why college should not be free essay

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Why College Should not Be Free:

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Published: Dec 16, 2021

Words: 1365 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Works Cited

Hill, Catharine. “Free Tuition Is Not the Answer.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Nov. 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/opinion/free-tuition-is-not-the-answer.html.
Neelakantan, Shailaja. “Does Free College Come with Trade-Offs?” Education Dive, 12 Aug. 2019, https://www.educationdive.com/news/does-free-college-come-with-trade-offs/560729
“Should College Be Free?” The New York Times, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/01/20/should-college-be-free/the-problem-is-that-free-college-isnt-free.
Turner, Cory. “If 'Free College' Sounds Too Good To Be True, That's Because It Often Is.” NPR, NPR, 12 Sept. 2018, https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/09/12/643673271/if-free-college-sounds-too-good-to-be-true-that-s-because-it-often-is.

Should follow an “upside down” triangle format, meaning, the writer should start off broad and introduce the text and author or topic being discussed, and then get more specific to the thesis statement.

Provides a foundational overview, outlining the historical context and introducing key information that will be further explored in the essay, setting the stage for the argument to follow.

Cornerstone of the essay, presenting the central argument that will be elaborated upon and supported with evidence and analysis throughout the rest of the paper.

The topic sentence serves as the main point or focus of a paragraph in an essay, summarizing the key idea that will be discussed in that paragraph.

The body of each paragraph builds an argument in support of the topic sentence, citing information from sources as evidence.

After each piece of evidence is provided, the author should explain HOW and WHY the evidence supports the claim.

Should follow a right side up triangle format, meaning, specifics should be mentioned first such as restating the thesis, and then get more broad about the topic at hand. Lastly, leave the reader with something to think about and ponder once they are done reading.

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Should College Be Free? The Pros and Cons

Types of Publicly Funded College Tuition Programs

Pros: why college should be free, cons: why college should not be free, what the free college debate means for students, how to cut your college costs now, frequently asked questions (faqs).

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Americans have been debating the wisdom of free college for decades, and more than 30 states now offer some type of free college program. But it wasn't until 2021 that a nationwide free college program came close to becoming reality, re-energizing a longstanding debate over whether or not free college is a good idea.

And despite a setback for the free-college advocates, the idea is still in play. The Biden administration's free community college proposal was scrapped from the American Families Plan . But close observers say that similar proposals promoting free community college have drawn solid bipartisan support in the past. "Community colleges are one of the relatively few areas where there's support from both Republicans and Democrats," said Tulane economics professor Douglas N. Harris, who has previously consulted with the Biden administration on free college, in an interview with The Balance.

To get a sense of the various arguments for and against free college, as well as the potential impacts on U.S. students and taxpayers, The Balance combed through studies investigating the design and implementation of publicly funded free tuition programs and spoke with several higher education policy experts. Here's what we learned about the current debate over free college in the U.S.—and more about how you can cut your college costs or even get free tuition through existing programs.

Key Takeaways

Research shows free tuition programs encourage more students to attend college and increase graduation rates, which creates a better-educated workforce and higher-earning consumers who can help boost the economy.
Some programs are criticized for not paying students’ non-tuition expenses, not benefiting students who need assistance most, or steering students toward community college instead of four-year programs.
If you want to find out about free programs in your area, the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education has a searchable database. You’ll find the link further down in this article.

Before diving into the weeds of the free college debate, it's important to note that not all free college programs are alike. Most publicly funded tuition assistance programs are restricted to the first two years of study, typically at community colleges. Free college programs also vary widely in the ways they’re designed, funded, and structured:

Last-dollar tuition-free programs : These programs cover any remaining tuition after a student has used up other financial aid , such as Pell Grants. Most state-run free college programs fall into this category. However, these programs don’t typically help with room and board or other expenses.
First-dollar tuition-free programs : These programs pay for students' tuition upfront, although they’re much rarer than last-dollar programs. Any remaining financial aid that a student receives can then be applied to other expenses, such as books and fees. The California College Promise Grant is a first-dollar program because it waives enrollment fees for eligible students.
Debt-free programs : These programs pay for all of a student's college expenses , including room and board, guaranteeing that they can graduate debt-free. But they’re also much less common, likely due to their expense.

Proponents often argue that publicly funded college tuition programs eventually pay for themselves, in part by giving students the tools they need to find better jobs and earn higher incomes than they would with a high school education. The anticipated economic impact, they suggest, should help ease concerns about the costs of public financing education. Here’s a closer look at the arguments for free college programs.

A More Educated Workforce Benefits the Economy

Morley Winograd, President of the Campaign for Free College Tuition, points to the economic and tax benefits that result from the higher wages of college grads. "For government, it means more revenue," said Winograd in an interview with The Balance—the more a person earns, the more they will likely pay in taxes . In addition, "the country's economy gets better because the more skilled the workforce this country has, the better [it’s] able to compete globally." Similarly, local economies benefit from a more highly educated, better-paid workforce because higher earners have more to spend. "That's how the economy grows," Winograd explained, “by increasing disposable income."

According to Harris, the return on a government’s investment in free college can be substantial. "The additional finding of our analysis was that these things seem to consistently pass a cost-benefit analysis," he said. "The benefits seem to be at least double the cost in the long run when we look at the increased college attainment and the earnings that go along with that, relative to the cost and the additional funding and resources that go into them."

