In many places around the world, it is very common for there to be teenagers who are excellent students in high school, and they are dreaming to complete their study. However, they could not achieve their goals since they could not afford enough money to pay for university, or they need to work to support their family. This is really sad, because it is continuously happening, and the impact of this not only affects people themselves but also their countries. For instance, imagine there is a country that has natural resources, but the people there do not know how to use the resources available. This country cannot have any progress, and the resources would be wasted unless people gain knowledge of how to use them, which can be gained by studying. Truly, countries can develop only by the knowledge of its citizens. Citizens need to get enough knowledge to improve their society and that can be improved when the education is free so they can educate themselves. In fact, many countries offer free higher education for their citizens such as Canada, Germany, France, and other countries. In the United States the government offers free education until high school. After that the majority of universities are not free. Even though there are some free universities, students usually take loans to study at universities. As a result, many students from low income families stop learning after high school and start working to support their families. The percent of enrollment of low income students has decreased since 2013 from 55.9 percent to 45.5 percent (Jaschik).

Last year in the United States many people have discussed how President Obama's new proposal to make the first two years of college free for everyone. There has been much debate about how this proposal will affect the United States. Americans have extremely different opinions about this proposal. While many people think offering free tuition will have negative effects on society, others believe it will have many advantages. Free tuition should be provided for citizens of all countries around the world because it will offer great opportunities for them to improve their country and it has great impacts on individuals which could help students.  

Although there are many reasons for offering free tuition, there are many social benefits from it as well. In an individual situation, getting higher education can help people find decent jobs to support their families and themselves. David Leonhardt, wrote in his article, "Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say", points out many facts and statistics that prove that a degree is worth much more than its cost. The new data analyzing the Labor Department statistics, which is made by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, shows that "Americans with four-year college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 then people without a degree" (Leonhardt). This study confirms that higher education is an important element to finding a job is essential for their personal needs. In fact, people will feel secure since this job can provide them with enough money for living. Moreover, higher education will help international competition. Michael Gonchar, wrote in his article, "Should a College Education be Free?" points out President Obama's proposal which will widen opportunities to learn for everyone. He reports that President Obama said "It's something that we can accomplish, and it's something that will train our work force so that we can compete with anybody in the world" (Gonchar). This proves that even leaders of countries where students are used to paying for tuition are trying to offer free higher education since it is important to keep up with the global markets. Therefore, higher education degrees is an international passport. When anyone has an important degree, he can work anywhere. This is a great opportunity to see and learn about different cultures and to be an ambassador for your country. Thus free higher education will help people find respectable jobs inside or outside the country.

Offering free higher education has a social impact not only for individuals but also for the entire community. Usually each community is composed of different classes based on their income and standard of living. Universities with free tuition will give everyone an opportunity to study since applying will not be based on financial ability but only on academic excellence. With this approach, everyone will have equal rights to complete studying through hard work. Therefore, students from low income families will get the opportunity to succeed and achieve their goals, which they cannot achieve without money unless the education is free. As Nikki Edgecombe says in her article "Aid Low-Income Students and Colleges That Serve Them," that the government should support the financially disadvantaged by applying free funding for school. In addition, at universities, students will be able to interact and make relationships with different races and social backgrounds. This will help them to accept and appreciate others. Furthermore, getting a good higher education will help people find respectable jobs to meet their needs. As a result, crime would reduce in the community. According to Bob Samueles in the article "Why All Public Higher Education Should Be Free," he says that communities that have higher rate of degree achievement have a high comfortable life and lower rate of crimes. Thus, it can be claimed that having free tuition will have both personal and public social benefits.

Also free higher education can help college students to focus on their studies rather than focusing on getting a job to pay their tuition or loans, which most students are doing now. "It helps students focus on learning rather than working so that they complete degrees faster and having acquired more skills" (Goldrick-Rab). In addition, many college students are not doing their best in their classes due to having to find jobs to pay their tuition. They work so hard to find jobs but if it were free they could fully focus and get a high GPA to insure their career paths and graduate. The amount of American students who graduate are only 30 percent because they are working while studying (Samuels). However, according to Michelle Simmons, in her article, "The Benefits of Free Higher Education," US students are spending 10 years for paying their debts, and "70% of college seniors graduated with debt in 2012" (Bryant). That leads them to spend most of their lives paying their loans off. As a result, they are not going to the college because they have a lot of loans and they can not afford it (Sanders). Therefore, when students graduate and find their career path, their salary will not completely cover their loans. But when it is free they just need to concentrate on their studies and do their best to achieve their goals without concentrating on other things that distract them. 

