Should the U.S. government reduce college tuition for everyone and provide free community college?

The topic for college tuition has gotten quite a bit of talk in the last couple of years. Especially, why has the cost of education has been steadily rising. After graduating high school, the social norm is that getting a bachelor degree or higher was guaranteed a good comfortable job and also looks good on your resume. Most jobs today expects you to have a college degree. With a higher level education, you are more likely to get the job that you want. Most of us have been in a position of look at colleges by determine the price of the school. The essential question is should the U.S. government reduce college tuition for everyone and provide free community college? Almost everyone can agree that college tuition is steadily rising.

The fact is that the college tuition has gone up a lot in today’s economy. College education was not important for many years, but now many job offerings and most employers requires a higher education in order to get the job. Someone with a college education will more likely to be able to get the job and opportunity that they want. “Worse, because financial aid has not been keeping pace with tuition hikes, the average net price families paid for college–in other words, their bills after grants, scholarships, and tax credits were subtracted out–rose even more, the College Board estimated” (Clark, 2015). Colleges are became less affordable for many people and most likely take out loans in order to pay for their tuition after getting financial aid.

Financial aid is the current solution out there for those who can’t afford college but is not effective. Many low income student would apply for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) during their senior year in high school. This form is for families to apply for loans, federal grants, work study funds for college student. Your grants which you don’t have to pay back and loans will determine will based on your financial need by the information you submitted on your FAFSA. Financial Aid is also based on your family’s income, so if you and your family have high income, you will get less grants. Loans, which mostly every college student will have because of the rise of college tuition. Financial Aid is not available for every student and if they do qualify, they would spend years paying off their debt. In the article Too poor for college by Robert Farrington, Richard Morais’s daughter was accepted into John Hopkins University. The administration package came in which included both the cost of attendance and financial aid award. $54,470 was the cost of attendance for one year which includes room and board. Financial aid awarded them $6,000 and leaves them $48,470 to pay for, or for their daughter to get student loans for.

The issue here is that college graduates are in debt before getting in the workforce. “In recent years, 70 percent of students graduated with student loans. The average 2016 grad holds $37,172 in student debt, according to calculations by student loan expert Mark Kantrowitz” (Powell, 2016). After graduating, students are left with at least five figures in debts before working. This could stress out graduate students because they have no idea when the will pay off their student loans which might have high interest rate. Which the rise of college tuition are mainly due to colleges need money for upgrade, staying on top of the technology era, and also paying their staffs. State government could also have an impact on the tuition cost. Who will pay for the staff’s salaries, renewing buildings or adding new courses when the state is defunding education. “A need to improve facilities, state budgets that are declining and inflation are all contributing to the rising cost of higher education, and there appears to be no end in sight” (Gallagher, 2004). There are many reasons why college tuition is on the rise. There should be other ways for colleges to be able to pay for new technologies and inflation besides increasing the tuition cost.

If we want to ensure all American citizens to reach their full potential, equal opportunity and contribute success to our society, we have to lower college tuition. It’s time to change and us American citizen to do our part to help make college tuition affordable while not making debt holding you back. In countries like Chile, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Finland, France, Spain and Malaysia offers free tuition to their citizens. The topic of free education quickly rose during the 2016 presidential race. Senator Bernie Sanders proposed debt free college which gathered a lot of support. The purpose of the proposal is to make tuition free as well as drastically reduce interest rate in student loans. “Still, Sanders has pointed to free tuition in European countries like Germany and Denmark to prove the models can be successful” (Jackson, 2016). The term “free” isn’t really free when the money’s coming from the taxpayers. Since Europe have higher taxes than the US, which allows those country to fund colleges. United States and Finland which offers free tuitions have the highest percentage of enrollment. Even though, Germany has a lower percentage of students go on to college than we have here in United States. With higher tax, it could help fund universities which can keep tuition rate low and keep improving the rate of students graduating and learning outcomes.

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