New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers one of his State of the State addresses at SUNY Albany in Albany, N.Y., Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)

The state of New York will now offer free college tuition to all students, in what many Democrats are already saying is a model for other states and for the federal government. So we’re back to the “free college” mantra, no matter how often the promise has been debunked.

“New York will be the only state in the country to cover four-year public college tuition for residents after the program was included in the budget package approved Sunday night,” NBC News reports. “The state’s Excelsior Scholarship program will be rolled out in tiers over the next three years, starting with full coverage of four-year college tuition this fall for students whose families make less than $100,000. The income cap will increase to $110,000 in 2018 and $125,000 in 2019.”

What’s wrong with this? Let’s start with the “free college” part. It’s not – nothing is free. When lawmakers say “free college,” they mean that taxpayers will pick up the tab.

Yet that’s not reflected in the state budget.

“According to [Gov. Andrew] Cuomo’s office, the budget includes a record $7.5 billion for higher education – though that’s only a 6.3 percent increase from 2016,” NBC explains. “An estimated 80 percent of New York State’s families with college-age kids could use the new program. There is no age limit for the program; students must be enrolled full-time with an average of at least 30 credits per year and meet the minimum GPA requirement for their program.”

This is a policy train-wreck waiting to happen. State lawmakers promise free college, then fail to pay for it. Who picks up the tab? Will the schools be left with enrollees and no money to pay for instructors? Will New York look to the federal government (and New York native President Donald Trump) for a bailout?

By the way, none of this is new. Louisiana has tried the same thing, with dismal results.

“Louisiana’s plan is called the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or, more commonly, TOPS,” explained The Daily Signal, a news website run by the Heritage Foundation. “This extremely popular program uses tax dollars to pay full tuition (and some fees) at any of Louisiana’s public universities.”

That’s an important point – the result of making college free for everyone, when it’s already essentially free for lower income students, is that it becomes a subsidy for middle and upper income students.

According to a report from the Louisiana Budget Project, “Unlike the original Taylor Plan, TOPS primarily benefits students from middle- and upper-income families. Today, 72 percent of all TOPS recipients come from families that make $50,000 or more per year, well over the median income for Louisiana; fully 39 percent come from families that make $100,000 or more per year.”

It’s a benefit that everyone pays into (through state sales taxes and state income tax) but is mostly enjoyed by those who don’t need it. There is an undeniable transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy.

That’s the problem with “free college.” It just doesn’t work out that way.