Richard Eskow's Tuition-Free Higher Education

At the tender age of five, your parents send you off to a place called school. You wake up almost every morning and must spend the entire day “learning” at a place called school. You repeat this routine for thirteen years. Then you must decide on whether you want to continue this educational journey. If you decide to further your education, then you move on to a college and it is a much higher education. Everyone says you will have a good job so you should go. Your parents want this for you because they only want what’s “best” for you so they strongly encourage you to go. The only thing that is stopping you is the cost to be higher educated. Throughout the article “Tuition-Free Higher Education Must be Offered” Richard Eskow successfully argues …show more content…
Eskow simply states, “The odds that a young person in the U.S. will be in higher education if his or her parents do not have an upper secondary education are just 29%.” If social mobility is that low how can one possibly have a more successful life. The simple fact makes the audience realize there is a conflict with social mobility. The social classes will remain stable therefore this statistic strengthens the statement that tuition free higher education is needed so people have a chance at achieving the greater things in life they strive for. Eskow also states, “The United States has one of the highest “rates of return” on college degrees in the world.” He shows his audience that if they had the chance to get a higher education the likelihood of them returning is very achievable. He goes on to state, “We are currently spending nearly $70 billion per year in student aid.” The nation spends this much money and it is still not enough. The author wants the reader to understand that if the United States has one of the highest return rates why not kill two birds with one stone, make our society smarter and save our nation from more debt because it will eventually be a good investment. In return student aid will be a thing of the past and the nation can spend that money to climb out of debt. Eskow goes on to reveal “the total student debt outstanding in this country is now $1.225 trillion.” With this statistic, he intends to shock his readers, making his argument more successful. The country is falling into more debt the longer we go without tuition-free higher education. If there is tuition free higher education that will eventually eliminate the issue the nation has with its extreme amounts of debt. The author’s unique use of statistics makes it easy for the reader to understand and realize that action needs to