Currently in society, trying to move forward in the professional world without a college degree is seemingly impossible. Jobs and careers that were attainable with high school diplomas are now typically mostly filled with people who hold some sort of higher education and this has become the norm in society. Those who had jobs that were held in the past by people who did have degrees now seem to require Master's or a Doctorate. Everything has become more competitive and college education has basically become a necessity. Ever since this has become the case, the question of free college tuition has been tossed around. While free college seems like a great idea and the answer to America's current problems, it would not be. As a current college student, losing the cost of school would be a huge weight lifted off of my and my family's shoulders, but it would just add a huge stress to the already growing economic debt, take away students from private institutions since only public universities benefit from the proposed plan which would then overflow these public institutions, and most importantly devalue a college education since so many people would have access the standards and teachings would have to adjust to fit the mass amounts of people coming to the institutions. Also, ever since Bernie Sanders' launched his presidential candidacy using a free public college tuition platform, the realism of this system being implemented in American society has grown but Sanders' has left how he would actually make this work.  After further research on the topic and European countries who currently use a free university tuition along with living everyday as a paying college student, this topic has become of much interest to myself.

In Kevin James' article, "Bernie's Bad College Idea," the negative effects of free college tuition are pointed out. Such effects include: a huge economy struggle, private institution attendance decrease, and an overall lessened education value. The economy would face struggles since ultimately the government would be paying everyone's tuition, even for the families who can afford it. Not having scholarships and financial aid would also take away from students having their choice in the university they attend because only public schools would be free so this would kill private institutes and their attendance levels. Moreover, with the increased public university enrollment, the value of the education would be decreased by forcing lesser qualified professors to be brought in to account for the overflow of students. On top of these professors coming in, standards would be lowered to accommodate those students who typically would not be in college. This occurring in the public university systems would add an even bigger struggle to those trying to find jobs with a college degree. James aims to bring up every point that Bernie claims would be fixed with free tuition and counteracts with why it would not work. He speaks of his work with other researchers and writers on the same topic which adds other opinions. Although this article is biased since it is completely one-sided since he knocks down every one of Bernie's points, Kevin James is a research fellow who focuses on higher education cost and financing, so his background is very appropriate for this topic.

The Business Insiders article focuses on Denmark's already implemented free college program. For a long time Denmark has offered students free tuition and over time it has not proven worthwhile. The economy is seriously hurting from doing this and the results of the students are not making up for it. Many students are picking majors they would enjoy or something easy rather than majoring in something that have career opportunities available upon graduation. This article helps to prove that the free college tuition idea is no good because it shows how poorly it has helped Denmark. It also shows how it affects the students themselves in their motivations and workloads when they are no longer responsible for securing their own funding. Although this article came from the Business Insider, it is originally from a global news agency, AFP. Since this article focuses on another country it is appropriate that it comes from a global source to take away bias and since it is an informative article it helps to present the cold hard facts.

Similar to James' article, Christopher Lane presents the negative effects of free tuition and shoots down Sanders' in his article, "College doesn't need to be free." Lane proves and explains Sanders' plan has more negative side effects than it would do well for America. It starts with putting the economy in a bad state. Also, he explains how students would flood the system making an education less valuable and lower quality because more under qualified professors would need to be hired to account for all the students. Lastly, he goes on to explain how it would lead to students trying less because they have no worry of wasting their parents money nor would their parent be all over them about doing well because it is not their money. This source helps to reaffirm the original claims from the primary source while adding some more insight and different effects to free tuition. Lane is a published editorial writer who focuses in economic policy, much of which this plan would effect.

Overall, this research question presents a strong argument because there are very strong opinions coming from both sides of the table, especially currently in America in the heat of the presidential debate. For the most part all three of the sources work together to prove how free college tuition is not the right move for this country. The article that focuses on Denmark really drives the main point home since it is an informative article that blatantly shows the statistics of what free tuition has done to the country. So far the sources agree with my perspective of the topic, but I do want to find some opposition articles to include that I can later shoot down with the other sources to reinforce the negative effect and how they would be worse than what America is currently enduring with people paying for school. I think if I added a little more specificity to the topic, like focused on the economy or the psychological aspect it would have on kids and how hard they tried it could make the paper more specific, but from my current research and sources it seems to be too hard to find enough sources to do that. For right now I want to focus on the points these three articles have given me and go from there with the rest of my research because I think there is a lot I can talk about from these sources and they strongly correlate with my beliefs.