Free College Programs Encourage More Students to Attend

Convincing students from underprivileged backgrounds to take a chance on college can be a challenge, particularly when students are worried about overextending themselves financially. But free college programs tend to have more success in persuading students to consider going, said Winograd, in part because they address students' fears that they can't afford higher education . "People who wouldn't otherwise think that they could go to college, or who think the reason they can't is [that] it's too expensive, [will] stop, pay attention, listen, decide it's an opportunity they want to take advantage of, and enroll," he said.

According to Harris, students also appear to like the certainty and simplicity of the free college message. "They didn't want to have to worry that next year they were not going to have enough money to pay their tuition bill," he said. "They don't know what their finances are going to look like a few months down the road, let alone next year, and it takes a while to get a degree. So that matters."

Free college programs can also help send "a clear and tangible message" to students and their families that a college education is attainable for them, said Michelle Dimino, an Education Director with Third Way. This kind of messaging is especially important to first-generation and low-income students, she said.

Free College Increases Graduation Rates and Financial Security

Free tuition programs appear to improve students’ chances of completing college. For example, Harris noted that his research found a meaningful link between free college tuition and higher graduation rates. "What we found is that it did increase college graduation at the two-year college level, so more students graduated than otherwise would have."

Free college tuition programs also give people a better shot at living a richer, more comfortable life, say advocates. "It's almost an economic necessity to have some college education," noted Winograd. Similar to the way a high school diploma was viewed as crucial in the 20th century, employees are now learning that they need at least two years of college to compete in a global, information-driven economy. "Free community college is a way of making that happen quickly, effectively, and essentially," he explained.

Free community college isn’t a universally popular idea. While many critics point to the potential costs of funding such programs, others identify issues with the effectiveness and fairness of current attempts to cover students’ college tuition. Here’s a closer look at the concerns about free college programs.

It Would Be Too Expensive

The idea of free community college has come under particular fire from critics who worry about the cost of social spending. Since community colleges aren't nearly as expensive as four-year colleges—often costing thousands of dollars a year—critics argue that individuals can often cover their costs using other forms of financial aid . But, they point out, community college costs would quickly add up when paid for in bulk through a free college program: Biden’s proposed free college plan would have cost $49.6 billion in its first year, according to an analysis from Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Some opponents argue that the funds could be put to better use in other ways, particularly by helping students complete their degrees.

Free College Isn't Really Free

One of the most consistent concerns that people have voiced about free college programs is that they don’t go far enough. Even if a program offers free tuition, students will need to find a way to pay for other college-related expenses , such as books, room and board, transportation, high-speed internet, and, potentially, child care. "Messaging is such a key part of this," said Dimino. Students "may apply or enroll in college, understanding it's going to be free, but then face other unexpected charges along the way."

It's important for policymakers to consider these factors when designing future free college programs. Otherwise, Dimino and other observers fear that students could potentially wind up worse off if they enroll and invest in attending college and then are forced to drop out due to financial pressures.

Free College Programs Don’t Help the Students Who Need Them Most

Critics point out that many free college programs are limited by a variety of quirks and restrictions, which can unintentionally shut out deserving students or reward wealthier ones. Most state-funded free college programs are last-dollar programs, which don’t kick in until students have applied financial aid to their tuition. That means these programs offer less support to low-income students who qualify for need-based aid—and more support for higher-income students who don’t.

Community College May Not Be the Best Path for All Students

Some critics also worry that all students will be encouraged to attend community college when some would have been better off at a four-year institution. Four-year colleges tend to have more resources than community colleges and can therefore offer more support to high-need students.

In addition, some research has shown that students at community colleges are less likely to be academically successful than students at four-year colleges, said Dimino. "Statistically, the data show that there are poorer outcomes for students at community colleges […] such as lower graduation rates and sometimes low transfer rates from two- to four-year schools."

With Congress focused on other priorities, a nationwide free college program is unlikely to happen anytime soon. However, some states and municipalities offer free tuition programs, so students may be able to access some form of free college, depending on where they live. A good resource is the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education’s searchable database of Promise Programs , which lists more than 100 free community college programs, though the majority are limited to California residents.

In the meantime, school leaders and policymakers may shift their focus to other access and equity interventions for low-income students. For example, higher education experts Eileen Strempel and Stephen Handel published a book in 2021 titled "Beyond Free College: Making Higher Education Work for 21st Century Students." The book argues that policymakers should focus more strongly on college completion, not just college access. "There hasn't been enough laser-focus on how we actually get people to complete their degrees," noted Strempel in an interview with The Balance.

Rather than just improving access for low-income college students, Strempel and Handel argue that decision-makers should instead look more closely at the social and economic issues that affect students , such as food and housing insecurity, child care, transportation, and personal technology. For example, "If you don't have a computer, you don't have access to your education anymore," said Strempel. "It's like today's pencil."

Saving money on college costs can be challenging, but you can take steps to reduce your cost of living. For example, if you're interested in a college but haven't yet enrolled, pay close attention to where it's located and how much residents typically pay for major expenses, such as housing, utilities, and food. If the college is located in a high-cost area, it could be tough to justify the living expenses you'll incur. Similarly, if you plan to commute, take the time to check gas or public transportation prices and calculate how much you'll likely have to spend per month to go to and from campus several times a week.

Now that more colleges offer classes online, it may also be worth looking at lower-cost programs in areas that are farther from where you live, particularly if they allow you to graduate without setting foot on campus. Also, check out state and federal financial aid programs that can help you slim down your expenses, or, in some cases, pay for them completely. Finally, look into need-based and merit-based grants and scholarships that can help you cover even more of your expenses. Also, consider applying to no-loan colleges , which promise to help students graduate without going into debt.

Should community college be free?

It’s a big question with varying viewpoints. Supporters of free community college cite the economic contributions of a more educated workforce and the individual benefit of financial security, while critics caution against the potential expense and the inefficiency of last-dollar free college programs.

What states offer free college?

More than 30 states offer some type of tuition-free college program, including Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington State. The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education lists over 100 last-dollar community college programs and 16 first-dollar community college programs, though the majority are limited to California residents.

Is there a free college?

There is no such thing as a truly free college education. But some colleges offer free tuition programs for students, and more than 30 states offer some type of tuition-free college program. In addition, students may also want to check out employer-based programs. A number of big employers now offer to pay for their employees' college tuition . Finally, some students may qualify for enough financial aid or scholarships to cover most of their college costs.

Scholarships360. " Which States Offer Tuition-Free Community College? "

The White House. “ Build Back Better Framework ,” see “Bringing Down Costs, Reducing Inflationary Pressures, and Strengthening the Middle Class.”

The White House. “ Fact Sheet: How the Build Back Better Plan Will Create a Better Future for Young Americans ,” see “Education and Workforce Opportunities.”

Coast Community College District. “ California College Promise Grant .”

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “ The Dollars and Cents of Free College ,” see “Biden’s Free College Plan Would Pay for Itself Within 10 Years.”

Third Way. “ Why Free College Could Increase Inequality .”

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “ The Dollars and Cents of Free College ,” see “Free-College Programs Have Different Effects on Race and Class Equity.”

University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. “ College Promise Programs: A Comprehensive Catalog of College Promise Programs in the United States .”

Is free college a good idea? Increasingly, evidence says yes

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, douglas n. harris douglas n. harris nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy , professor and chair, department of economics - tulane university @douglasharris99.

May 10, 2021

10 min read

In just a few short years, the idea of free college has moved from a radical idea to mainstream Democratic thinking. President Biden made free college one of his core campaign planks , and one that the first lady has been promoting for years. In his recent address to Congress, the president also signaled that he is ready for legislative action on a scaled-back version of the idea as part of his American Families Plan .

Two weeks ago, the nonprofit College Promise (CP)—led by Martha Kanter, who served as President Obama’s undersecretary for education—also released a proposal that will influence the free college debate. (Full disclosure: I previously advised the Biden campaign and presently advise CP, but have received no compensation for these efforts.)

In today’s polarized environment, the free college idea stands out for its bipartisan support. A majority of self-identified Republicans has supported the notion of free college in some polls. In fact, one of the first such statewide programs was put in place by Bill Haslam, the former Republican governor of Tennessee. While this could go the way of Obamacare, which faced strong GOP congressional opposition despite the law’s origins with Republican Mitt Romney, free college seems different. Biden’s latest plan only applies to community colleges, which focus on career and vocational education of the sort Republicans support, as opposed to universities, which many Republicans view as hostile battlegrounds in a culture war.

But I am less interested in the politics than the evidence of effectiveness. I have studied college access for many years and run two randomized control trials of financial aid , which produced some of the first causal evidence on free college in Milwaukee. Two years ago, Brookings released the first installment of the Milwaukee work, which I carried out with a team of researchers. Since then, we have collected more data and learned more about how students responded over time. Below, I summarize our just-released study (co-authored with Jonathan Mills), compare our results to other financial aid programs, and then discuss implications for the Biden and CP proposals. Consequently, I conclude that the evidence increasingly favors free college and “open access aid” more generally.

What Did We Learn in Milwaukee?

I developed The Degree Project (TDP) in 2009 as a demonstration program in partnership between the nonprofit Ascendium (then known as the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation and Affiliates) and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). TDP offered all first-time 9 th graders in half of MPS high schools $12,000 for college as “last-dollar” aid. Students could use the funds for college if they graduated from high school on time with a GPA of 2.5 and a class attendance rate of 90%. Also, as is the norm with free college programs, students had to fill out the FAFSA and have at least one dollar of unmet need. The aid could be used to attend any of the 66 public, in-state, two- or four-year colleges in Wisconsin. Ascendium provided up to $31 million to fund the grant and, as the main program administrator, sent regular letters to remind students about the program and its requirements. The organization also worked with school counselors to support students becoming eligible for the funds and preparing for college.

TDP was announced to students in the fall of 2011. Using anonymized data, we then tracked students’ high school, college, and life outcomes for eight years, and we recently received data extending through when students were roughly 22 years old. As a rare randomized trial, we could estimate the effects by comparing the control and treatment group outcomes. Here is what we found:

