"Free education sounds great. But shouldn’t we be worried about the capacity of community colleges to handle added stress on their enrollments? "

We should be worried, becuase many community colleges are scraping for funding while they try to adjust to an increase in enrollment. The community college in my area just ran a postcard campaign to get "crisis" funding for the needs of the college. They have so many new students, due to rising tuition at universities and a scholarship program for in-state HS graduates, that they are running out of space.

"If everybody can go to school for free, there is a chance that such a large influx of students will decrease the quality of the education at these schools."

There is a small chance of that, but remember what community colleges do. They handle a lot of people who want to learn a trade, as well as people looking to save money for the first 2 years of school. If you can't hack it in community college, you aren't going to continue on to a university, and people who are motivated enough to meet the program requirements will probably find a way to make it through the program to find a local job and stimulate the economy.

Speaking of requirements, let's remember that this would be a government program, and we all know they don't just hand over the money and wish you luck. The program for HS students in my state provides 2 year of free tuition to an in-state college BUT...you need a clean HS record and decent grades (2.5 GPA), you have to enroll the fall after HS, you have to be a full time student, you have to keep a minimum GPA (2.5 again, I think), you have to pass a min. amount of credits during the year, you can only take a certain amount of remedial or ESL classes, etc., etc. As much as I would have loved to get 2 years of college free, this program could be exhausting, for both students and teachers. Don't think that just because the government says you get a "free" education that they are just giving away money.