Congress. That is as it should be.

While the president should be lauded for his insistence on finding methods to help create more higher education opportunities for America, this plan – at least in its initial form – is built upon a rickety foundation. For one, it isn’t free. Nothing in life ever is. The plan will provide free funding for students, yes. But who would pay the bill? You guessed it – taxpayers.

Under the proposal, states are earmarked to furnish nearly a quarter of the costs of the program while, at the same time, preserving current spending on education. Colleges enrolled in the program would also be required to offer academic credits that fully transfer to four-year institutions. The federal government will pay out $60 billion over a decade for the program. That’s $60 billion taxpayer dollars.

The now-Republican dominated Congress, thankfully, doesn’t seem interested in creating more taxpayer-funded programs. If the president does unveil a sensible funding mechanism for his education agenda, then we believe it could find support.

Yet right now, adding another taxpayer-funded federal program to what is already a mind-numbing list would be a bad idea.

Yes, education should be supported in this great nation. But not at the expense of taxpayers.

Mr. Peterson was right, of course, free is a hard price to beat.

The only problem is, nothing is free in life. Not ever.