Free public college education is college education funded by charitable organizations and tax payer’s money as opposed to payment of tuition fee. In the United States of America college education is controlled by the states and they some are offering free public college while others are not. America has been in the debate of whether to make college education free in all the States or let it remain as it is currently whereby students fund themselves or get loans from the government to pay for tuition. It has been a tag of war between the pros and the cons each side stating their arguments and reasons for their stand. The pros argument that the government is not ready with the economic status is valid as it is evident that the country is going under tight budgets and there are worries on the status in the future. Giving examples of Washington and the history of free public college which have come to an end due to funds issues strengthens their argument. On the other hand the pros argument that the money is there and proves it by giving statistics of money being raised for example the tax for higher education makes their argument valid. They say that the money if well spent it could be even more than enough for funding four year college and community colleges. It is hard to determine which side is right and which is wrong as their arguments are valid. College administrators say that there are consequences for making college education free that mostly affect the college. Their argument is that students from low income families will affect the ranking of colleges on graduation rate. They say these students are not qualified to take these positions in the college as they don’t have the qualities required and their making th... ... middle of paper ... ...ion is a bridge connecting the two classes of people and helping citizens achieve their dreams. In conclusion I would say it’s difficult for one to decide which side to take as the arguments are valid and meaningful. Free college education would be a good choice but the cons show that the country is not ready for that as it would fail like the historical one. The two sides fight to keep the economy still but they are doing it differently. Issues like graduation rates and ranking of the universities is the main worry for the cons of free college education while miss allocation of funds and equality through education is the argument of the pros. It is difficult to decide which one would take from the arguments. The fate of college education should therefore be well thought of and scrutinized making the decision made worth and without future implications.
Along with less funding for the lower levels of education, comes a weaker education. So college might be free, but if you can’t even get into college (due to standardized test scores, GPA, etc.), then what is the point of having tuition-less college? As you can see, there are more drawbacks than benefits to free college tuition once you look past the surface of it. Like I said before, at a glance, it seems perfect, flawless. However, take a deeper look and see all of the things that would need to change in order to sustain nationwide tuition-free higher education.
According to Trade Schools, Colleges and Universities “Many of America's top-performing high school students never apply to the most challenging colleges and universities even though they have the ability to succeed at them. They often come from minority and low-income households and end up pursuing more affordable, less-selective schools instead.” College can be a burden to many students in a variety of different ways, but the most common reason is due to funds. Making college free for students will help this problem by increasing jobs in the work industry that require degrees, they should be affordable to all people at all cost, as well as the funds should be completely cut off because it would increase jobs and help America's economy grow.
First, free college can encourage students to go to college to get a degree which leads to a high paying career. It can fulfill those students that are having a hard time financially, and fewer students will be in debt. Second, with free college, colleges will be more likely to help students that need the guidance to stay on track and get a diploma. Clayton and Bailey mention, "If we want to significantly improve educational outcomes, we need to make college more affordable so more students can enroll, and make the reforms needed to en-sure community college students can succeed in their courses, complete their program, and grad-uate within reasonable amount of time" (Clayton and Bailey). Finally, free college can help the U.S. catch up to the rest of the countries with higher education. For example, it can help the United States surpass Russia, where more than half of adults have a diploma. Frohlich explains, “More Than 53% of Russian adults between the ages of 25 and 64 had some form of higher edu-cation in 2012, more than in any other country reviewed by OECD” (Frohlich). Although free college is an attractive idea, it will leave the United States in a bigger debt which will be hard to recover from and more students will be unmotivated to
When hearing the words “free” and “college” in the same sentence, that is exciting to anyone who is interested in not paying those thousands of dollars for their pursued education. However, when it comes to Obama’s free community college idea, for the first two years, many people skip over the many factors that go into this issue. Some may agree with President Obama’s plan fighting for a fair chance for all student to get a degree and not go into debt receiving an education, and others argue that community college already being inexpensive will only make the system difficult to work with. While making community college free for everyone is considerate, the students with low incomes already get the aid they need without this program and the
The idea of freedom and equal opportunity that America was built on has sadly been lost and replaced with a system of quality education only being accessible by the wealthy. In-state college tuition should be free for all students meeting admission requirements, allowing students from the full spectrum of economic backgrounds to have the same opportunity to receive the same education. The incidence of poverty in the U.S. is directly linked to educational level. When a college degree is earned, income levels rise (College Board). The best use of federal government anti-poverty funds is not another welfare or assistance program; it is to make college education affordable for everyone.
There is no doubt that college is expensive, price tags for some universities go over a quarter of a million for just a bachelors degree! (That’s if you graduate in four too). The extravagant price for college is no doubt crazy. Trying to better yourself and your future shouldn’t cost $250,000 plus. If public universities were to be free a plethora of problems could be solved instantly. According to Forbes the National student loan debt has surpassed 1.2 trillion dollars (Denhart )! This number is growing exponentially as more students enroll in to college. Why question then whether college should be free? Well, this number is the total amount of student loan debt from all students that have exited college. Some of these students are freshly graduated while some are aged with the wisdom trying to pay their loans back. If public universities were to be free and funded by our federal government, our government would pay this amount within ten years. Relatively a short amount of time considering that the student loan debt is an accumulation debt from students that have graduated more than ten year ago, also this also greatly increase with the following years as well.
