During the 2016 election, early frontrunners, such as Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, made their political views and beliefs very clear.  Controversial topics of discussion included national security, women’s rights, immigration, minimum wage, and education.  Of those topics, education found itself to be at the center of attention for many college students and their parents.  Why?  Is it because the future of the nation depends on how the country’s youth is educated?  Is it because America’s education system is rapidly falling behind those of other countries?  While both reasons are certainly plausible, one of the most prominent reasons for the high publicity surrounding education controversies is, of course, money.  Just like any other financial obligation, college tuition will always be right around the corner for those enrolled in a postsecondary institution.  For a select few, scholarships will be enough to lift a fraction, if not more, of the hefty shoulder weight that the cost of college tuition brings.  Others who may not find themselves as fortunate must pay thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars to put themselves or their dependents through school. To combat this, all universities, both public and private, should lower tuition rates.  Lowering college tuition benefits American citizens by lowering the financial obligation for students and providing more citizens with the opportunity to access higher education.  

Often, when a person is asked if he or she believes that a college degree is important, the answer will be yes.  While there are many well-paying jobs that can be attained without a degree, some of the most lucrative jobs are those which require a bachelor’s degree as a bare minimum.  Although skilled trades jobs require post-secondary schooling as well, the pay scale that they deal with is much less than that of a job which requires a bachelor’s degree.  However, earning a degree is not as easy as it sounds.  For some, the financial aspect of post-secondary schooling is the sole reason holding them back from earning a degree.  At the rate that today’s colleges and universities are raising their tuition costs, it unfortunately seems that only more and more people will find it hard to afford college.  If colleges and universities take a step back and look at the benefits of lowering college tuition, they would find that lower college tuition allows for a wider range of access to higher education and more opportunities for students nationwide. 

When Harvard University, the first postsecondary institution in the United States, opened in 1636, its tuition erred around the lower end of $300 (Hathaway).  Fast forward to present day, where Harvard’s tuition is $38,000 and $300 will buy a textbook, if that.  While inflation is a factor to consider, it should be noted that according to the CPI Inflation Calculator, in 1936, 300 years after the university was founded, $300 had about the same buying power as about $5,200 does in 2017.  The average cost of tuition for an in-state student to attend a public university is $9,650, which is already over $4,000 more than it would have costed if the tuition rate was the same as when Harvard was founded.  When the cost for an out-of-state student is factored in, the cost dramatically rises to an average of $24,930 (Hathaway).  College tuition is drastically higher than it used to be.  Americans across the nation struggle to pay their costly tuition bills and with the continuous raising of tuition, only more will begin to struggle.  

Many people who favor lowering college tuition are pushing for free college altogether.  While this would be a monumental stride towards providing the maximum number of American citizens with access to post-secondary education, it is simply not feasible to attain at a national level.  Making college free altogether would mean either furthering the Federal Government’s debt, or requiring some taxpayers to pay obscene amounts in taxes to cover the costs of tuition for schools around the nation.  Seeing that millions of students graduate from public high schools and still need to take remedial classes at the community college level, “There’s no good reason to believe that academic quality – much less college affordability – will improve by expanding the federal government’s reach into higher education or taxpayers’ wallets,” meaning that free college does not directly correlate with higher academic quality (Alger).  Additionally, researcher Kevin James of the American Enterprise Institute states that for the government to fund tuition at all public universities, it would cost a minimum of $70 billion per year, which is “more than twice what the Federal Government spends on Pell grants,” which are subsidies of the federal government that provide students in need with money to pay for college (James).  James also states that if the government could make college free, it would “significantly reduce pressure on public institutions to serve students effectively” in addition to allowing more government control over the institutions that it funds (James).  This indicates that if tuition was paid for by the government, it is likely that the quality of professors and educational resources would decrease because of the lack of funding to pay for top-tier educators.  