For students who met the performance requirements, the program increased graduation from two-year colleges by 3 percentage points . This might seem small, but the denominator here is comprised of low-income 9 th graders. Half of the control group did not even graduate from high school, let alone college. The effect amounts to a 25% increase in two-year degrees.
The framing and design of the program as free two-year college changed student decisions in ways consistent with what free college advocates suggest. The $12,000 maximum award amount was selected because it was sufficient to cover tuition and fees for a two-year college degree. The fact that TDP made two-year college free, but only reduced the cost of four-year college, was clearly communicated to students. This appears to explain one of our main results: Student enrollments shifted from four-year to two-year colleges. This is noteworthy given that students could use the funds at either two- or four-year colleges. In fact, students likely would have been able to use more of the $12,000 if they had shifted to four-year colleges. The only plausible reason for shifting to two-year colleges is that they were really attracted to the idea of free college.
The “early commitment” nature of the program had some modest positive effects on some high school outcomes . Students learned about TDP in their 9 th grade year, giving them time to change their high school behaviors and college plans. Although it did not improve high school academic achievement, we find that TDP increased college expectations and the steps students took to prepare for college. TDP recipients also reported working harder because of the program (even though this did not show up in the academic measures). This highlights the fact that free college might also help address not only college-going rates, but the long-term stagnancy in high school outcomes.
The merit requirements undermined the program’s effectiveness . Though the 2.5 GPA and 90% attendance and other requirements were arguably modest, only 21% of eligible students ended up meeting them. So, they ended up excluding many students. We also tested the two main ways that the merit requirements could have been helpful: (a) merit requirements might provide incentives for students to work hard during high school and better prepare for college, and (b) merit requirements might target aid to students who respond to it most. We find no evidence of either benefit. While students did work harder (see point [3] above), this appears to be due to other elements of the program, not the merit requirements.

Overall, these results suggest that aid is most effective when it is “open access”—that is, aid with early commitment and free college framing, but no merit requirements.

What about the evidence beyond Milwaukee?

Our study also reviews other research on financial aid, including federal aid, state merit aid programs, and the newer “promise scholarship” programs that mimic free college. Our study is not alone in finding that financial aid improves student outcomes. In fact, the vast majority of the most rigorous studies find positive effects on college attendance and college graduation. Given the strong average benefits of college, we can expect follow-up studies to show effects on employment earnings, voting, and other outcomes.

What about the costs? Open access aid is more expensive to be sure. More students receive aid and the aid levels per students are larger than traditional financial aid. Is it worth it? Our analysis suggests it is. We carried out new cost-benefit analyses of multiple programs, including TDP, but also other actively studied programs in: Kalamazoo, Michigan; Knox County, Tennessee; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and one statewide program in Nebraska. We also used estimates of the average effects of aid taken from prior literature reviews. All of these programs pass a cost-benefit test. That is, the effects on college outcomes, and the effects of college outcomes on future earnings, is much larger than the cost to the government and society as a whole. Moreover, it appears that benefits-per-dollar-of-cost are at least as high with open access aid as with more restricted programs. This means that open access aid provides greater total benefits to the community as a whole.

Back to the Free College Proposals

What do these results mean for President Biden’s and CP’s proposals? The table below provides a side-by-side comparison. The main difference is the level of detail. This reflects that the CP plan was designed to align with, and flesh out, the Biden campaign proposal. Perhaps the only substantive difference is that the CP proposal (and the Milwaukee program) includes private colleges. The Biden campaign documents exclude private colleges, though the American Families Plan just says “free community college,” signaling alignment with the CP plan. Both proposals are clearly in the category of open access aid.

There are numerous similarities between these provisions and the Milwaukee program that my team and I studied. All three programs make two-year college free (or nearly so) for all students without income requirements and through early commitment of aid. All three require the FAFSA and high school graduation. Importantly, unlike both the Biden and CP proposals, the Milwaukee program had merit requirements, which undermined its success. This is partly why our evidence is so relevant to the current debate.

Some might wonder why the president has scaled back the proposal to just free community college. This reflects that the idea of free college—even the “scaled back” version—is such a marked departure from past policy, especially at the federal level. Free community college alone would still be arguably the largest shift in federal higher education policy in the past half-century.

Caveats and Concluding Thoughts

We cannot make policy from evidence alone, but it can and should play a key role. Sometimes, policy ideas have such limited evidence of effectiveness that it is difficult to make any plausible case for a large-scale, national program. In other cases, there is enough promise for pilot studies and competitive grants to establish efficacy. With free college, we seem to be well beyond that point. In addition to decades of results on general financial aid programs, we have a growing number of studies on state and local programs that all show positive evidence—the “laboratory of democracy” at work. The idea of a large, federal free-college program therefore has more and more credibility.

A decade ago, it was not at all obvious that this is what the evidence would show. There was really no evidence on free college programs when we started this project back in 2009. Also, there were good reasons to expect that such a large increase in aid would suffer from “diminishing returns”—the idea that the next dollar is less effective than the previous one. This could have made free college more costly than the benefits could justify. Now, we know better.

I do still worry a bit about other factors and challenges. For example, the above analyses can only capture the immediate effects of financial aid, yet a federal free college program is such a marked departure in policy that it could alter political and market forces operating on higher education in unpredictable ways, perhaps even lowering college spending and quality. Also, if the proposal remains focused on community colleges, then this will shift students out of four-year colleges and into colleges that currently have very low completion rates. There are also other ways to increase college affordability and access that do not require free college (e.g., increased Pell Grants and income-based loan repayment), some of which target funds more narrowly to the most disadvantaged students. And there are many details to be worked out as the president’s allies in Congress try to generate sufficient support without (a) sacrificing core principles, or (b) creating new problems that can arise when grafting new federal programs on to widely varying state contexts.

Still, it is not often that an idea comes around that addresses a widely acknowledged problem and has both research support and a fair degree of bipartisan political support. The stars seem aligned to make some form of national free college a reality. The more evidence we see, the more that would seem to be a step forward.

