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

  • 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
  • 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

    Essay On Tuition Reform

    • 1018 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Tuition Reform Society today faces the challenge of being able to receive higher education due to economic and financial difficulties. Students, and even parents, experience hardship when it comes to the attempt of earning a degree in any field of study. In addition to the current cost of tuition, most middle class and lower class citizens are not able to afford the "luxury" of attending college or universities in the United States. Likewise, this poses a leviathan problem for the country and especially to the communities. Tuition needs to make a drastic change in prices, which in doing so will open more opportunities to accomplish the American Dream, improve society, provide a chance for people in financial struggles, and help place our country back to one of the top ranked in the world.…

    • 1018 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    A third area that funding is being directed to is athletic facilities and coaches’ salaries. Money is often spent on new practice facilities and locker rooms so that colleges can increase recruiting efforts. When colleges are able to acquire good players for their athletic teams they can increase revenue generated at the games. The problem is that the revenue generated doesn’t go back into the university’s system to fund education. The money instead goes to coaches’ salaries and bonuses along with new team facilities.…

    • 1194 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Should College Be Free in America? Every year in America, thousands of new high school graduates pack their bags, move to new cities, and sign papers accepting loans they might not be able to pay back. Parents shovel out thousands to colleges, with the risk of their child neglecting the responsibility of study, and dropping their courses. Students who do not qualify for scholarships have to use up time that would allow them to study properly because they need to get part-time jobs in order to just stay in college. In other countries all over the world, tuition for college is free.…

    • 138 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    As tuition and fees continue to get higher, scholarships will be more challenging to achieve, and the student will have to get multiple student loans to cover it. “Tuition and fees at public colleges soared a record 14 percent this year, continuing a quarter-century trend of higher-education prices rocketing faster than inflation,” (Price 3). It is true that the government has not always funded the children through the twelfth grade, but times have changed, (Kingsley 16). On one hand, some would argue that students can get apply for a loan or financial aid to pay for college. Education is not free now does not mean that students are prohibited from entering a college or university for a higher education.…

    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The article on the Upfront website titled Should College Tuition Be Free, by Andrew M. Cuomo and David Brooks describes the current debate about whether or not we should decrease college tuition. In a nutshell, the students that are educated in college are important for the countries economy, but with college tuition rising more every year, it's hard to prevent students from falling into debt. First off, Andrew M. Cuomo expresses his opinion that we should reduce college tuition. Cuomo says, “reducing college costs is good for students and for the nation’s economy.” By lowering the cost of college tuition, more Americans can go to college, regardless of their ability to pay, which means that the U.S. will have the best-trained workforce in…

    • 240 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Purpose: To persuade the audience to find ways to promote free college education. Importance to Audience: College education has become a necessity that’s hindering the future of growing generations. Thesis Statement: College Education should be free. Preview of Main Points: I will elaborate on the following three topics: the increasing rate in student debt, how other countries are benefitting from providing free college, and how we can achieve free college tuition in the U.S. (Transition:…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Free college: salvation of our nation, or a detrimental endeavor with misguided focus? Following Obama’s announcement on September 9th 2015, college tuition has become a new hot topic and opinions are pouring in from many perspectives. Free college is the terminology used to describe a higher education system where students do not pay tuition; other costs of living, transportation, books and materials are not necessarily included in the “free” descriptor. Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, takes a firm stance against free college in his article, ‘Free Tuition is a Needless Windfall for Affluent Voters and State Institutions’. Arguing…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 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
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On College Tuition

    • 1308 Words
    • 5 Pages

    College tuition is a nightmare among people seeking a higher education. Tuition is not decreasing; in fact it has been on a rapid nonstop rise since 1978. College tuition is a growing concern since many of the job openings require some sort of college education to even be considered for the job. Today’s society has made college appear as requirement in order to succeed in life, but in order to succeed one must go bankrupted paying college tuition to prove ones successfulness. Even after miraculously paying for tuition there is no guarantee of a job opportunity.…

    • 1308 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College Tuition Cost

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The government will still benefit from tuition free colleges, for students who wants to attend at private college will still have to pay for tuition. “The government already spends to subsidize the cost of college through grants, tax breaks, and work-study funds, which comes to about $69 billion. It spends another $107.4 billion on student loans. That means that with the money it already spends to make college affordable, the government could instead subsidize public college tuition, thereby making it free for all students” (Covert). Dropout rates for high school students would decrease, leading to more students having a superior future for themselves and families.…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To what extent should public college education be free? Education plays an extremely large role in American contemporary society; parents put their kids education before almost anything. However, when education starts to cost parents a small fortune, they start to reconsider if it’s really worth it. Although it is extremely important for people to be educated, it would be an impossible feat to have everyone go to college free; however it is imperative to make education free until college.…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 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
  • 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