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Adam Boyer
Mrs. Cramer
College comp I Pd- 1
March 24, 2017
Fighting the cost of college tuition

Is free college tuition a good idea?1 Free college tuition has been a decision our country

has been making for quite some time now. Many people believe that free tuition is a great idea

and will help our youth tremendously and others believe that giving kids free college tuition is a

terrible idea and it will make our youth lazy and entitled to things. President Obama's proposal

for tuition-free community college, issued earlier this year, seems to have laid down a marker for

the Democratic Party. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is touting his plan for free four-year

public college on the primary trail(Goldrick-Rab).Free college tuition is not just an idea, but an

awful idea2 it makes rich kids entitled to things and gets them help they do not need at all, as

crazy as it seems free college would actually make things more expensive. It would also offer no

way of controlling what the universities students would study with their free education. As of

right now, college tuition is something that students are going to have to face until someone

comes along and changes that for the youth of America.

Therefore, the youth of America is already lazy and think they own the world, so why

give them more reason to believe that they should deserve free college. By giving them free

college it creates a sense that they know that they will have free college, and while they are in

high school it will not seem as important to do their best on their school work and also on their

1 Rhetorical Question- Asking a question in order to create a dramatic effect

2 apostrophe- addressing of a personified thing rhetorically

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test like the SAT's. With free college education on the rise and being thought of more and more

every day you have to address the issues with it, kids are too lazy now with having to pay for

their college education and to tell them that they will get free college education than their

productivity rate will take a dive and their generation and future generations will become so

entitled to things that it will make you think again about giving kids free education.

They will also never know the effect of having debt after college and how to handle that

debt. Sure no one wants debt in their life but sometimes debt is a good thing, it gives a person

character and shows them how to handle themselves and how to grow up and handle their

finances. Giving free college education will not help teach the youth of America how to handle

their money, their debt and many other things that come with dealing with money and their

finances. College is full of various situations and experiences to learn and grow from and to

work with a budget is one of those things to learn. Without having to pay for their college

experience, they will not learn how to budget and know how to handle the money they have and

future income. Being able to make payments on your debt from college shows that they know

how to budget and that is a skill that you do need to have in your life. They are necessary skills

that will help you out in the long run and will create a feeling of success when you do your bills

and youre budgeting. Having to budget your student loans and your debt from college will help

you extremely in the long run.

Another huge problem with giving free college education would be that rich kids would

get help that they do not need at all, and that would take away from the kids that actually needed

help getting into college and financial aid assistance with kids that dont need help what so ever.

In countries like Brazil that already have implemented free college, where the rich students

already take away from the students that do need help and some can't receive it because of the
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rich kids that get help first. Critics of free college who point to this drawback often argue that a

more targeted reform subsidizing college for the poor and the middle class would make more

sense (Josephson). One thought on how to manage on not having the rich kids take away from

the kids that do need financial help is to have private institutions with minimum college tuition

just for that kids that can afford to pay tuition and can afford to pay out their debts throughout

their life. A downside to having private institutions would be that they couldnt compete with the

colleges that have free tuition because why would someone go to a college you have to pay for

when there are colleges that will give you a free education and having that would cause for many

private schools to close down and couldnt rely on donations from alumni and various other ways

that those colleges receive money for financial support. The other thought is having just

community colleges have free college tuition. I believe that this could be a decent idea for

community colleges only to have free tuition or very little or minimum tuition that would be a

substantial improvement.

It is improbable that the establishment of free college would, indeed, be of minimal cost

to those attending school. Instead of up-front fees upon acceptance, there would be a hidden cost

of tuition, including an increase of tax payments in local residences. Additionally, the value of a

college degree would greatly diminish, as warranted by the universal law of supply and demand.

As the supply of college education possibilities increases, the demand for employees with

college degrees consequentially decreases. Because of the plethora of job candidates, there

would also be greater competition in career fields. The competition in those various career fields

would be very unhealthy for our country and for our country's economy there will not be enough

jobs to support all of those people that went to college for free since there will be an increase in

student rates.
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Free college tuition is not just an idea, but an awful idea, it makes rich kids entitled to

things and gets them help they do not need at all, and as crazy as it seems free college would

actually make things more expensive it would also offer no way of controlling what the

universities students would study with their free education. This idea of free college will not help

our country at all but will instead hurt and turn our country into an overcrowding of people

looking for the same job, and millions of people being unemployed and that is something that no

one in the world should want. There is no doubt about it, education has become not just

expensive but very expensive. In order to get a good job, you need to have a good education and

qualifications but it comes at a price. Whether you are paying for your college course or not, the

situation is not 'cut and dried', there are pros and cons to both situations.
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Work Cited

Goldrick-Rab, Sara, and Andrew P. Kelly. "Should community college be free? Education next talks
with Sara Goldrick-Rab and Andrew P. Kelly." Education Next, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, p. 54+. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A441690176/OVIC?u=pl1949&xid=c0cabf8f.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2017.

Josephson, Amelia. "The Pros and Cons of Free College." SmartAsset. N.p., 15 Sept. 2016. Web. 23 Mar.
2017.
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