Why College should not be Free

This essay will present arguments against making college education free. It will discuss the potential consequences of free college tuition, including the financial burden on taxpayers, the devaluation of a college degree, and challenges in maintaining quality and competitiveness in higher education. The piece will also explore alternative solutions for making college more affordable and accessible without resorting to complete subsidization. You can also find more related free essay samples at PapersOwl about College.

How it works

Free colleges might seem like a good idea, but there are many problems in this system. First, schools have the possibility of being overfilled because so many people would apply to free colleges. Desirable degrees will likely be taken because of so many people getting a free education to get them. Skill jobs, which are jobs that don’t necessarily require a degree, would have less people working in that field, and because they don’t require a degree, many people would probably have a degree and would not want to “waste” it.

Taxes would be a lot higher, because America already pays for public schooling, so adding free colleges, which takes a lot more money to run, would be an extremely large amount of money to pay.

Students might take their ability of getting a free education less seriously. Overfilling colleges would mean that the job you might get would most likely be taken upon by other people who want the same job, which would lower your percentage to actually get the job. If a lot of students get degrees, it could possibly lead to a number of workers being inactive during their work, which would be based on their limitations.

If colleges were free, then the education system would be flooded with more people trying to get a degree. Right now, going to college and getting a degree sets you apart from others when you are applying for the job. If everyone got a degree and was going for the same job, then this means that when applying for the job, there are going to be other people with the same level of education applying for the same job.

Going to college is used to get a degree in a field that interests you. So many people going to college devalues your college degree, and with everyone getting the same education, it would be harder to get a job. If a lot of people end up getting the same degree, then all of those jobs will be taken quickly which will result in low/no income and could potentially end with homelessness. The job market will become more competitive than ever, and it will be hard to find the right person for the job with so many people with the same level of education.

With so many people getting the same degree, jobs that do not require a degree such as construction, painting, or other “skill jobs” will have less people doing that kind of work, which still makes good money and is necessary. “Skill Jobs”, are necessary but will hold less interest for people who could otherwise get a degree. Even today, less people want to do jobs like construction, painting, landscaping, and other jobs like that, but if they don’t do it then who will?

Taxes would be a lot higher/decreasing money given to different organizations, which might affect America in general.

Some colleges might have to create wait lists, because so many people would apply and so many people who had families low in income would not be able to get in, and people who would have enough money to go to a private college would try to get into a free one (if they wanted the things that college was offering). People applying to free colleges might not be able to get in, even if that was the field that that specific college specialized in. Taxes would also be overall higher, since part of tax money goes to public schools already, so adding free public colleges (where education costs much more), would cost a large amount more.

If college was free, schools would be overcrowded. Schools are already overcrowded in most high schools, and as the graduating classes get bigger and bigger, there are going to be more people in college, proceeding to the fact that there are going to be more people in college. Many people present this fact with the solution that we should expand our colleges, but the problem with that is that is that there isn’t enough space. The amount of money that it would take to expand to fit more people would be an immense amount of money spent, an immense amount of money that could be used for many other things.

One of the other problems with free college is that it would not help the lower middle class and the poor. The idea of a free college wouldn’t provide much additional help to the lowest of society. There are many factors that could come into play when dealing with the overcrowdedness of colleges, and that is just another reason why college should not be free.

Many people have different opinions on if college should be free or if college should not be free. This question should not just be based on a yes or no answer. This topic should have more thought, because sometimes people can just say no to free colleges. Education is one of the biggest factors that can or can not help the country, and some people think that college shouldn’t be free for many reasons.

Many people are on a waiting list, and sometimes it can be hard to wait for that school to get back to you. Being on a waiting list means that you are trying to finish the application, or you are waiting for the school to accept you into that school. Many colleges can put different questions on the application, to challenge the student to do the best he/she can do. It will also tell the teacher what the student can do and what he/she is talented at. These are good reasons that a free college is a good idea. It is also hard to fill out a college application and turn the application in, on time. Plus, the more you hold back the more that college might not want you to be in that college, because you didn’t turn the application in on time. Colleges have websites that the students can use. With the website, the student will need to have Some schools wait on the students to turn in the application, so the schools need to wait for the students to do the application. Again, filling out an application can be hard work and some of the questions can hard for some people and that is ok, because many schools change up their applications to challenge people to try their best. Many schools have a website that you need to put in a username and password. Then, you can start the process of getting ready for college. The end result is filling out an application is hard work and waiting on a waiting list, trying to do your application to be done, or waiting for the school to accept your application can be hard, as well. So, just try your best and everything will work out on its own.

College waiting lists are another big part of free colleges. People who have money to pay for a private college might still try to get into a free public college, and people deserving of free college (or people that can’t pay for private colleges) might not be able to get in because of the long waiting lists at some colleges.

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The Argument for Tuition-Free College

Soaring tuitions and student loan debt are placing higher education beyond the reach of many American students. It’s time to make college free and accessible to all.

by Keith Ellison

April 14, 2016

(Shutterstock)

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act into law, laying the groundwork for the largest system of publicly funded universities in the world. Some of America's greatest colleges, including the University of Minnesota, were created by federal land grants, and were known as "democracy's colleges" or "people's colleges."

But that vision of a "people's college" seems awfully remote to a growing number of American students crushed under soaring tuitions and mounting debt. One hundred and fifty years after Lincoln made his pledge, it's time to make public colleges and universities free for every American.