When education is free in the US, people might disagree with it, because they think about foreign students, who represent a large proportion in the US, and how colleges accommodate them. But the rank of international students who come to the US from worldwide countries is 974,926 students most of them are from China and Saudi Arabia and many of them are undergraduates (Haynie). In addition, whether education is free or not free in the US the percentage of internationals will increase. But when the education is free it will also benefit the internationals because they are paying more than Americans. "International undergraduates pay $35,231 annually in tuition and fees, compared with $10,971 for Colorado residents and $33,333 for out-of-state U.S. students" (Jordan). As a result, international students take out loans as most Americans do. It is right that the US is taking advantage of those internationals but even though free tuition will help international students, but the US could help them by decreasing the high tuition payment, because they are students same as Americans students. However, colleges could accommodate international students in the same way it does nowadays, but colleges can take tuition if they need to but they need to decrease the cost. So for the housing and teachers, it is not a big deal because the US already has a huge number of internationals and they have enough teachers. Another reason people disagree is because a huge amount of international students speaks a different language. There are many English programs that teaches internationals English but they need to pay for it. So the case here is not these programs exist but that after students are admitted the college tuition is too high. Therefore, for each university in the US, they have language requirements such as IELTS stands for The international English language testing system, or TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language, tests, these tests are English tests for internationals and they are in four parts, listening, reading, writing and speaking. So they need to get a high score if they want to be admitted to a good college. According to the University of South Carolina web site, for example, USC is requiring undergraduate students to get a 6.6 on IELTS to admit them. So language is not a big issue as long as they get a score that is required from the university in one of these tests. 

Opponents of free tuition argue that offering free higher education will cost a lot and no one can do this, but they are looking only in short term affects. On the other hand, when free higher education is provided, there will be millions of students who will get benefit from this opportunity which will be worth much more than the cost. Carey Kevin, writing in his article, "For Colleges, 'Free' Is About More Than Money", illustrates Cooper Union as an example of a free university since 1859 but since a new building was stablished for $175 million loan, the university tuition was changed from being free to $20,000 per year (Kevin). This university was found by Peter Cooper who had the vision of free higher education and was willing to achieve his dream and help his society. Peter Cooper is a real example of how a normal person can help his society. Therefore, having free higher education is something that is possible to achieve especially when government, leaders, local people, and companies are working together.

Many people disagree about offering free higher education, because they claim that students would be careless, and the quality of education in schools would be poor. However, this is not true. Usually when offering free higher education, there are many requirements that student should get before he or she gets accepted in the program. For example, in President Obama's proposal students should have at least 2.5 in average (Gonchar). This will ensure that students will study hard. Also they can put rules for student results to motivate them, which would be easy. Moreover, there is no proof that free universities have bad quality. In fact, higher education is free in Canada for example but the quality of these universities are high. Thus, there is no relationship between free tuition and careless students or poor-quality universities.

According to Charles Lane in his article, "College Doesn't Need to Be Free," he says that free education would decrease the economy and it does not have benefits, but Germany is a good example for countries that have free tuition because their economy did not effect because they have high taxes (Attn). From a broader perspective the economy itself will benefit from offering free higher education. Jerry Parker, president of Delaware County Community College, writes about how Delaware County Community College is providing the United States economy with skilled employees. He says that "U.S. economy has improved and customer demand has increased" also U.S. manufacturing rose but they did not find enough skilled employees to fit (Parker). Therefore, one way to maintain the economy's progress is through preparing people with skills and knowledge, so they will be able to fill these needs and they will help the economy to continue its progress. Also the government could reduce the unemployment rate of 2 million people by making colleges free for everyone (Samuels). Thus, free education is important because it will help the economy move forward.

Also another opponent of free higher education is Andrew Kelly who says that free college tuition will strain people's budgets even more, resulting in a decrease rather than increase attendance. But students are not going to college because they can not afford paying tuition, which has the result that the attendance rate will increase when universities are free. Furthermore, people are leaving their countries because they cannot afford the high tuition. Many countries, especially European countries, offer free tuition for colleges and this is the reason behind many Americans leaving the country to go to German colleges (Sanders). As a result, free tuition will help educate people.

In conclusion, education is an important element in the development of countries all around the world. Since countries progress through the knowledge of their people, government, leaders, and companies, global communities must work together to offer free higher education for citizens. By doing this, they can help to make progress for their countries. Even though some people believe free tuition will cost a lot, and affect the quality for both students and universities, the cost is worth it in the long term, and there is no concrete evidence to prove that the quality of both the students and universities will suffer. In contrast, there are many advantages for offering free tuition which include both social and economic benefits.

