Should College Tuition Should Be Solution?

With thousands of colleges existing in America, some might expect it to be easy for an adult to find the right college to attend. However, inflation has caused college tuition to rise, and it’s harder than ever to find an affordable school. Some cities in states such as Tennessee, California, and Rhode Island have caught onto the trend of removing tuition charges entirely. If it has been proven possible already, this idea of eliminating tuition costs can be incorporated into all community colleges. Therefore, community college should have free tuition because it could make America more academically successful, it is financially feasible project, and it could solve tuition inflation and student loan debt. One critical reason why the government
Author Robert Samuels states that the cost of removing college tuition would be “a total of 128 billion” (Why Public Higher Education Should Be Free 116). That may seem like an impractical number to spend, but Samuels writes, “In 2010, the federal government spent $35 billion on Pell Grants and $104 billion on student loans, while the states spent at least $10 billion on financial aid for universities and colleges and another $76 billion for direct support of higher education” (116). These expenses would be eliminated along with eliminating tuition. Therefore, the total money gained from cutting these fees would be $225 billion dollars, or enough to cover the cost of removing student tuition. By spending this available money, the government can help those who want to attend college but can’t afford it. Moreover, U.S. Congressional Representative Keith Ellison writes “If the nation can provide hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil and gas industry and billions of dollars more to Wall Street, we can afford to pay for public higher education” (The Argument for Tuition-Free College). Ellison explains that America puts billions of dollars into many industries, and spending some amount of it on American students’ education instead would be a more beneficial use for the country. Additionally, this project has proven to be possible in the past. A few states, such as California,
A few individuals cite Pell Grants and other financial aid, saying that they make it unchallenging to pay back student loans. Furthermore, they state that other factors such as living expenses come into play when concerning student loan debt. Though this may have some truth, many students still struggle with the money they need to pay back to their college. In fact, in the year 2015, “38 million American students owed more than $1.3 trillion in student loans” (Ellison). This approximates to $34,210.53 per student. However, this number was always so high. In fact, Samuels states that “the average cost of higher education in the United States increases at twice the rate of inflation, and by going up 8 percent each year, the cost of tuition doubles every nine years” (1). To be exact, from the year 1978, “the cost of attending a four-year college has increased by 1,122 percent” (Ellison). Altogether, student loans have gone up since tuition has gone up, linking the two factors together. Therefore, removing college tuition fees would also eliminate student loans charged by the colleges. Ellison elaborates on this idea, saying, “For most of our nation’s history, public colleges, and universities have been much more affordable than they are today, with lower tuition, and financial aid, that covered a much larger portion of the costs. The first