Should We have free college?
|A core value in America has always been equal opportunity, College Education by that same logic should be equally available. Some of us have been brought up since a young age to strive for prestigious colleges before we even enter middle school. The high school experience itself serves as prep with the availability of AP courses to ensure that students are ready to succeed in these colleges. Despite there being an equal opportunity to be accepted and to have equal qualification as other applicants, the costs of college for poorer groups outweighs the benefits of attending. The necessity of a college education while being contested, is certain to give young adults the experience of free thought, exploring their interests and their environment safely. The value of not only the education but the life experience should not be discriminated by a student’s previous economic situation.
Statistically college education, as many would expect, gives a greater likelihood of future success. A popular statistic is that college graduates make roughly $20,000 more annually than non-college graduates. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act into law, laying the groundwork for the largest system of publicly funded universities in the world. For most of our nation’s history, cheap and accessible higher education has been a reality up until recently. The cost of attending a college has increased by 1,122 percent since 1978. Today real college costs are higher (accounting for inflation) than they ever have been before in American history.
If college was free to the general public what would that mean for our country. Without any doubt, the level of innovation in our country would increase, with more people having access to higher education the potential for growth would skyrocket. More people would have a space to explore new ideas, learn and eventually innovate. The idea here is quite straightforward, if we better equip our workforce, the productivity and efficiency of our workers will increase.
Finally, progressives argue that unlike what many think such a plan could have a positive effect on the US economy. If we were to remove college tuition, students graduating from college will have much more expendable money. More spending leads to greater economic activity.
Student loans have also become the greatest source of debt in the United States, with this and the multitude of other reasons previously stated, it would seem that the argument made by the progressives, pushing for tuition free college is a no brainer. There wouldn’t be a debate or two sides of conflict if there were substantial reason for such a plan with such an upside to not go into action.
Conservatives brush the free tuition college plan made by the progressives as a fairy-tail marketing tactic. They are the realists in the argument, the logical thinkers. Diplomas would be devalued, now the job market is going to be flooded with applicants with access to higher quality college education. More people are more likely to stay in college and get a master’s degree if they don’t need to pay extra. Getting a job today is already a difficult ask, flooding the job market with more college graduates will simply exacerbate the problem.
However, if there are more applicants in the job market, doesn’t that mean that the market will increase in quality, shouldn’t an increase in competition be seen as good for productivity. Maybe getting a job should be difficult because those in that field need to be especially productive and effective workers.
Most importantly, the crux of the argument is how the tuition free plan is going to be paid. College Tuition accumulates to 70 billion dollars each year. Politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren advocate taxing the rich, the one percent. Conservatives see this as socialism and anti-capitalist. It is seen as theft by conservatives, the college students are the benefactors and therefore should pay.
Looking at both sides of the argument it appears to be very difficult to create a distinct winning side, it is because it is difficult. Many of the contentions between the two sides clash one another. However, the portion of the argument that does not address funding of the plan clearly favor tuition free college. The risks of a devalued diploma and increased dropout rate are nowhere near the severity of the financial burdens of attending university.
Conservatives argue increased taxes hurt economic activity, this of course makes logical sense, if people have to pay more taxes, they have less disposable income and spend less, decreasing economic activity. Advocates of free-college tuition cite the fact that if students come out of college without paying tuition, they will have more disposable income and therefore be able to spend more. Both arguments negate one another and neither side has an advantage in the economic argument.
Whenever watching discussion about this plan the crux of the discussion is centered around the implementation of such a plan, that is the major gripe of the issue. Is free college really free? This question of course is hinting at the fact that other people will be paying. Bernie Sanders proposed to tax wall street. A 0.1 percent fee on bonds, 0.5 percent fee of stock trades and .005 percent fee on derivatives. This would theoretically generate enough money to pay for such a plan. Elizabeth Warren, a potential candidate for the 2020 election, is promoting a wealth tax where individuals net worth would be taxed, however this only applies to the top 0.05 percent of Americans. Imposing senator Warren’s tax would generate 200 billion dollars would this would be enough to pay for free college nearly three times over.
The issue of the plan is not whether such a future is feasible, it is possible. The argument boils down to whether or not it is moral to take the rich’s money to pay off a student’s tuition. The wealth tax proposed by Warren would tax a person with a net worth of 60 million 200,000 dollars, a person with a net worth of 2 billion would be taxed 49 million dollars. These people have earned their money, but they will still be able to maintain a lifestyle similar to what they had before.
To answer the moral question I turn to utilitarian philosophy developed and used by philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, which is the principle that the best decision is the one that provides the most “good” for greatest amount of people. Today there are 44 million Americans who are in student loan debt. The top .05% of Americans to be taxed by Warrens tax plan consist of one hundred and sixty thousand Americans. With the benefits being as far-reaching as they are and despite it being to some anti-capitalist free-college is in fact, the right thing to do.
