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Should Higher Education Be Cheaper?
On many occasions that the question of the cost of education is brought forth, the usual reply is “try ignorance if you think education is expensive” and this makes it hard to discuss the issue of high cost of education. As a result, this prevents many people from airing their grievances about the high cost of education. The fact that something is good does not mean that it cannot be debated. One of the things that these kinds of responses ignore is the fact that all people are not on the same financial status (Burney, 2018).
To begin with, education should be made cheaper to avoid demoralizing those who fail to get jobs after graduating. The unemployed people that have graduated from college influence high school students to avoid valuing higher education. As a result, high school students tend to fear to spend a lot of resources to acquire higher education without the certainty of getting a job. If education was cheaper, jobless grandaunts would not be resentful the way they are right now. According to Gorski (2017), this is one of the reasons why explains why many grandaunts never register for further studies.
Next, another reason to make education cheaper is that such a move will bring about a balanced development. What usually happens is that areas with high literacy levels tend to develop much faster than areas with low literacy level. One reason for this is that many investors prefer setting their companies in areas with high numbers of a skilled workforce. This is because skilled employees tend to produce quality goods and services. On the contrary, investors fear that investing in areas that have low literacy level will lead to low returns or even loss of their investment (Herbers, 2015).
Making education cheaper increases the level of innovativeness. Education exposes learners to basic knowledge and skills from other fields. This knowledge and skills are very essential when it comes to innovation. Designing a housing structure, for instance, requires both architectural knowledge and also computer knowledge. Under this particular case, the architecture will need computer knowledge which is from another field in order to complete his or her design. Countries with the highest rate of development are those with the highest level of innovativeness. This clearly shows the place of education in society and why it should be made cheaper (Howard, 2014). A research carried out in Finland showed that education increases the level of innovativeness. Precisely, the research showed that an increased number of master’s level engineering grandaunts increased the level of innovativeness and creativity (Toivanen, & Väänänen, 2013).
Additionally, reduced cost of education may lower the current high unemployment rate. Many companies prefer to employ educated individuals than uneducated individuals. The reasoning behind this is that educated individuals tend to produce high-quality goods and services. The second advantage of employing educated individuals is that they enable a company to improve its performance by coming up with innovative ideas used to improve production processes. This is the rule that appears to be honored in most parts of the world. Education should be made cheaper for everybody to be placed in a better position in regards to employment (Jesse, 2013).
Next, education should be made cheaper to lower and eliminate social evils. Many students that drop out of schools as a result of lack of tuition fees turn to such social evils as crime and prostitution to fend for themselves. If education was cheap, it will prevent these kinds of individuals from dropping out of school. Education will have enabled them to acquire essential knowledge and skills that can enable them to participate in productive activities such as agriculture or even business. If tuition fees were lowered to a level that all people can afford there would be no high dropout cases as is currently being witnessed (Swanson, 2016).
How Stakeholders Are Affected By Making Education More Expensive
Continuing to make education expensive prevents students from poor families from learning. Most of the students that drop out from school are those whose parents are not in a better position of affording tuition fees. A research done in Korea showed that increased cost of education led to an increase of college-level dropouts from 1.17% in 2011 to 2.099% in 2015 (Kim et al, 2018). Given the fact that the dropouts need to survive like any other person, there are high chances that these individuals will begin to engage in social evils. The dropouts will engage in social evils so as to find a way of surviving. As already seen above, these individuals do not have skills and knowledge to engage in productive activities such as business (Burney, 2018).
Making education expensive creates the mentality that the government is not serious about enabling everybody to access education. This kind of mentality develops in cases where individuals notice that there are high illiteracy levels. But then the government is not concerned about making education accessible to everyone through making it cheaper. The impact of this is that it lowers the level of patriotism among citizens. The citizens begin to think that their leaders are mainly focused on fulfilling their self-desires. Other than reduced patriotism, a negative attitude towards the ruling government might lead to protests over small issues (Biden, 2016).
