What value does a college education hold? An education is essential in this day and age, in order to live a fulfilling and successful life. A college degree is needed in order to obtain a job that pays well and allows the worker to live happily and comfortably. A degree is essential but how much should one cost? College is a source of both financial strain and debt. Because of this some people do not even attempt to go to college, they know they can not afford it. Everyone should be able to access the means to have a good life. There should not be a cost that deters some from reaching their full potential. The cost of a college education is the product of the higher education payment system that is currently in place. This system is flawed; it has led to increasingly inflated tuition prices and massive debt. If the current system is revised, a tuition free college system could be implemented in the United States and have a positive effect on the economy because it would require little to no extra money from tax payers, encourage financial and educational freedom, and produce a more educated workforce. 

Corruption of the higher education payment system has been building for a long time. The debate for a tuition free higher education system is a relatively new topic because there has not always been a need to revise the system in place, “30 years ago higher education was affordable and reasonable. Debts you accumulated you paid off by graduation date” (Samuel). Back then “higher education was free or almost free because it was thought of as a public good” (Samuel). Getting a college education was beneficial to society so it was made widely attainable to citizens. Even back in the early days of the United States “Jefferson proclaimed that “it is safer to have the whole people reasonably enlightened than a few in a high state of science and many in ignorance” (Samuels 121). Historically, the price of higher education has been manageable for a large majority of American families. So, what has happened in recent years to prompt a push for change, a push to make things how they used to be? The system has become flawed, “states started cutting funding for higher education” (Samuels 1) and the price of tuition grew in response. In fact, the cost of tuition has increased so much that it is now 1,122 percent higher than it was in 1978 (Ellison). This problem has not been solved, the cost continues to increase with each passing year.

Unfortunately, the state funding reduction is not the only flaw within the current system. On the student level, the debt that is built up by college loans has become profitable. Lenders make money on the interest of the loans they give. The longer the students go without paying their loans off the higher the profit by these lenders. Every student must pay for college somehow so “with so the money to be made are we surprised that some in the higher education business have begun engaging in false advertising” (Samuel)? Students are often deceived and led astray by noisy sales pitches when it comes to college loans. Clever advertising hides the true intentions of the lenders until it is too late. Another way that people are taken advantage of is embedded in the cost of tuition itself. It does not matter if a student is majoring in art, engineering, Spanish, or chemistry “all students pay roughly the same tuition no matter the major” (Samuel). They are all paying for the same facilities, labs, technology, and other resources while they are not using these resources proportionally. Take a Spanish major for example, they are going to use significantly less labs, technology and other resources than a chemical engineering major. With that being the case “why should two people pay the same amount for a product, college education, but one person uses half or one third of the services they pay for” (Samuel). Then students get taken advantage of again on the university level. People pay high tuitions to be taught by knowledgeable professors when most of the time that is not the case. Undergraduate classes are often taught be graduate students or untenured faculty while the tenured professors are in labs doing research. The cost of an undergraduate education is paying for the cost of undergraduate instruction plus graduate instruction plus research plus administration (Samuels 3). Along with that many universities today hold a large focus on research. The research done at universities is supposed to be funded by external sources but the total involved cost is not always covered by these outside sources (Samuels 4). In order to cover the extra costs associated with research, universities tack the expense onto tuition. Then this starts a chain reaction because once the tuition at research universities goes up it affects the tuition of non-research universities and causes them to increase as well. The whole system has been taken advantage of so much that it has brought about a need for change and a feasible solution to these problems is to implement a tuition free higher education system.

There are many foreseeable problems with the idea of tuition free college. One of the main questions posed by those who oppose the idea is, where would the money come from? If all the financial burden is shifted from the students to the federal government then the extra money would just add to the existing government spending and increase the national debt. Even if a tuition free college system was attempted “congress would be unlikely to fund another federal spending bill” (Zero Tuition). It is also argued that college is already free for those who can not afford it. Local and federal financial aid is given out each year, specifically targeted toward those who need the most help paying for college. Along with that is the notion that students have the educational freedom to choose their field of study without being pushed toward a specific field. Then there is the problem of overcrowding in colleges. If college is made free then more people would attend, schools would get overcrowded, more students would drop out, and the quality of education would decline. Finally, because of all the problems listed above, free college tuition would have a negative affect on the United States economy.

If done correctly, a free college system could be implemented in the United States. In the 2009-2010 academic year the United States federal government spent $35 billion on Pell grants and another $101 billion on student loans. In total the federal government spent $136 billion on higher education. That same year the total spending on the state level for higher education was $85 billion. All together the states and federal government spent $224 billion on higher education. This figure does not include the untold amounts of money the government loses each year due to tax deductions from college savings plans. Now looking at the student side of things for that same year, 6.4 million students were enrolled in public universities and 4.3 million students were enrolled in community colleges. The average cost for the public university was $14,870 per student and the community college costs on average $7,629 per student. This came up to a total cost for students of about $128 billion per year (Samuels 116). Through the current higher education payment system, money is being used inefficiently. The current system could be revised in a way that uses the money that is already within it to make college free for students.

