Argumentative Essay: Is Higher Education Really Free?

Classification and Division Picture this: today, higher education is free to everyone and nobody has to worry about student loans taking over their lives. The only thing wrong about this fantasy is that in this day and age, higher education isn’t free. Students have to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars in order to get a higher degree. However, this isn’t the way that it has always been.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, colleges across the country provided students with a tuition-free or reduced tuition college education. This is because before World War 2, college wasn’t necessary. “Only about five percent of the population, most of them white men, had a bachelor’s degree” (Kamenetz). Because of these low numbers, college was cheap.

For the most part, whenever there is an election, the topic of whether or not higher education should be free makes its appearance. Candidates such as Bernie Sanders have been playing around with the idea of college being free (Jeje). Many have proposed the idea for free college with the promises that everything will be free for college students. Although, some have proposed a different idea. Some leaders have be strongly against higher education being free. Both sides of the debate about whether or not higher education should be free have brought up arguments that can be classified into three main categories: economic, family, and student related

That is exactly what this argument is. Many people for the free higher education argue that families can’t take the financial strain that paying for college has on the family. Families tend to end up searching and scrounging up money from miscellaneous places when it comes time to pay for college for their children. Some even have to send their children out into the workforce without any higher education just so that way they can afford a higher education (Jeje). Many families end up stressing over saving enough to pay for college for their children that they become obsessed with it. They start creating strict budgets that allow for almost all of their money to go into the savings account for college. As many have said, money is one of the top reasons why marriages fail. Arguing over trying to find money to put their children through college has made a lot of marriages fail. Having free higher education, as people would argue, would remove all of this stress and strain from families when it comes time for their children to go to