Vance, J.D. "The college trap: our higher-education system hurts the poor." National Review 27 Jan. 2014. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
The critical challenge within in today’s society is that college tuition should be free or if not free, more affordable for all students. Certainly, higher education should not be considered a luxury where only the wealthy could afford, but an opportunity for all caste systems. It must be an accessible and affordable opportunity for all students in order for them to invest in their education. Higher education is important because it provides more careers to choose from than the careers offered without having a college degree. Ultimately, the issue here is whether it is right to make college tuition more affordable for the students.
The article is written by Matt Bruenig who is a writer primarily focused on economic and political issues that especially affect poverty and inequality system. This essay discusses the idea of free college in the U.S. Topics include the different definitions of “ free college” and various benefits for different class-based students which lead to the inequality of free college plan. The meaning of “free college” varies from one to another. Some believe that it is sponsoring tuition to zero, while others believe that it means not only sponsoring tuition to zero but also living grants. Since there are many different views toward the definition of free college, government may need to declare it clearly. The author also mentions about the lack of equality of free college plan is another problem. Many researches show that the free colleges plan benefits middle-class and higher-class students more than poor students. This is a current and
Calling a college education “free” is a contradiction because nothing in life is truly free. Someone will be responsible for paying for this education, even if it is not the person receiving it. To support this flood of hopeful college students, the American Government will have to heavily tax the working and upper classes. Taxes will have to be inflated to compensate for the price of college, and in some cases, may become outrageously high. If the upper class becomes constantly taxed, what keeps them from dropping down a class? What keeps the middle class from becoming the lower class? In an extreme situation, if the middle and upper classes were constantly taxed, there risks a problem of creating a bigger class divide. Maybe the plan to pay for college education starts out with only the rich being taxed. In America, there are roughly 324 million people. This number increases every eight seconds, so there is a constant increase of citizens. Imagine if half of that number decides to go to college. College education is free for them, but their tuition is paid for by the upper class. Now, average college tuition runs for about $9,410 for State Universities, and around $32,405 for out of state students. This amount of money, per student, is paid for by the upper class’s taxes. Taxes are raised higher and higher to pay for all these students until they cannot be raised any further. The upper
In the film, Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore brings up many issues but the one that stuck out the most was the idea of free college and how it worked in other countries. From the film, an individual could come up with a reasonable conclusion, that free college brings more benefit than harm. What is usually meant by free college is in fact the idea of free tuition. Instead of having students be in debt for most of their lives, they can focus on studying and not have to work at multiple jobs. Even after completing college, most students find themselves accepting jobs that do not involve the degree they had received. If the majority of the population received free college, more people would take advantage and therefore,
Politicians, that are currently running for office and the current President have proposed to have “free” college education. Presidential nominee has recently announced support for providing free tuition at public colleges and universities. Free tuition can enable students who otherwise would not attend a higher learning institution to have a change of mind. As the say goes “a mind is a terrible thigh to waste” and “knowledge is power”. I feel that an education increases the changes of potentially higher earnings. A college education should be necessity rather than an
This has sparked the debate as to whether higher education ought to be offered free of charge or not, with many rallying for the former. In order to level the playground for all Americans and offer equal opportunities in life; higher education should be offered free of charge to all. This paper seeks to make a convincing argument regarding the importance and need of having free higher education. At the same time, this essay seeks to cite some of the opinions of those of a contrary opinion, giving them a different viewpoint. In the end, this essay will weigh the benefits of free higher education against the drawbacks and probably, convince everyone that the benefits are enough to guarantee free higher education.
I chose the concept of free college education as my topic because the price of school has been on my mind a lot lately. College is expensive, and attending a private university is even more expensive. I’m lucky enough to have my dad pay for my education, but for a lot of my friends that is not the case. I have seen through their lives how college funding has impacted their college education. I have one friend who is very intelligent, but chose to go to a community college in our home town instead of a big university because of funding. I also have a friend who is a full time student and working two jobs just to pay for her college education and not drown debt. I decided to have my research question focus on the positive and negative implications on free college education. Before I
Yes, I strongly believe that college education should be free for everyone because Education is a basic necessity of our society these days. Free education wouldn’t just benefit one generation or one society but it can benefit the whole nation. If a nation is educated, then it can benefit the whole country and it can get better job opportunities for its citizens because in today’s world we can see highly paid jobs are knowledge based or require advanced technical skills. So in my opinion more educated nation would help remove all those flaws which are keeping country’s economy from growing rapidly. If the education is free in college then it can help a lot of those students who got good grades in their high schools but could not get into the college because of their financial situation. This way these kind of needy students who deserves to get a good degree and basically these students are future of America but they could not get it through