Free college for everyone
Of the nearly 5,000 American adults surveyed, 62 percent think that tuition should be free for all students who attend public colleges and universities—and among Millennials, that number goes up to 77 percent. In addition, about a fourth of the respondents who don’t think college should be free for everyone do think that college should be free for families with incomes that are less than $50,000.The survey finds that free college has bipartisan support. More than 80 percent of Democrats are in favor of free college for everyone, while approximately 33 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Independents feel the same way.
Where does the money come from for this free college education Americans want or is it they have made a choice not to address that issue.
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Free post-secondary is foolish, and although it seems good in idea, the application of it would be far too difficult and costly to implement. I think governments should make acquiring government student loans or a line of credit much easier than it currently is and stop this talk of free education. Student debt is only a burden if you take unnecessary amounts, overspend or don't graduate on time. Chances are, if you graduate in the proper amount of time, live frugally after school is done and get the debt out of the way right away it shouldn't be an issue. Debt isn't the issue, it's people's inability to handle debt which results in their financial demise after college. I don't completely agree that debt-management is the solution for everyone. Life gets in the way many times. An unexpected pregnancy, medical conditions, an accident, a company you work for going under etc. Free education may not be realistic, but reduced costs for post-secondary education is needed. Also, more people should be guided into skill-based jobs through technical schools. Lastly, I believe similar things are needed in high school. Seniors should be learning real-world skills and getting credit for doing so. Plumbing, auto mechanics and welding may not be glamorous professions, but they are needed and can provide a good living. We need to evaluate the high school curriculum and add more real-world applications. Not everyone needs advanced calculus and ancient civilization classes. It's more so financial planning and thinking about the future that most forget about. I can agree with you that life has it's many unexpected bumps and they are at times unjust and unwanted, but people have to plan ahead and assume that these bumps will occur. I believe also agree that high school should offer some more realistically applicable courses to student apart from the usual. I think most high school graduates can agree that they felt thrown into the real world upon completion of high school and that there seems to be a lack of a transitional phase from childhood onto adulthood. I guess I could reiterate and say that knowledge of debt management, prior to debt being accrued would help greatly to those who're seemingly buried in student debt, which could be one of the "real world" skills that could and should be offered prior to adulthood. Most don't realize how in debt they are until they've realized that they're in debt. 1
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"If you think education is expensive, wait til it's free." That is a variation of of P. J. O'rouke's quote about healthcare. Ronald Reagan famously said the most feared words in the English language are: "We're from the government and we're here to help." I say, run, don't walk away. I had to find a way to pay and indeed I don't think it should be free. Not only is free expensive to all of society but it often leads to abuse of the option. However, some version of higher education somewhere should be attainable to those who work hard and have the smarts. It cripples the Middle Class to have its educated almost enslaved to their student loans when they get out of school for the next 20-30 years of their lives, and it cripples all of society if most people simply can't get any education at all. The current trend of climbing tuitions and climbing debts is unsustainable. 1
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1. Free college =/= free tuition. Free college for everyone is really free public tuition for everyone. So no private schools. Only state colleges and community colleges. Furthermore it does not cover food, housing, books, ect. JUST tuition. Just the cost of the credit hours for courses being taken. When you boil it down to this it becomes a much more manageable figure. Where does the money come from? The federal budget if we make some significant tax cuts, and/or imposing new taxes. Cut corporate wellfare such as the subsidies that go to Exon Mobil for "reasearch and development" which come to billions of dollars anually, cut military spending which is mostly wasteful nonsense. Take for example the war in Afghanistan. The bill for that is coming to 68 billion dollars and the Taliban have net INCREASED in membership and activity and territory. It was an utter failure in all meaning of the word. 68 billion flushed down the toilet over nothing. Cut a good 100 billion off of that budget and we still have the most equipped army in the world. Then as far as taxes go first we should rewrite our tax laws so we can prevent corporations from avoiding paying their taxes by stashing them in offshore accounts. Its estimated that around 2 trillion dollars lies overseas in untaxed accounts. You simply collect just 20% of that and boom free tuition easy. you collect 40% of that and we have free tuition AND possibly single payer healthcare or we fix our whole infrastructure from top to bottom. As for taxes to be imposed you could impose a tax on wall street speculation which only affects the top 1% and would generate an estimated 300 billion dollars anually. Any one of these or a combination of these things could easily allow for paying for tuition. Further more any investment we make will be returned to us twofold when our entire workforce is actually educated. Youd also see a drop in a lot of social ills. Because as level of education rises things like teen pregnancies, crime, and homelessness drop. |