Currently, most public universities receive much of their funding from the government of the state in which they are located.  However, when these appropriations from the state begin to decrease, universities are forced to raise not only tuition costs, but fees as well.  When this becomes the case, tuition increases are often presented as percentage increases rather than numerical increases.  This can lead to a misinterpretation of the actual amount that the tuition is being raised.  For example, if two universities both raised their tuition by 4% but one of the universities had a higher tuition rate by $10,000, the university with the higher tuition rate would see a higher numerical increase, but it would present the same percentage increase as the other university. Researcher Thomas J. Kane of The Urban Institute states in an article that “In 16 states, tuition for the 2002-2003 academic year increased by more than 10 percent at some or all state colleges and universities, relative to the 2001-2002 academic year,” but he does not explain that the tuition rate varies from school to school (Kane).  Instead, his audience is led to believe that a 10% increase at one school could mean the same increase at another school with a vastly different tuition rate.  Because of the common misconception that tuition at all universities is constantly being astronomically raised, “The interlocking relationship between public institutions, tuition and fee policies, and state appropriations is an area that seems to be pervasively misunderstood by taxpayers and policymakers,” which often sparks the public’s desire to ultimately eliminate the cost of tuition altogether (Alexander). Although this may seem like the best solution to turn to, the complications that would arise from eliminating college tuition would greatly outweigh the successes of it.

When funding for higher education is taken into consideration during the development of state budgets, tuition and fees do not increase as much as they would if funds for higher education were not budgeted.  For example, in the years prior to 2011, “State legislators and the Governor [of California] made a conscience decision to increase funding for higher education by approximately 6.5% to alleviate the need for a student fee increase while still allowing CSU to expand by 25,000 additional students.  The result was that student tuition and fees did not increase during that year,” which proves a direct correlation between state appropriations and tuition rates (Alexander).  Additionally, Thomas J. Kane reports that “one result of declining state support has been the widely-publicized rise in tuition at public institutions,” a factor that fuels much of the public’s desire to eliminate tuition costs altogether (Kane).  Rather than pushing to eliminate the cost of tuition, it would be much more feasible for supporters of free college to instead push for states to include funding for higher education institutions in their annual budgets to allow tuition rates to decrease slightly.  

Across the nation, students drop out of school for a variety of reasons.  Whether it be because they do not believe that they can take on the financial burden of college, or because they are forced to drop out due to their academic performances, drop-outs everywhere find themselves stepping off the track of earning a degree.  If college were to be free, it is true that more people would be able to go because there would be no financial burden.  However, would the surplus of college students compensate for the number of students who would still be forced to drop out because of their inability to perform to the necessary academic standards?  Another factor to consider when looking at the reality of free college is the work ethic of students nationwide.  If college became free, would the work ethic on campuses remain the same? Or would it decrease because students would no longer feel the pressure to work for what they are paying for?  Students would be able to earn a degree at little to no cost, but at what point do they begin to lose sight of the importance of the privilege of education?  If students were to no longer hold a financial stake in their college education, it is likely that they would not be cognizant of how privileged they are to be in the seats that they sit in every day.  

Because of the potential for students’ failure to place the necessary value in their education, graduation rates could see drastic drops.  The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, which focused on drop-outs from middle school to college, “Reported a wide variety of reasons for those who dropped out […] The most specific reasons were “did not like school” (46 percent), “failing school” (39 percent), “could not get along with teachers” (29 percent), and “got a job” (27 percent),” which shows that a large percent of drop-outs are caused by the status of the student’s academic success – or lack thereof.  When the graduation rate decreases, the workforce is presented with a lower number of qualified candidates, which could eventually take a toll on the economy in the long run.  When students no longer have a reason to work hard for their education, their overall work ethic is likely to drop, which sets off a chain reaction of events that eventually affects a wider spectrum of people than just the student and his or her inner circle. 

