There is a movement afoot to make public colleges free for everyone. It's a small movement, but you read about it more and more.

My parents were lower middle class people who lived in rented apartments and never owned more than one car at a time. They didn't go anywhere on vacation. Instead, they stayed home and slept late in the mornings.

So, when I went to college, I worked. My dad took a second job to help. And I made it through a public college, twice. I have a Master's Degree.

And I'm not one of those "rags to riches" guys, either. Nothing is worse than the older guy who won't stop gassing on and on about how hard he worked to get where he is today.

But I worked. Manual labor. Dishwashing. Janitorial work. Loading dock. Bartending. Crap like that.

I got tired on those jobs, and I got hurt every now and then.

And sometimes I think it was too hard. I was young and while some guys were taking a summer to backpack around Europe, I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing the space behind a hotel toilet. I was unloading furniture trucks. That's a lot of what I think of when I think of my teens and twenties. I did some kind of work like that from the time I was 15 until I got out of graduate school at 26.

I left behind plenty of people who did that kind of work until the day they retired or died.

I took a fair amount of "college boy" abuse on those jobs but what I remember most was how many older workers said to me, "Stay in school, kid. Don't end up like me."

I never forgot those words. "Don't end up like me."

I wish I'd had more carefree time when I was 19. I probably have more free time now than I did then. And I've sure as hell got more money. I just can't stay up all night anymore or fall in love every couple of days or backpack around any space larger than my own yard.

The years when I could do those things I gave to work; low wage, long hours, crap jobs.

Those jobs didn't build my character; they just wore out my body early. I'm sure a number of the small aches and pains I have at 57 can be traced, at least in part, to the years of tugging and hauling, lifting and pushing.

As a writer, those jobs gave me a feel for working people, especially poor working people. Unlike a number of reporters I've known whose work experience consists of two suburban fast-food jobs and an internship, I don't think all poor people are stupid, or funny or dangerous. Everybody jokes about the people they see in Wal-Mart, but I worked with those people for the better part of 10 years and some of them I liked a lot.

So, no, don't provide a free college education. Instead, lower the cost of an education until a kid can pay for it doing something awful on the night shift.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's book of Pulitzer Prize-nominated column, "Between Wealth and Welfare: A Liberal Curmudgeon in America" is available for Kindle and Nook

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