Is Free Tuition Enough?
The idea of free tuition sounds like an excellent idea on paper, but does this affect the commitment to college for the students? The Tennessee Promise allows college students enrolled in Tennessee community colleges receive free tuition for two years. There are debates whether if the free tuition is enough or not; Another question arises if those students will even graduate with free tuition. In the article, “Free Tuition Is Not Enough” Alana Semuels explains the benefits of free tuition and how it affected Tennessee community college students in a positive way. I am of two minds about Semuels’ claim that free tuition has many advantages and improves students. On one hand, I agree that being able to give students a free “ride” to college is beneficial, however, on the other hand many students will not take college seriously, and as a result students tend to ignore school. One problem with free tuition is that people are most likely to drop out due to them being more committed to work than their education or just not caring overall; however, free tuition allows for the students who are determined to succeed and get the most out of college, for it gives them advantages.
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Sure, textbooks and other materials can be costly, the same with utility bills and such, as the article says, “What you see is a lot of students enrolling who might not otherwise enroll. But you see really low success rates, and things like students going part-time because they can’t afford the books,” sadly with free tuition people still cannot cope with some of the expenses (Semuels). This drives people to work more, especially when that person is desperately trying to cover everything and struggling with their studies. These expenses can cause a person to only think about work, causing them to lose interest in