In the United States, known as the land of opportunity, becoming a success, gaining wealth, and having an elevated standard of life can come through many pathways. There is not a single road towards personal success. Despite numerous paths, the most traveled is one of a college degree. This is no coincidence, because employers everywhere look to recruit people who have these degrees. However, what if someone who has the right intentions, great potential, and inexhaustible motivation cannot attend because of monetary reasons? This is why the United States should fabricate a tuition-free nation.
It is widely known that certain European countries lawfully cast out tuition fees within their universities. These countries include Germany,
…show more content…
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 68.4 % of 2014 high school graduates will be enrolled in colleges and universities, and an even higher percent of 72.7% will enroll as graduates. Though this is an excellent statistic, who will be paying for all this education? The students, of course! U.S. News & World Report, a multi-platform news publisher with an authenticated annual ranking of colleges says that the average student loan debt by the end of their senior year is quickly approaching $30,000 and in some states beyond that amount. At the University of California, students are paying around $37,000 for tuition only. The average of the ten most expensive schools amounts to $50,632. All these are rates, of course, do not include the further necessary thousands for books, room, board, and several costs of living.
In point of fact, until fairly recent times, the United States had a virtually free system of public higher education. Of course, public kindergarten schools all the way up till high schools are free and based off of the taxpayer 's income. In 1862, the U.S. Congress passed the Morrill Act in order to administer an equal educational opportunity for students. “Named for its sponsor. . . Justin Smith Morrill, it granted each state 30,000 acres for each of its congressional seats. Funds
from the sale of the land were used by some states to establish new schools”
In the 1950’ and 1960’s, graduating high school students were able to earn a decent-paying job with benefits almost immediately. However, as time went on, the educational requirements to earn a stable job rose. Along with educational requirements rising, so did the cost of getting that education. Rising costs for education have made it almost impossible for many students to earn an education they want and need. The most promising solution to this problem seems to be making college free for everyone.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loans have quadrupled since 2004, to $1.2 trillion (Brown). This insurmountable debt is an astronomical problem for Americans today and more so, for future Americans. College tuition has been rising for the past 40 years and will continue to do so exponentially. In an asset management report done by J.P.Morgan in 2014, the firm projects the cost of private universities to be at roughly $90,000, and $40,000 for public four-year universities in the year of 2030 (Badkar). If the government remains dormant toward this issue, college students 20 years from now, will be burdened with an even larger amount of debt.
In the United States of America, the public school grades of kindergarten through senior year of high school are free to all students no matter how many times they repeat that education. This is 12 years of basically mandatory education in background areas that will probably be of no use to you on your choice of career path, but merely sets up a base for further learning. So why does this not also apply to college or at the very least community college, where you study your intended path and what you are interested in? There are many theories as to why college should or should not be free for all Americans seeking to better themselves and their educational path. College should be free for those who wish to seek a higher education beyond high
Nationwide the student debt is around $1.3 trillion (Chris Denhart) and in California the average student debt is roughly $21,382 (ticas.org). Recently UC regents approved an increase in tuition by 2.5 percent. The rising of tuition was to ensure that public universities could offer their students the same top-quality education even with the high enrollment demands and the reduction of state support. The students that will be most affected by this increase are students that don't receive much financial aid. But for two-thirds of the roughly 175,500 California student residents this increase will be covered (Teresa Watanabe). Some students are for this increase in tuition because they claim that classrooms have
The United States needs to look to other nations that have figured out the necessity of higher education to be at an affordable cost if not free. In 2015, college graduates are facing on average just north of $35,000 in student debt (Berman). In part, the government has reduced the federal funding that each college receives each year. Therefore, colleges have constantly raised the
Student debt is one of the top causes of crippling debt. If you want to get a college education in today's world, you will need to either be very wealthy or suffer the consequences of student loans. College costs had risen five hundred percent since 1985, imagine how much more that has risen until 2016. A tuition at a private college was projected to cost $130,000 on average for over four years. As state cutbacks in the wake of the financial crisis, caused the cost the price of public higher education to raise by 15 percent in a two year
Germany is one of the well-known countries for offering free public college to both its residents and international students. It has a significant percentage of tax wedge, 49.4.