Aside from the fact that paying for college is a large responsibility, what many people do not realize is that it is just as much of a responsibility as paying any other bills or working any other job.  In fact, it is often stated that as a college student, education is a full-time job.  As a college student myself, I could not agree more.  College not only prepares students for the field in which they choose to pursue, it also teaches them responsibility, life skills, and important lessons for the future.  The financial responsibility of paying for one’s education teaches both students and their families that nothing can be taken for granted and that in life, hard work is the key to success.  Whether this means taking on a job, or multiple jobs, earning scholarships, taking out student loans, or reevaluating an entire budget to be able to make tuition payments, it is important for students everywhere to learn how to prioritize financial needs.  It is also important for students to learn how to pay for these needs.  If students are not exposed to this type of responsibility, they could find themselves entering the workforce with little to no knowledge of how to budget, save, or pay for the things that they need.  Students who choose to take out loans quickly learn that paying off them off as fast as possible is the best solution to their student debt.  In turn, the information that they retain about how to deal with loans and the feasibility of paying off loans, including car loans, mortgages, and other various types, would help them as they venture out into the workforce.  Having students understand the responsibility of paying for their college education not only teaches them how to make financially smart decisions, it also sets them up on a track to live self-sufficiently and financially stable. 

Those who believe that college should be free are not looking realistically at how it could impact society.  While they may believe that they have society’s best interest in mind, their intentions would do more harm than good.  Although there are a multitude of benefits to eliminating college tuition, they do not come without a cost.  Supporters of free college tuition claim that making college free would not force colleges to make cuts in areas such as academics and infrastructure, but the truth of the matter is that cuts would be made, and unfortunately, top professors could find themselves facing the primary waves of these cuts.  In June 2016, budget cuts at the University of Massachusetts Boston forced to the university notify 400 adjunct faculty members that their contracts may not be renewed in the fall.  Because of university policy, “UMass must notify [adjunct faculty] by the end of the prior semester if they will not be reappointed,” which put the university in a tough position, considering that “many adjuncts [had] already been scheduled for classes in the fall” (Krantz).  However, this was not the only area where cuts were made.  Student resources at UMass became limited due to budget cuts.  Twenty-six of the university’s database subscriptions were cancelled due to the library’s massive budget cut of over 20%, which left the with library itself $700,000 less than it had in years past (Krantz).  Because of this cut, the library’s spending was frozen, resulting in the inability to purchase printers and other essential media for students.  If tuition were to become free, countless schools across the nation would find themselves facing the same type of budget cuts as UMass.  Students would be presented with less resources, faculty would be cut, and the future of each school would be largely questioned.  

There is no denying that free tuition would make the idea of attending college astronomically more feasible for citizens nationwide.  More people would gain access to higher education and citizens everywhere would be presented with the opportunity to earn a degree of their choice at little to no cost.  However, on a broader spectrum, making college free is not only not feasible on a national level, it is also not in the nation’s best interest.  Making tuition free would not teach students the value of hard work because they would no longer be cognizant of what they are working for.  Because of this, schools everywhere would be sending out young adults with questionable self-sufficiency and unrealistic mindsets about the accessibility of money.  Additionally, there is also the possibility that students would no longer work as hard because they would not have to worry about losing scholarships, which could ultimately result in a higher drop-out rate because of their inability to reach academic standards.  In turn, this would present the workforce with a lesser number of qualified candidates.  Alternatively, it could also present the workforce with more candidates who are underqualified.  Either way, the economy would take a toll because of the decreased number of eligible candidates that the workforce would receive.  Furthermore, schools would face massive budget cuts that could prove to be detrimental to students’ academic success as well as the jobs of many faculty members.  

Free tuition is undoubtedly one of the most idealistic proposals in society, but unfortunately, the benefits of making it a reality do not outweigh the chain reaction of detrimental events to both society and our economy.  However, lowering tuition is a viable solution that would allow for more students to afford postsecondary education while also protecting schools’ budgets.  Rather than protestors asking for free tuition, legislators should be asked to remember how they got to the positions of power that they are in today.  They owe their successes to the fact that they could earn a college degree, and without taking away from the opportunities that a university can offer to students, legislators should push for state budgets to allot more money towards public education.  Everyone deserves a fair chance, but not at the cost of all the opportunities that make a university so great.  

 