argument essay

Osailan 1

Hussam Osailan

Ryan Scariano

English 201

February 25, 2016

Free Education as a Popular Issue

The idea of free education is quickly becoming a controversial and much debated political topic throughout the world. Social media and the internet have provided people with a platform in which to express their opinions about whether or not education should be free for all without compromising quality. This picture, which is from a website for the British Green Party, shows one side of the free education debate. This topic originally interested me because I come from a country where education is free and where everyone has the opportunity to go to college or university regardless of economic status. In fact, I am in the United States right now because the government of Saudi Arabia has a multi-million dollar scholarship program that gives Saudi students the opportunity to study in the U.S. and other countries free of cost. After being in the U.S. for 3 years I now realize how lucky I am to have free education.

Supporters of free education argue that education has become more of a business enterprise rather than a basic human right. In addition, the cost of learning and education is placing an unnecessary economic burden on students who end up owing the government large amounts of money. In addition, the right to education is quickly turning into a privilege for those who can actually afford it. For example, I recently learned that my friend had to take out over $100,000 to help pay for her master’s degree at Georgetown University. I asked her to tell me more. She said that she was able to pay for her bachelor’s degree through government grants based on her income and age. She also attended community college where she paid for tuition on her own by working full time. Her experience gives a prime example of how complicated the current U.S. education system is and also what works and what doesn’t work. She is in extreme debt and will likely be in debt or a large portion of her life because of the loans she was forced to take out for only 2 years of schooling. While Georgetown is considered one of the top universities in the world and quality of education was definitely not compromised with her decision to attend there, she has expressed concern about whether or not the debt she has was worth it.

Supporters also say that education is a political choice, not a necessity. In fact, there are several countries with a free education system that seems to be working. Several of these countries are located in Europe, where the quality of education is not questioned. From what I’ve read, governments are able to subsidize the cost of tuition fees at universities and colleges through higher income tax. Many who are against free education argue that if the U.S. were to adopt a free education system that the income tax rates would skyrocket. In considering the policies of Saudi Arabia one more time I feel that we, again, are quite lucky. Free education does not come from taxes. Instead, the Saudi government allocates 25 percent of its annual budget towards education. In comparison, the U.S. allocates only 2 percent.

Nonetheless, the idea of free education seems to be catching on. In the United States, a country that does not currently offer free education, President Obama announced in 2015 a plan to make community college free. One of his primary reasons is to make the U.S. workforce more competitive in the global market and in the understanding that a high school diploma does not provide enough opportunities for economic and social growth in today’s economy. There are a few states like Tennessee and parts of Illinois that have adopted different versions of the “free community college” idea. Despite their noteworthy concept, these programs tend to be mostly merit-based and are limited in their demographic scope. On the other hand, supporters of free education promote a system that will help liberate society of a lot of its primary problems such as unemployment, hunger and poverty ultimately leading to an increased quality of life. Other benefits they promote are that it allows students to focus on learning, rather than impending tuition payments and better governance by ensuring more people are making more informed decisions at election time. One of the most common arguments in support of free education is the idea of equal opportunity and allowing everyone the chance to achieve their full potential. In doing so, society will unlock talented and intelligent minds that may not have had the opportunity if it weren’t for free education.

The picture I chose for this project is part of a larger marketing campaign by the British Green Party which is being used to display the foundational beliefs of the political party in an clear, easy to read way. In choosing a “hashtag” they are inviting people to join in on the conversation about free education. So I decided to do just that. In a quick internet search of the hashtag “free education”, the most recent developments are about something that happened in Ontario, Canada late last week. Due to pressure from the Canadian Federation of Students in Ontario, the government has passed an ordinance that allocates $1 billion dollars a year towards grants that will allow low-income students to go to college and university for free. Interestingly, none of the free education hashtags that I saw originated from the United States. I was surprised by this given the problems facing my friend and thousands of other Americans in similar situations to her. Again, it made me thankful that in my country we have the opportunity to access good quality education for free and at low cost to the citizens of Saudi Arabia at large.

Work Cited

Free Education. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web.

Staff, Attn. "Attn." Attn. Attn Staff, 27 Mar. 2015. Web. 29 Feb. 2016. http://www.attn.com/.