Tuition-Free Education In America Essay

Improved Essays
Should higher education become an inalienable right in America? Tuition costs in America have risen dramatically even if adjusted for inflation. Moreover, higher costs leave increasingly more students in debt after completing college, and high expenses may even deter economically poor scholars from pursuing university thus forcing them into catch-22s. Various countries around the world, especially the European countries, already offer tuition-free post-secondary education to their citizens. The purpose of this debate is to determine if any form of education reform is required so that America can compete on the global scale, increase access to education, and not have students with six-figure debts. Education has always been regarded as a safe investment, but would America realize a return on that investment if the government decided to switch to a tuition-free system? Though some countries …show more content…
The people who are affected by the issue are the following: students, professors/administrators, universities, the American public, and state/federal governments. The groups from the audience that support a version of a tuition-free system are students, professors, and democrats. Students are obligated to pay tuition, and professors sympathize with the students’ struggles to remain debt-free since they themselves have gone through the process. Democrats, like Barack Obama, are strong supporters of education reform similar to tuition-free education. Just last year, Obama proposed a plan to make community college free for students so political representatives within the Democratic Party are inclined to reform education to a tuition-free system. The public is the only group that will give mixed reactions. People from northern and western states incline towards tuition-free university while the people from southern states will likely oppose the change due to political party

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    With the constantly increasing population, American citizens would have to pay more and more in taxes each year to be able to pay for every person that wishes to receive free college tuition. Along with tuition free college would come a lot more people attending college, and campuses would have to expand and do renovations to accommodate for the large amount of additional people attending college. All these expansions and renovations will cost loads of money, which again would end up costing taxpayers even more money. For those families who don't have kids, or have kids who don't plan on attending college, they end up feeding tax dollars into something that will never benefit them. On the other hand, you have many rich families who can more than afford to send their kids to college, but now they get to reap the new benefits that should have been a benefit to low income families trying to get their kids an education.…

    • 1295 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    "The argument for tuition- Free college" by Keith Ellison (2016) gave a plan in this article to guide America to free college tuition. After have stated alarming facts that regard tuition costs, Ellison pin-pointed students loans as a place to start for free tuition. Ellison recommended that federal investments to states would significantly lower costs to attend college. The author also made a point that if American can invest in billions of dollars on gas and oil, as well as Wall Street, then American is more than capable in investing to higher education.…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    During the presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders purposes a plan for college tuition free. He suggests that public colleges and universities in the United States should be charge free. The federal government has made over $110 billion dollars through student loan, so Senator Sander suggests that the government should cut the interest rate of student loan from 4.29% to just 2.37%. In current economy, the interest rate of auto-loan is 2.5% on average, so students should not pay more interest rate for their education that lasts for decades. In order to execute the plan, the federal government needs to pay $75 billion dollars a year to cover all the costs.…

    • 1508 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This is a topic that has been brought up frequently in the political campaigns for the white house, which means that two or more different opinions exist. Business CEO and governor Robert Duckeson best explains this in his article “Rising College Costs Threaten America’s Future and Require Shared Solutions”. Duckeson explains throughout his article why government funded tuition is ideal. As stated by Duckeson, “Many institutions- public as well as private- are stepping up efforts to increase revenues from fundraising, auxiliary enterprise income, and other non-student sources. Institutions can further reduce the load that tuition must carry to achieve institutional revenue goals” (3).…

    • 1227 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The idea sounds great when so many other countries have free college. Why shouldn’t the U.S. make their tuition free? Students will still struggle with the cost of college. It isn’t just the tuition these kids pay. It’s the rent, the groceries, the textbooks, and…

    • 1361 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Disagreements Over Free Tuition The recent talks surrounding tuition being free and its impact to the society of people in the United States has been a hot topic recently. Many agreements and as well disagreements have risen over if the tuition for a college student should be free. “Tennessee Is Showing How Free Tuition Community College Works” by Celeste Carruthers, “Free Tuition Is a Needless Windfall for Affluent Voters and State Institutions” by Michael J. Petrilli, and “The Problem Is That Free College Isn’t Free” by Andrew P. Kelly argue at the definition if having a free tuition could work.…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    TITLE Rising college tuition in America is a serious issue for most students, causing the push for free college tuition to increase tremendously over the last few years. With the recent Presidential election and candidate Bernie Sanders pressing the issue of tuition free college, it has become of gargantuan focus among the American people. Because of this, many have posed their own arguments and research for, or against, free college tuition. America being the only major country without free public college tuition, makes many furious with the government.…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Now let’s take a look as to how some countries benefit from having free tuition). Second Main Point: Although free tuition comes at the tax payer’s expense, countries have recent graduates contributing back to the economy at a faster pace than the U.S. Subpoint: Countries like Germany, Finland and Sweden offer free tuition. Yet, their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) income doesn’t differ that much from the one in the United States. 1.…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should the cost of college tuition be lowered? Many students would answer this question with a definite “yes”, arguing that education needs to be affordable. Now that society is making college education the new element for most jobs, many people now have to gain a higher education degree for the job they prefer. “In the past couple decades; a college education has been promoted as a necessity for success in life.” (At Issue: College Education).…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should college education be free for all U.S. citizens? How are free universities in Germany and other European countries benefiting these countries and students? Imagine how the U.S. would benefit from free college education. How many more students we would have that actually finish college and not only that, but don’t have a huge debt to pay back afterwards. Other than the fact that yes, if there was free college less students would take it as a joke like if it were high school.…

    • 1040 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should College Be Free? Over the past few years, the cost of higher education has become unbearable for most. The cost for an opportunity to become more educated is quite frightening. On average, public colleges cost $32,762 while private colleges are priced at $42,419 on average (Bridgestock, 2015).…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Free Education In America

    • 2282 Words
    • 9 Pages

    What do Denmark, Slovenia, Germany, Sweden, Czech Republic, Norway, and Finland have in common? They all have the policy of free or very little tuition for college. The average debt for U.S students in 2014 was 28,950. With the U.S being the richest country in the world, it poses the question why does America not have free education?…

    • 2282 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator and Democratic candidate, is in favor of tuition-free public colleges and universities and states that “Too…

    • 1088 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American Education System has been around since the early 1820’s and has continued to operate in a very similar manner ever since. Children, in America, attend school from morning to mid-afternoon or early evening, five days a week, one-hundred and eighty- plus days a year. They do so from the time that they are five years old until they are eighteen years old and many even start out in pre-school or a head start program at younger ages (Caulfield 2). They are, taught how to and then expected to sit still in their assigned seats, stay in nice, straight, quiet lines in the hallways.…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A poll taken in 2013 shows 62% of people believed they could not afford college (Take). “If all 18-24 year olds went to college the unemployment rate would reduce by 2 million people” (Take). If college was free then more people would go and this would make the unemployment rate decrease. A lot of people would like to get a college degree, but the only problem is they do not have money to go. People have to put off college to get the money they need, but by the time that time it may be too late and they may decide not to go.…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays