| February 5, 2020 | Dang Le | managing editor |
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Ideally, free college for all sounds like the perfect idea as more people will receive opportunities to have a better future. In reality, the proposal may harm even more than imagined.
There’s a reason why everything costs something, the purpose is to drive you to fight and get your money’s worth. College education should not be an exception. If anything, it ought to be a prime example.
I have seen people, myself included, fighting for scholarships. Students try hard and study nights and days to get that amount of money, no matter the sum offered.
If college tuition is free, there’s no guarantee that students will study as hard anymore.
A degree does not just mean you finish school. It’s proof of money, time and dedication to achieve what you’ve aspired to become. If college becomes free, everybody will have a degree, which may devalue its prestigiousness.
With college being free, it’s obvious that less money will go into education. While tax money can cover the gap, this is the colleges’ opportunity to name this as a reason to cut professors’ salaries, which may lower the quality of college, as good professors can find other career options with better pay.
There’s no reason for a person to pay $60,000 to graduate from a private university. At the same time, there’s no reason why education can be completely free at the moment. Not when the country is still trillions of dollars in debt.
Instead, college tuition should be based on students’ income. Public colleges should charge the same all over the states, and nobody should pay more than $20,000 for their private college education. In-state and out-of-state fees should be different, but no more than $5,000.
Even though a college education is not the only way to achieve success, a degree is basically a requirement for those who want to have a good future, which is something the U.S. government should put into consideration. However, while free college for all is a concept that should be accomplished in the future, it is simply not realistic at the moment.