Throughout the year’s higher education has become more popular and the number of students grows each year. Unfortunately, the amount of money it costs to finance your education grows as well, and along with that comes student debt. Student debt has reached an all-time high in the United States of America, and according to CNN, the amount of debt has reached 1.2 trillion dollars. The Institute College Access has said that at least 70 percent of all students are in some type of debt directly corresponding to their college education. Not only is the demand for educational degrees growing in the work fields, but the amount of debt a single person has coming out of college. There is not one state where the average amount of debt is under $22,000.00 and the national current average of debt is $28,950.00 says the Institute for College Access. In a recent study from the Institute for College Access the amount of debt in a 10-year time period, 2004-2014 rose from 65% to 69%, while average debt at graduation rose at more than twice the rate of inflammation.
In less than a decade the loan debt has increased tremendously by 56% and there will be a greater increase as the years go by. According to The Institute for College Access & Success they found out that at least 70% of students graduate with a loan debt of at least $28,000. The average median income household earns $56,000 in a yearly salary, however, a low income family of four only makes $24,000 a year. According to the college board it cost $17,000 a year which covers tuition, fees, room. For many students that is almost impossible to pay because they have other expenses to pay besides school.
At this point in America, there is an increasingly intense debate about if education should be a right or a privilege. This decision can be discussed between Americans but for significant impact, the federal and state governments must act. Since Americans value the chance at an education so much, the cost for that said education should not be so expensive that it outweighs the rewards. Students in college now are accruing tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Some may not even earn their degrees. But because opportunity is important, the government in the United States must make it easier and more affordable for young adults to pursue their passions through a higher, college-style education system. The United States government should
Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, France; what do all these countries have in common? They all have free public colleges. You know why? Because they realize that students that go to college become an educated workforce that will boost their economies, lower their crime rates, and decrease their amounts of poverty.
Free college is a commonly accepted idea, as a crucial part of society's advancement. Education is the foundation for building a strong country, as knowledge is what allows for productivity in all areas of life. However, the cost and accessibility to standard higher education limits many people's availability to a quality schooling. Some may argue that public colleges should continue to charge tuition, as the federal government can not afford the cost nor will creating higher taxes to enable the program solve the crisis. However, ultimately, higher education should be free as it would stimulate economic growth, remove the primary deterrent for not attending college and decrease dependence on government aid.
According to the article “Should higher education really be free for all?” , Ben Ullman states that “free education isn’t free!” Graduates are obviously good for the economy and society and there is some mileage in suggesting that Universities and individual degrees should be government subsidized. But the money has to come from somewhere and do we really think it’s fair to ask the majority of general taxpayers who didn’t directly benefit from Higher Education to completely pay for those who did. To a large extent I would agree in the sense that the question of where would the money come from is a huge issue. If it was just taxes budgeted by the government, then we really run the risk of over spending the budget, which in turn would mean reducing the salaries of teachers, reducing the quality of education like the value of a degree.
In 1987 the cost of private school or universities the tuition average was around 13,000 thousand dollars and public college tuition estimated at 3000 dollars. In comparison the tuition in 1987 and 2008 tuition has increased over 439 percent. On the flipside families income has only increased 147 percent since 1987, only the very wealthy will able to attend college without the fear of being neck deep into debt. As in 2012 the average cost of higher education for students who enrolled into private colleges has risen to 120,000 dollars. If the pattern continues and most likely it will, in 2028 students are predicted to pay tuition as high as 340,000 dollars if they do attend private schools. The increasing tuition amount is having students pleading to banks to for loans. With all the students loans the national student debt has reached over 1 trillion dollars in total. The national student debt
The higher education system of the U.S. is a decentralized and highly competitive industry with thousands of diverse institutions in terms of ownership, location, highest degree offered, institutional type, etc. This makes it unique and very different from other countries ' centralized systems. (Clark, 2004, as cited in Crowley & Knoester, 2012) Higher education has never been free in the U.S. but has always been subsidized by the