This idea is easier than it looks. 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 step in making college accessible again, and returning to an education system that serves every American, is addressing the student loan debt crisis.

The cost of attending a four-year college has increased by 1,122 percent since 1978 . Galloping tuition hikes have made attending college more expensive today than at any point in U.S. history. At the same time, debt from student loans has become the largest form of personal debt in America-bigger than credit card debt and auto loans. Last year, 38 million American students owed more than $1.3 trillion in student loans.

Once, a degree used to mean a brighter future for college graduates, access to the middle class, and economic stability.

Today, student loan debt increases inequality and makes it harder for low-income graduates, particularly those of color , to buy a house, open a business, and start a family.

The solution lies in federal investments to states to lower the overall cost of public colleges and universities. In exchange, states would commit to reinvesting state funds in higher education. Any public college or university that benefited from the reinvestment program would be required to limit tuition increases. This federal-state partnership would help lower tuition for all students. Schools that lowered tuition would receive additional federal grants based on the degree to which costs are lowered.

Reinvesting in higher education programs like Pell Grants and work-study would ensure that Pell and other forms of financial aid that students don't need to pay back would cover a greater portion of tuition costs for low-income students. In addition, states that participate in this partnership would ensure that low-income students who attend state colleges and universities could afford non-tuition expenses like textbooks and housing fees . This proposal is one way to ensure that no student graduates with loans to pay back.

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. A tax on financial transactions like derivatives and stock trades would cover the cost. Building a truly affordable higher education system is an investment that would pay off economically.

Eliminating student loan debt is the first step, but it's not the last. Once we ensure that student loan debt isn't a barrier to going to college, we should reframe how we think about higher education. College shouldn't just be debt free-it should be free. Period.

We all help pay for our local high schools and kindergartens, whether or not we send our kids to them. And all parents have the option of choosing public schools, even if they can afford private institutions. Free primary and secondary schooling is good for our economy, strengthens our democracy, and most importantly, is critical for our children's health and future. Educating our kids is one of our community's most important responsibilities, and it's a right that every one of us enjoys. So why not extend public schooling to higher education as well?

Some might object that average Americans should not have to pay for students from wealthy families to go to school. But certain things should be guaranteed to all Americans, poor or rich. It's not a coincidence that some of the most important social programs in our government's history have applied to all citizens, and not just to those struggling to make ends meet.

Universal programs are usually stronger and more stable over the long term, and they're less frequently targeted by budget cuts and partisan attacks. Public schools have stood the test of time-let's make sure public colleges and universities do, too.

The United States has long been committed to educating all its people, not only its elites.

This country is also the wealthiest in the history of the world. We can afford to make college an option for every American family.

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College Reality Check

10 Reasons Why College Should Not be Free and 12 Reasons Why It Should Be

Earning a college degree is synonymous with access to more job opportunities, increased earning potential and significantly higher lifetime earnings. However, going to college is also linked to exorbitant tuition costs, outrageous student debt and inaccessibility to many students from low-income backgrounds.

Many of the downsides that come with attending college can be resolved with one thing: making it free.

In this post, we will talk about some of the reasons why college should be offered free of charge as well as why it should not come for free. Since anything is possible, you will realize that some of the good things free college can bring can be negated by some of the bad things it can bring — so don’t stop reading now!

But before anything else, let’s answer this question a lot of low-income students are too shy to ask…

Does Free College Exist?

Free college is available for less than 1% of all students who get full-ride scholarships. The free college also exists in some states where there are tuition-free programs available for eligible students. As of this writing, there are around 20 states in the US that offer some type of free college.

There is one surefire way to earn a college degree cost-free: earning a full-ride scholarship.

A full-ride scholarship, simply put, covers all expenses that have something to do with college — from tuition, books to room and board. In many instances, the awardee’s living costs are covered, too.

Depending on which college or university grants it, a full-ride scholarship can sometimes amount to more than $200,000.

While it’s true that a full-ride scholarship can make earning a degree less problematic for someone who is from a low-income background, there is one problem: this type of aid can be extremely rare.

As mentioned above, less than 1% of students win full-ride scholarships per year — that’s equivalent to around 20,000 degree-seeking incoming freshmen students!

A free ride scholarship can either be need- or merit-based. Either way, one thing is true: available free-ride scholarships are very competitive. And the more selective the school that awards it, the harder it is to win a free-ride scholarship. You will have to have a certain GPA and demonstrate certain skills and competencies, among other requirements.

Besides getting your hands on a full-ride scholarship, you can also enjoy free college by attending an institution in one of the few states with tuition-free programs.

States where there are free college tuition programs for eligible students at four-year institutions include:

Indiana – Program: 21st Century Scholarship
New York – Program: Excelsior Scholarship
Washington – Program: College Bound Scholarship Washington

In the following states, there are free college tuition programs for qualified community college students:

California – Program: California College Promise Grant
Delaware – Program: Delaware Student Excellence Equals Degree (SEED) Scholarship Program
Hawaii – Program: Hawaii Promise Scholarship
Maryland – Program: Maryland Community College Promise Scholarship
Michigan – Program: Michigan Reconnect
Missouri – Program: A+ Scholarship Program
Montana – Program: Montana Promise Act
Nevada – Program: Nevada Promise Scholarship
New Jersey – Program: Community College Opportunity Grant
New Mexico – Program: Opportunity Scholarship
Oklahoma – Program: Oklahoma’s Promise
Oregon – Program: Oregon Promise
Rhode Island – Program: Rhode Island Promise Scholarship
Tennessee – Program: Tennessee Promise

And then there are also states where there are free college tuition programs but are limited by certain factors:

Arkansas – Program: Arkansas Future (ArFuture) Grant
Kentucky – Program: Work Ready Kentucky Scholarship
Kansas – Program: Kansas Promise Scholarship
Virginia – Program: G3
South Dakota – Program: Build Dakota
West Virginia – Program: West Virginia Invests Grant Program

But just because you are going to a school in one of these states doesn’t mean right away you will enjoy a tuition-free college experience .

