Education is necessary for a functioning democracy. From a young age, we've been told over and over how important education is, so why do you have to take out a small fortune in loans just to participate? Grades K-12 are a guarantee for every child, funded through the government...so why stop there? It seems like a natural extension to provide higher education to our citizens, yet this is hardly even a topic of discussion in the United States. The cost of universities is out of control: as of 2022, the US is being crushed under the weight of a collective 1.6 billion dollars of student debt. Something must be done.
The student debt relief passed by Joe Biden was just a drop in the bucket. It was only a bandaid that did nothing to address the underlying problem. University is the only way for most people to live financially successful lives yet it is wildly unaffordable the vast majority of Americans. We must acknowledge that education is not a privilege in this society; it is the bare minimum requirement for advancement and should be treated as such.
Offering free education sounds great in theory, but the truth is, nothing is free in this world. Even if we made education free for all students, someone will always have to pay. In other countries that offer free university for students, taxpayers still shoulder the burden of covering the expense. Because that money has to come from somewhere, the counterargument says that it should be the people who wish to benefit from higher education that should pay.
But this is a very short sighted argument. Investing in the next generation and giving them a quality education is beneficial for the society as a whole. If the United States has a more informed, successful and productive workforce based on the wider availability of higher education, then that would be a benefit for everyone. It makes absolutely no sense to straddle young people with an incapacitating amount of debt and expect them to succeed. This only ties our hands and sets us up for failure down the line.
Ultimately, the future belongs to the next generation and we need to do whatever we can to help them succeed. But, there is such a sense of resentment that arises from Boomers and Gen X when even discussing student debt relief. So many people argue that they had pay for their own schooling, why shouldn't everyone else? Again, this is a short sighted and frankly very self-centered argument. We should all want others to have it easier than we did: that is the only way to make progress toward a better future.
The topic of college tuition is a big one for us students. Although this sounds like a great idea, I feel there would be more negative effects than positive. The value of a degree is held so high, if everything was free, it would make it less as impressive. No doubt some schools have better resources and opportunities than others but unfortunately that comes with a cost. Everthing revolves around money. You have to spend money to make money. Unfortunately this is the economy we have in place and free tuition would be questionable.
This is a great post and outlined the issue of college tuition very well. In writ 150, I wrote about this issue in one of my essays and discussed how paying for college has become more of a business now than anything. Its crazy to see expensive schools like USC increase their tuition ~20k over the past four years (since I was a freshman). They're simply like a dragon sleeping on a pile of gold coins. It's unfair to those who also deserve the opportunity to go to college but simple do not have the financial ability.
Great points, but I do agree that free college education will not truly be free. Apart from the problem of higher taxes you mentioned, there is also the problem of hidden costs of higher education. In China, almost all universities are public schools that costs very little. However, for many students living under poverty line, it's still hard to actually attend the school in an expensive large city. Also, getting into top universities are also costly with college entrance exam preparation courses charging high prices.
I completely agree with your post, not much to say other than the cost both physical and mental, to ensure success in our society today is only increasing as the years go on. This is a great post and I am also eager to see the benefits of many prestigious universities go forward with covering tuition, which creates competition and separations in other areas. Thanks for sharing Shina!
I completely agree, since K-12 education is available to all and seen as a basic necessity, it only makes sense that the next four years are covered as well. I know in California, junior college is free to residents, which is hopefully a model that more states will participate in. On the flip side of taxpayer funded, I have heard buzz that schools such as Stanford and Harvard, have endowments that are almost big enough to make tuition free from the other side. If the highest regarded universities become tuition-less it will certainly make their admissions more competitive, and universities without large endowments might not be able to follow, so who knows how beneficial that would be.