Should College Tuition Be Free?
By: Celina Yang
Out of 10 college students in America, 7 replied that they constantly feel stressed and worried about college tuition(scholarshipamerica.org). Should college tuition be free? It is a very appealing idea, however, it does have some major flaws. This has been a constant debate topic for many people in our community. In this article, I will go over the several arguments that have been consistently made about the mansion when it comes to this topic.
The Biggest Benefit
The greatest benefit would of course be more education for many students who are unable to attend college due to financial reasons or did not even consider the matter due to the tution. Many more lower income students will be able to attend college and have a more successful career. Even for me, my family has told me that they are unable to pay for my full tuition for college unless I get a scholarship or loans. However loans drag down many students after their college days since “To that point, 80 percent of working professionals with student loan debt said it is a source of “significant” or “very significant” stress, according to the survey of more than 3,000 Americans conducted online in May. Many millennials said that student loans have impacted their ability to go on vacation, buy a car, pay rent or get necessities like food and clothing.” This shows the long term consequences of student loans and the mental stress and anxiety the students have to go through for more than several years even after their career has launched. So free college does seem to be a very appealing idea for many.
The Tax Problem
One big problem that comes to mind at first is that it would be very costly, since giving free education to millions of college students is greatly going to increase educational taxes. According to UC Berkeley.edu, “Sanders' plan, in contrast, would increase taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay the basic cost of educating all students, rich and poor. Superficially, it's an appealing idea, but it would be counterproductive to increase taxes to enable students from well-off families to attend college for free.” Also according to aei.com “The Bernie Sanders “free college” plan would already cost some $70 billion a year as a starting point. Kelly: Of course, “free” college isn't really free.” Tax payers will need to cover the $70 billion it costs to have free college tuition, even if it is a small increase, it’s going to affect a lot of people, especially, those with low income or very high income.
Quality of education
With free college education, there is going to be an immense increase in the students who want to attend college. This will lead to larger classes and it is proven that larger classes lower education quality, which may lead to inequality for all those who actually tried very hard to come to college.According to Harvard university, “My main concern with free college plans is that focusing solely on college costs will push us toward an outcome where college is cheap but also relatively low quality. If you lower the price of college to zero, you are going to get a lot more students enrolling. Absent significant increases in state funding for higher education, the same pool of resources will then be spread across many more students. This could lead to larger classes, less guidance and mentoring, and a generally lower quality experience. It is not at all clear that lower prices and lower levels of spending will be a good thing overall for students.”
Related sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/student-loans-take-a-mental-toll-on-y\ung-people.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/tuition-free-college.html
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED532900.pdf