As expected, there are certain eligibility requirements to meet. Some of them include being a resident, having a particular high school GPA and attending a certain type of institution.

Now that the fact that free college — well, in many instances, to some extent — actually exists, it’s time to dive straight into the heart of this post: reasons why college should not be not free and why it should be free.

Let’s start on a positive note…

12 Reasons Why College Should be Free

Graduating high school students who do not intend on attending college have different reasons for going straight into the workforce immediately after obtaining their high school diplomas. One of them, without any doubt, is that college is too expensive. So, by making college cost-free, chances are that they will have a change of heart.

Wondering what earning a degree would be like if college isn’t as damaging to the pocket as it is today? Below, you will come across the different reasons why it being free of charge is a great idea.

No student debt

According to data from Statista , the average federal student loan debt per borrower amounts to $37,113. On the other hand, the average private student loan debt per borrower can be as high as $40,904.

While it can be extremely challenging to graduate from college without any student loan debt, especially among low-income students, it’s possible.

As a matter of fact, as much as 38% of undergraduate students graduate without any student loan debt — of those, more than half attended associate programs and less than a third attended bachelor’s programs.

By offering college at no cost, the percentage of graduates with zero student loan debt will increase.

Because of this, employed degree holders can use much of their earnings to gear up for the education of their kids or their retirement rather than to pay off student loans for the next 20 years of their professional lives — some of those with professional degrees can take up to 45 years to repay their student loans!

Increased college enrollment

If college were free, then no graduating high school students would have to consider the cost when building a college list or deciding whether or not they will go to college — everyone would probably apply straight to their dream schools.

Prestigious colleges and universities would become more popular.

On the other hand, public ones would get more funding from the state and federal governments.

And it’s not just degree-granting institutions that could benefit — businesses and organizations would also enjoy the fact that there would be plenty of qualified individuals to hire.

But keep in mind that even if earning a degree came free of charge, it might not necessarily entice everyone to apply to colleges and universities after high school.

Skepticism for the need for higher education, availability of jobs for people whose highest educational attainment is a high school diploma, making enough money at one’s current job, having successful parents who have no degrees, the absence of an idea of what to do with one’s life — these and more can keep a person from enrolling in college.

Lower dropout rate

There are many different reasons why students drop out of college. Among all dropouts , up to 38% of them cite financial constraints as the cause — and a third of them quit college even before their sophomore year.

If you are from a low-income family, dropping out would likely be the least of your worries if college were free.

But making college free won’t necessarily keep students in school. The steep cost of college is one of the reasons why some students drop out — it’s not the only reason.

Academic stress, uncertainty of one’s chosen major , conflict with personal or work commitments, and unhappiness with the overall college experience are some other common reasons.

Higher graduation rate

Colleges and universities with the highest graduation rates tend to be the most selective and expensive. Meanwhile, those that are less selective and expensive tend to have the lowest graduation rates.

One of the most common reasons behind a college’s low graduation rate is the dissatisfaction of the students with their experience there, which can be due to making the mistake of choosing a school that isn’t the perfect fit.

And why do many students fail to attend their dream colleges?

The short answer is money.

According to the study , 40% of those who opt out of their top-choice schools cite cost as the reason.

If college were free, then you would be able to attend the college of your preference no matter the cost of attendance, thus considerably increasing your chances of graduating — a good fit college is a school that can meet your academic needs as well as keep you from being burdened financially.

Better college experience

It’s not uncommon for students from low-income backgrounds to stick to public in-state colleges and universities in order to keep the cost of earning a degree as low as possible.

While there are many highly-ranked in-state schools, limiting yourself to an institution in your state, in some instances, means making do with the programs and resources that it offers, which can keep you from having the best possible college experience that supports your various academic, social and even emotional needs.

Without having to worry about steep out-of-state tuition costs as a result of free college, there is no need to feel guilty about overburdening your parents financially when adding schools in other states to your college list.

A positive college experience is vital in order to become a well-rounded student and a competitive job applicant.

More people with double majors

It is estimated that 25% of undergraduate students are double majors. However, some colleges and universities say that 30% to 40% of their attendees are doing double majors!

There are many perks that come with double majoring.

Some of them include acquiring more skill sets, having more career opportunities and enjoying higher starting and long-term salaries. However, there are also a few cons that come with committing to two majors. And more time and more money spent in college lead the list.

With free college, however, the financial hurdle posed by a double major goes out of the window.

If college were available to students at no cost, those who wish to double major would still have to spend more semesters in school alright, but they could quit worrying about the economic aspect of it.

And if they were attending institutions that allowed students to have up to three majors at once, they could give it a go without leaving the bank in shambles.

Increased job opportunities

If college were free, more individuals would be able to apply for jobs that otherwise they would be unqualified for.

