I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. College is extremely expensive. And everybody wants to go. A lot of people either struggle quite a bit to pay for it or just flat-out can’t afford to go at all. So I would personally say that our government should be investing some time into trying to significantly lower tuition costs in the United States. But some people out there will take it a step further by saying that college should actually be free. So is this a good idea or not? Let’s take a look.
Why Should it be Free?
And this is definitely a compelling argument. I mean, even if you’re not concerned about these young people who won’t be able to live their dreams because they can’t afford to get the necessary education, I could see how it could be in society’s best interests that we don’t stop people from getting a quality college education due to their financial situation.
For all we know, we could be currently preventing thousands of brilliant young adults from getting the education they need to make the world a better place. One of these people could go on to become the doctor that finds the cure for cancer, or the politician who becomes president and saves our currently weak economy.
So there are some good reasons to do this. But is it actually feasible? Well firstly, let’s see what this plan would actually entail.
Can it be Done?
Back in 2015, Sanders proposed a bill to the Senate known as the College for All Act, according to an article from PBS. Now, one point to note is that this would only apply to public colleges. And under this law, the U.S. federal government would pay for two-thirds of college tuition costs while the other third would be left up to the individual states. It’s also worth noting that this wouldn’t cover the cost of two-year schools.
Sanders would also like to stop the federal government from making any money from student loans. He says that this is unfair to the students and also bad for our economy. And this would absolutely be a good place to start with this whole process.
So will all of this actually work? Well, it’s hard to say. Apparently, some other countries like Germany are currently doing this sort of thing effectively. So that’s a sign that it could work here. Although, it could be argued that just because a policy is successful in one country, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will work in others. It could depend on whether or not the culture is willing to embrace it.
I would say that this is something I could see us doing several years down the road. If we were to attempt it, I think it might work best if we were to do it little by little. Perhaps we start having the government pay for more and more of college tuition as time goes on. And eventually, we could possibly get to the point where attending a public four-year college would be free.
I say this because, contrary to what Sanders says, it’s likely going to be something that a lot of the public sees as a radical idea. It’s very different from what we have now. A lot of people are not just going to accept it right away. It will be more likely to happen if it’s done incrementally. We could start off with some of the parts of Sanders’ plan that might be more popular, like lowering interest rates for instance. And then we can see where it goes from there.
