Democrats v. Republicans on Free College

Free college is a prevalent issue that one would think the candidates would debate a lot about because the candidates are trying so hard to gain millennial vote as they will make up a huge portion of the votes in this year’s election.

 

However, when you take a look at how much is actually discussed about this issue, you see that it is hardly ever brought up. Of course, all of the issues that are debated about are extremely important and should have the amount of screen time that they do. But ignoring higher education is like ignoring our generation’s future. If many of us don’t have access to quality education because financials inhibit us from doing so, then what will happen to our generation?

If we look at Democrats versus Republicans, we see that Democrats were more likely to address this issue than Republicans. Also, in debates, Democrats were more likely to be asked a question near this than Republicans. Democrats are also more vocal about this than Republicans.

But if we ignore all this, comparing what the Republicans have said with what the Democrats have said, we see that Democrats are all for free college, while Republicans had different methods of subsidizing college.

• Bernie Sanders wants to tax Wall Street speculators and expand financial aid through that funding as well as lower student loan rates.
• Hillary Clinton has some $350 billion plan that requires the student to work for at least 10 hours a week to qualify, but she did not go anymore in depth into what the rest of the plan was.
• Marco Rubio wanted people to invest into students’ futures, and when the students graduate, they must pay the investors 4% of their income for  10 years.
• Ted Cruz wants to get rid of the Board of Education.
• Donald Trump agrees that the government should no profit off students, but did not go in depth as to how he plans to reform the system.
• .Ben Carson said he would do something about student loans, but does not have an exact plan on how he plans to reform the system.
• John Kasich wanted to base funds on state-performance: the better your state does in school, the more funding you get.

As we can see, there are only a couple candidates who actually have plans that pertain to this issue, while the rest kind of just push it aside and mention that they are for things, but have no plan.

As important as immigration, terrorism, unemployment and all are all important, we are also important because we are the future. The country will be in our hands some day and higher education is something that is very valuable for the benefit of our futures. When will we, the millennials, be taken seriously and be looked at as people who will and can keep this country “great”?

Source Findings

All the articles that argued about free college had a greater amount of negatives to the issue than positives.

The two articles I found that were for free public college were Fran Cubberley’s “The Reality of Free Community College Tuition” and Tressie Cottom’s “Why Free College is Necessary.” Both listed one to a couple of problems of free college, but both still insisted on the proposal. Cubberley realizes that maintaining quality and staff will be difficult without planning ahead financially, but still believes that it is a benefit because students who find it more worth their time to work will be able to attain an education with no cost, abling them to expand and to explore different career paths. Cottom, after listing downsides to free college, still also advocates for this proposal because even if it is not completely possible in her perspective, it at least encourages people to discuss the worth and value of higher education.

The rest of the articles I read were quite negative towards free college. When looking at the European example of free college, much of the burden is laid on taxpayers to help fund for free college, which, as an American, taxes are one of the greatest things Americans hate. In both the articles I read on European free college, both held in their titles that college isn’t actually free. Christopher Denhart uses the example of Germany and shows that Germany has not only one of the highest taxes, but also one of the lower on-time graduation rates. Abby Jackson agrees with these statistics in her article “‘Free’ College in Europe Isn’t Really Free”. This shows how “free” is not actually free because the costs just get distributed elsewhere to fund for “free” entities. The burden is laid on someone else and in this case, the taxpayer.

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Adding onto the list of problems, Cubberley mentions that community colleges must effectively manage their finances to maintain quality and hire more staff. Anya Kamenetz in her article “Fact-Check: Bernie Sanders Promises Free College. Will It Work?” argues that having more people go to college does not necessarily mean that America will have a more educated work force. Kamenez pulls out statistics to show that America is in the middle of most educated work force and there are countries that have and don’t have free college above and below it. This proves that having free college does not directly correlate with a more educated work force. Also, one could disregard all this is say that money isn’t the main problem as to why people aren’t going to college. Cottom argues that it’s the college standards of grades and scores that keep students from attending college. This especially affects low income families when they do not value higher education as much, so the children are not brought up in an environment where school is important. This leads to lower grades and scores and result in low college admission. Money is evidently not the only problem, but one could argue for whether it is the most prominent problem or not.

Works Cited

Cottom, Tressie Mcmillan. “Why Free College is Necessary”. Dissent 62.4 (2015): 115-117. Print.

Cubberley, Fran. “The Reality of Free Community College Tuition”. Journal of College Admission Issue 277 (2015): 21-23. Print.

Free College? Well, It’s Quite Problematic.

