Why should education be free?

By: Chloe Chan

Education is a requirement in life to allow one to have a higher chance of success; many people lack the financial resources to have the privilege to go to school or receive an education.

If everyone were to have the opportunity to have access to education, this would widely improve society because with education; people can solve problems better, allowing society to progress faster. Society wouldn’t have such ranks as upper class, middle class, and lower class, as the number of people for highly skilled jobs would increase. When people don’t judge each other for their ranking in the economy, this will allow equality towards everyone; an example of this would be that sometimes in shops such as “Gucci” or “Prada” they wouldn’t advertise their products towards who don’t seem as rich or would have the money to pay for the items, while clients wearing designer clothing would get special treatment, this is unfair towards the other clients.

Education allows a better workforce; there is much automatic equipment replacing low skilled workers, which would cause them to lose their jobs. Thankfully, automation is not replacing the whole workforce, but the other jobs would require a higher level of skill in which some workers cannot provide that due to the lack of education. The basic requirements for a more skilled workforce would be to have good analytical skills and creative thinking skills; workers can learn these skills through school; if people were to receive education, our workforce would expand.

Without paying for education, this would allow the students not to be in debt; it’s prevalent for students to have to go to such lengths to pay for their college education. In the US, the average student debt is 31,172 USD per person. (University of the people, n.d.) This causes the students to have vast distress towards their future because if they cannot pay the right amount in the given time, the interest would grow, which would affect their future and delay spending money on cars or a home. Though if they were to be able to graduate without debt, this would be much more beneficial towards their future, they would be able to fast track their ability to save, earn and spend; this does not only allow them to have a better future, this also helps spur a positive cycle of economic activity. Without paying the expense, this would enable the students to want to go to college; some students decide not to go to college due to the high price they need to pay. Free education allows students to focus more on school than worrying about money; this is beneficial to the student’s mental health because this would let them not stress it as much.

I believe that education should be free for everyone; it should not be a privilege, we should have the right to have access to education.