The third impact of making education expensive is that it contributes to low literacy levels. As already seen, low literacy levels in areas attract few investors. It is normally difficult for areas such as these to develop. Level of development means, in this case, is that people under these areas tend to live under poor conditions. This is because most of them do not have a source of income which is supposed to enable them to meet their basic needs such as food and medication. Making education affordable to all increases literacy levels which then attracts investors (Gorski, 2017).
Making education expensive will increase the level of unemployment. Individuals with little knowledge and skills are less likely to be employed when compared to those with little knowledge and skills. Research done in Latvia by Lavrinoraca et al, (2015) showed that in 2013 there were 314,000 employed higher education grandaunts as compared to 72,000 individuals who had not received higher education. As already seen, adequate knowledge and skills enable an individual’s to produce high-quality goods and services. Skilled individuals tend to have high living standards. One reason for this is that they are paid better salaries and also the fact that their jobs provide a regular source of income that enables them to meet their daily basic needs. Companies never prefer employing individuals with low skills due to their low productivity potentials (Herbers, 2015).
Apart from increasing the level of unemployment, making education expensive will lead to an increase in crime rates. Dropouts turn to criminal activities when companies reject them for lacking knowledge and skills. Remember here that the main reason why these individuals are lacking knowledge and skills is that they dropped from school as a result of lacking tuition fees. What this case implies is that if education could be afforded by everyone, there will be no one dropping out. Each and every young individual would be in school acquiring knowledge and skills which are essential when it comes to employment (Howard, 2014).
Additionally, making education expensive will lead to a slow rate of development. The slow rate of development will result from the unfavorable business environment created. One of the characteristics of a poor business environment is high illiteracy levels. Under this kind of environment, a company will be forced to hire unskilled individuals. The impact of this is that the company will end up producing substandard goods and services. This will further lead to low sales since many consumers prefer high quality and services. Low sales will make the companies lack the money needed for expansion (Jesse, 2013).
Strategies that can help make Education Cheap
One of the strategies that can be employed to cut the high cost of education is separation of teaching funds and other activities such as research, administrative support etc. Research, especially, for undergraduates must not pay for research fees. For example, schools can come up with a method of cutting down the cost of research. Next, education can become cheaper by increasing the student-teacher ratio. Having bigger classes can greatly reduce the cost of education because schools can reduce the cost of operations thus resulting in reduced tuition fees. Third, consolidating programs which are similar may help cut down education cost. As a result of consolidation of programs with similarities, time and resources spent in teaching and learning process will reduce.
In conclusion, education should be made cheaper for such reasons as it is essential to living and also because such a move will bring about a balanced development. One of the things that make education to be essential to living is the fact that it enables individuals in society to learn how to live better. It is wrong to bar people from debating the cost of education through such replies as “try ignorance if you think education is expensive”. This common reply prevents many people from airing their grievances about the high cost of education. The fact that something is good does not mean that it cannot be debated.
References
Burney, V. H., & Beilke, J. R. (2018). The constraints of poverty on high achievement. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 31(3), 295-321.
Biden, B., & Obama, J. (2016). Making College Affordable for Everyone. Retrieved April 20th.
Herbers, J. E., Cutuli, J. J., Supkoff, L. M., Heistad, D., Chan, C. K., Hinz, E., & Masten, A. S. (2015). Early reading skills and academic achievement trajectories of students facing poverty, homelessness, and high residential mobility.Educational Researcher, 41(9), 366-374.
Howard, A. (2014). Students from poverty: Helping them make it through college. About Campus, 6(5), 5-12.
Kim, D., & Kim, S. (2018). Sustainable Education: Analyzing the Determinants of University Student Dropout by Nonlinear Panel Data Models. Sustainability, 10(4), 954.
Lavrinovicha, I., Lavrinenko, O., & Teivans-Treinovskis, J. (2015). Influence of education on unemployment rate and incomes of residents. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 174, 3824-3831.
Toivanen, O. & Väänänen, L. (2013). Does education lead to more innovation? VOX CEPR Policy Portal.