Argument against High College Costs

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Argument against High College Costs
If ever there is one phenomenon that is a permanent feature in people’s daily lives, it is the constantly increasing cost of living. If there’s one concern that even technology’s efficiency has remarkably failed to address, it is the perennial skyrocketing of prices for goods and services. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in the education sector, perhaps due to the high demand for education. Indeed, this is not surprising considering that schooling accounts for much of people’s early lives, beginning at early childhood and continuing until early adulthood, and even more for those who seek professional specialization. Consequently, the number of consumers of education not only increases annually, but a large proportion of them remain in the system for a long period. One direct effect of this scenario is the pressure they create on available resources. The strain on resources inevitably leads to an increase in costs to purchase more resources and meet the soaring demand. In addition, economic crises, like the one experienced in 2007, worsen the situation as a result of high currency inflation. It is to be expected, therefore, that the cost of education will continue to rise as more and more people demand it. However, the importance of education to a country’s socio-economic progress requires that this vital commodity is made available to as many people as possible. Its significance is underscored by the fact that the global provision of free education is one of the UN’s millennium development goals. Thus, it is imperative that governments ought to regulate the cost of education to ensure that it does not get way beyond the reach of its citizens, especially the poor. In this light, this paper argues that governments should subsidize college tuition fee because high costs prevent the majority of citizens from affording it, thereby hindering their socio-economic growth.
The reason that people seek education is to improve their future lives. In fact the only reason that parents send their children to school is to enable them gain employment after school and become financially independent. While this ambition seems to be a personal goal, it contributes to collective national growth. By equipping learners with skills that enable them to get jobs in the labor market, education helps in fighting poverty in many families (Belfield and Levin 83). Therefore, although the rise of tuition fee is justified on ground of a general increase in the cost of living, the role that education plays to people’s lives call for government interventions. Education is the key to people’s upward social mobility. Ending poverty requires that a country first reduces its levels of illiteracy by educating its citizens.
Nevertheless, providing free primary and secondary education does not contribute much because it only lays the foundation for further training. It is at the tertiary level of learning that learners get the skills that empower them to become responsible citizens and productive workers (Belfield and Levin 83). Thus, high college costs will hinder many students who finish high school from getting the skills and knowledge that really matter in their lives. The inadequacy of primary and secondary education in improving people’s living s...