After sifting through several articles and such, I have come to the conclusion that free public college is quite impossible in a nation like America. What I have learned so far is that:

President Barack Obama has been trying to implement free community college for the first two years:

"More than 9 million students could benefit each year" —@POTUS on his #FreeCommunityCollege plan #HeadsUpAmerica https://t.co/IkRKvoU7K7

— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) September 9, 2015

This is a definite step forward toward giving students more access to higher education by breaking down the financial boundary that keeps them from attending. However, this is only a solution to one problem.

Financial problems are a major part of what is keeping a majority of students from attending college. Many opt out for jobs because going to college just does not seem worth it. Some actually cannot afford to go to college. But there are other aspects that  must also be looked at. Academically, students are discouraged when their grades or scores are not of standard, causing them to believe that maybe college is not the place for them. Socially and culturally, some students grow up in communities where college is the last thing on their minds. The idea of college and higher education slips their minds because it isn’t stressed or pushed as much as it probably should be.

Matt Bruenig, a writer on poverty an welfare, stresses how free public college is great and all, but it will mostly benefit those who do not actually need the financial help as much. According to Bruenig:

“At age nineteen, only around 20 percent of children from the poorest 2 percent of families in the country attend college. For the richest 2 percent of families, the same number is around 90 percent.”

The poorest families who need this financial benefit the most have the lowest attendance rate for college. This is probably because they don’t find it worth it to continue onto higher education since they could be working instead to keep food in their mouths and a shelter over their heads. Even if Obama was able to pass this proposal, it would be difficult to convince these students to attend college and raise their attendance rate.

On the other hand, free college can exponentially raise the amount of students coming into the college. This is also problematic because of the limited amount of space and resources each college has. If community colleges were to accept this rush of students, they would also need to raise funds and need time to expand, to hire more teachers, and to maintain the quality of service they are giving. Unless there are enough funds and time, this whole concept of “free college” might just dwindle down a drain and maybe leaving behind an economic crisis.

I really do wish that free public college is completely possible, but there’s a wider scope of problems that one must look at besides the crippling student debt and attendance rates in low income families. Yes, everyone should have access to higher education, but the consequences are blaring. I hope that President Obama has taken everything into consideration before trying to implement such a proposal.

Works Cited

Bruenig, Matt. “The Case Against Free College”. Dissent 62.4 (2015): 112-114. Print.

Survey on Free Colleges: The Result

I conducted a survey amongst my peers to find out how they felt about the implementation of free public colleges. The results consisted of the following:

• Many students felt that their tuition was “too high” or “high” (60%)
• However, they also felt that the quality of education that they were receiving was “very good”or “good” (55%), while the next majority were “neutral” (37.5%) about the education they were receiving
• A majority of them would change their choice of college if college was free (52.5%)
• The respondents were more likely to agree (55%) than disagree (22.5%) with the implementation of college (neutral 22.5%)
• A majority of them predict that if free public colleges was implemented, the quality of education would change “a lot” and “between a lot and somewhat” (56.4%)

Here is a graphical version of the results:

From this data, I assess that students tend to believe that college tuition is too high, but the education they were receiving may be worth what they pay. However, if college was free, they would change their choice of college despite the decent education they are currently receiving.

I also received many compelling explanations to the question “Based on your current knowledge, do you agree or disagree with the implementation of college?” Some answers include:

• “Free public college would greatly diminish the quality of education. Yes, while public college will become accessible, those who are underprivileged will end up attending it, while those who can afford a college education right now, would probably go to a private university.”
• “If we take a look at other global universities and educational opportunities around the world, there is a substantial amount of access to free higher education. In my opinion, financial status should not hinder students from the ability to learn and seek higher education.”
• “It’s not fair. There are some who don’t work for their education and there’s some who work much harder to get into college. The equal work ratio needs to be observed because if those who don’t work as hard are just granted a pass into college and don’t work hard to stay in, then it’s wasting a lot of time and resources.”
• “It is a questionable choice about whether or not free college tuition would be good for society. Making things public and free leads to the free rider problem and the problem of much higher taxes. In addition, it would most likely lower the quality of education. However, the most important thing to note right now is that many students do not have accessibility to higher education due to rising price. This would cause a bigger problem later on when Americans cannot compete with the rest of the world.”

As we see here, there are quite a bit of standpoints about free public colleges. It could create financial burdens for those who are not students, yet free financial burden for those who need it (the students). The resulting quality of education is also questionable. We won’t know the end result, but it is possible that the pros outweigh the cons.