One of the largest debates among students and adults is whether college tuition should be free for students or not. Despite the fact that college is expensive and many students end up in debt, it would be foolish to make it free for everyone.
The modern era is full of the ideology that things should be free in life with a closed mind on the negative side effects. College tuition is looked at as one of the largest costs for students and parents, and it is very expensive. In reality, it is only a fraction of the cost that the rest of college living requires.
Housing, food, textbooks and other expenses are far more costly than tuition itself. Books alone are thousands of dollars per year and there’s no way to alter the pricing on it.
With tuition, colleges have a plethora of scholarships to offer students that can chip away at the cost. Full rides are offered to students who perform well academically as well as those who offer high athletic skills and abilities. Smaller scholarships can still range from $5,000 to $20,000 per year depending on what the student has to offer.
An article written by SavingforCollege.com, an independent resource for parents and financial professionals, states that colleges supply more than 1.7 million scholarships per year, totaling over $7.4 billion.
There are many other scholarships for smaller achievements that can offer huge amounts of money saved per year/semester.
Colleges make paying for college much easier with scholarship opportunities that are given out like never before.
Students can work hard early to prevent the overwhelming student debts that come from college. With student debts however, it is very flexible on payment times, as students don’t have to start making payments right after they graduate and are given a large amount of time to make those payments.
There is time for students to grow their income and chip away at their debt as they get older. Student debt is also a great way to help students understand financial decisions and skills that are needed in life.
One of the most important cons that people are forgetting when thinking about free tuition is the large tax increase that will come from it. An article done by ProCon.com, a non-biased information source for students, states that a free college tuition plan would cost roughly $47 billion per year. Money doesn’t grow on trees and the government has other things to spend money on, therefore the cost of college tuition would be taken out of taxes.
This would jump the price of taxes to an absurd amount that would also get complained about. Nothing is ever given for free, and it has to come from somewhere, which many people fail to understand. College tuition has had the same setup for years, so altering it would just cause a whole new system that would be difficult and unnecessary.
When comparing the list of pros to cons for free college tuition, it is clear that tuition should not be free and the system should continue to stay the same. There are no true benefits to free college that won’t take a toll on other aspects of expenses.
With the modern era and the variety of opportunities set up for students, there is no reason to make college free strictly because people don’t feel like paying for it.