Then instead of the money going through students in the form of financial aid it could go straight to colleges as a fixed tuition payment. This eliminates the need for financial aid and spreads the funds to every student instead of just a select few. It also gives the government control of the tuition cost at colleges. The increasing tuition cost could become fixed, allowing the federal government to only supply a fixed amount of money to the higher education system each year. With the old system “States had been cutting funding for higher education since 1980” (Samuels 1), but the revised plan would require states to supply a fixed amount of money each year to higher education as well. By doing this the cost of tuition for students is eliminated. Because no extra money is being spent the national debt will not be effected and Congress will not have to approve another spending bill. 

If college was made tuition free, then financial issued would no longer deter people from perusing a college education. Yes, financial aid is already available for students to help pay for college; but the current financial aid system gives too little to too few. “More than a quarter of those who must, can not make their student loan payments” (Samuel) while those who have the means to pay for their education also receive aid to decrease their expense. The process of financial aid distribution itself has changed drastically “in the last several years, research universities and other higher education institutions have moved increasingly from need-based aid to merit-based aid” (Samuels 9). Students who make good grades are given more assistance than those who can’t afford the high price tag of college. The financial assistance received by students is often not enough to cover the full cost of tuition, room, and board. Because of this, students are often forced go out and apply for loans to pay for their college education. After years of doing this, students build up a massive amount of debt by the time they graduate college. This cycle has gone on for so long that “debt from student loans has become the largest form of personal debt in America, larger than both credit card debt and auto loans” (Ellison). The debt that builds up is the other form of financial deterrent that keeps people from attending college. Some students do not receive a significant amount of financial aid because they get labeled as being able to afford college, but can they really afford college if they have to take out loans and build up debt to pay for it? Then during their college career, students are driven into high paying fields by their need to pay off the massive debt that they build up. Within the system currently in place “…students are free to choose in theory, but in practice their choices are constrained by the need to priorities future earnings and employment” (Martin 24). They are not free to study what they necessarily want to study because of the debt hanging over their heads. The current state and federal financial aid is not enough to make a college education affordable to the masses. Making college free would eliminate the financial issues that deter people from attaining a college education. Students and graduates would be financially and educationally free to make their own decisions without being influenced by the need to pay off debt.

Making college free to students would not cause overcrowding, just because it would be free doesn’t mean students could go anywhere they want. In fact, “Calling the college promise plans “free” has more to do with giving hope to students who might otherwise think college is out of their reach” (Morris 13). Eliminating the cost for students would encourage more people to attend college but not every student who wants to go to college will meet the requirements to go to any school of their choice. The focus on merit would still be the main factor for a student’s acceptance to colleges. Schools would not become overcrowded because they would still have attendance caps due to their limited available resources. Colleges would also still have academic requirements like minimum test scores and minimum grade point averages for students that want to attend. Since colleges would still be hard to get into, the free college system would not cause more dropouts because the students would still have to meet requirements to get into college. Schools would not accept students who are not ready excel within a college curriculum. The quality of education would not decline because overcrowding, which would be the source of the declining quality, would not occur.  

Free college tuition, if done correctly, could have positive effects on the United States

economy; “… higher education produces positive externalities, that is, beneficial side-effects for people other than the university graduates themselves” (Bou-Habib). Because college would be free, more people would have the opportunity to attain a higher education. More college graduates would be entering the work force making society as a whole, more educated. Then, having a degree would become a necessary for workers in a vast majority of jobs. It would become the new minimum for education requirements, rather than just a high school diploma. The increase in the number of college graduates within the work force would also increase the competition for jobs. This competition would drive all individuals to strive to be the best at everything they do; “From a supply-side perspective, the competition for training slots creates an incentive for job seekers to acquire more and more education in order to stay ahead of the labor queue” (Stasio 54). Competition brings about the best and most productive workers in a workforce. In turn, the United States will become more competitive in the world market and the world economy. American would be a stronger world power with smarter and higher educated citizens.

A free college tuition system can be established in the United States in the same way it was established in Finland. In only 40 years Finland was able to climb the world rankings, going from a small percentage of college graduates to one of the highest percentages of high school graduates in the world (Samuels 115). One of their main keys to success was to first “made all education public and free” (Samuels 116). That success could also be achieved in the United States if the payment burden is shifted away from the students and to the government. The money required for this shift is already within the current higher education payment system. Making college tuition free in the United States would allow students to have both the financial and the educational freedom that they deserve. Financial burdens would no longer deter people from attaining a college education. During their college careers, they would not have to take out loans to pay for school. They would not be building up any debt, thus students would not be driven by the need to pay back debt when deciding their field of study. After studying what they want in college graduates would be financially free to start their lives as working adults without the burden of debt. The free tuition system would also produce more college graduates for the United States work force than the current system. This would cause workers to compete more for the jobs that they want and to strive to be the best at what they do. A tuition free higher education system could, in fact, be implemented in the United States and have a positive affect on the economy.