This would be especially beneficial for poor students — after all, those with a college degree are more likely to be able to climb the economic ladder than those without.

According to the Pew Research Center, kids born in the lowest income group who do not earn a four-year degree are four times more likely to end up at the bottom than those who obtain a four-year degree.

Needless to say, free college would not only solve unemployment but also economic poverty.

The Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations (UN) says that labor is often the only asset that the poor can use in order to improve their well-being. Therefore, allowing them to have the opportunity to earn a degree for free in order to qualify for available jobs can help in the attainment of poverty reduction.

Increased financial stability

Everyone knows that one of the benefits of a college degree is increased earning potential. This perk is evident from the get-go, says the 2021 Salary Survey report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

The average starting salary of degree holders shows an upward trend, based on data from the said report.

For the Class of 2020 graduates, for instance, the average starting salary was 2.5% higher than the average starting salary amounting to $53,889 for the Class of 2019 and up 8.5% from the Class of 2018’s average starting salary of $50,944.

But the perks of graduating from college salary-wise don’t begin and end with one’s initial job.

Numerous studies show that individuals with a college degree make significantly more money throughout their lifetime than those with a high school diploma only. Needless to say, it can be easy for them to attain financial stability, which is why they earn anywhere from $630,000 to $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates.

Resolved labor shortage

In 2021, over 47 million workers in the US quit their jobs. Their reasons for resigning were varied — some wanted better compensation, while others wanted a more balanced work-life ratio.

But it doesn’t mean employers can easily replace those millions of vacant job positions. While there are many job seekers, there are only a few qualified candidates.

This results in a labor shortage, which can be more complicated than it seems. During a labor shortage, it’s not just filling positions that become challenging but also retaining employees.

In order to counter this, employers may have to pay higher salaries and improve benefits.

If earning a college degree were costless, there would be a lot of qualified job seekers. Needless to say, a labor shortage could be a thing of the past. And it’s not just employees that would be happy for being able to work in fields related to their expertise but also employers for having successful businesses.

Increased government revenue (taxes)

It’s no secret that having a college degree is critical to having a high-paying job. Not all majors are created equal — some are higher-paying than the rest, such as those that allow degree holders to hold job positions in health care, engineering, information technology, finance and legal.

However, the higher the salary, the higher the income tax rate.

For the US government, the federal income tax is the largest source of revenue. As a matter of fact, in 2021, the US government collected revenue amounting to a whopping $4.05 trillion!

Cost-free college is perfect for students who can’t afford a degree today but are willing to contribute to government revenue after four to six years — on average, a college graduate pays $328,511 in lifetime taxes .

Fulfillment of right to education

According to Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has a right to education and it shall be directed to the full development of the human personality as well as to the strengthening of one’s respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

And since human rights are inherent to all human beings, no matter the race, ethnicity, language, religion, sex, age or any other status, they cannot be taken or given away.

It’s exactly because of this why the US government is funding public and state colleges.

Still, earning a degree from these institutions is, most of the time, only cheap and not entirely free. If college were free, more and more students would be able to practice their right to education, including especially low-income ones.

Better services to the citizens

As a college graduate with a high-paying job, it’s not just you and your loved ones that can benefit from your paycheck — the entire US population can benefit from it as well, believe it or not.

Money collected by the US government through federal taxes is used to shoulder the costs of the growth and upkeep of the nation. Some of the things that federal tax funds are used for include building and maintaining infrastructure as well as improving various sectors such as agriculture and public transportation.

Huge sums also go into the funding of Social Security programs, health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and pensions and benefits of government workers. Some go into the provision of emergency relief.

Being able to attend college for free allows you to obtain all the knowledge base and skill set you will need in order to land a job that pays well, contribute a larger amount of money to the US government revenue in the form of federal tax, and help provide your fellowmen with the services and benefits they need.

And now, let’s check out some of the negatives…

10 Reasons Why College Should Not be Free

The steep cost is the main reason why the majority of high school graduates who skip college would prefer to get a job than earn a degree. While having access to free college sounds like a fantastic idea, in the real world, however, there are some downsides that come with it, many of which can be quite serious and alarming.

Wondering what it would be like if college were free? Wonder no more — below are some of the things that are very much likely to happen if getting a college degree suddenly becomes free of charge.

Increased student-to-faculty ratio

There are many perks that come with attending a college with a low student-to-faculty ratio. Some of the most noteworthy ones include more individualized attention, increased social engagement within the classroom, and a better learning environment. So, in other words, it contributes to a more positive college experience.

Some colleges, such as MIT and CIT, have an incredibly low student-to-faculty ratio of 3:1 in some classes.

If college came for free, you could say goodbye to having the opportunity to experience round-table discussions — chances are that you would spend each and every class of yours in a lecture hall where it is assumed that all students learn at the same style and pace and that all teachers are able to address the academic needs of every student.

Underpopulated less prestigious colleges

Many dream of attending some of the most elite colleges and universities in the land. However, only a few actually take the necessary steps in order to make that dream come true.

One of the main reasons why many steer clear of top-notch schools is that they have steep tuition costs.

And this is why if earning a degree came cost-free, the majority of graduating high schoolers would flock to prestigious schools due to their newfound affordability, leaving less-elite ones looking like ghost towns. However, while the cost might no longer be a hurdle to overcome, the selectivity level could still intimidate some applicants.

Harder eligibility requirements

Because of the huge possibility that hoards of college-bound kids would apply to the Ivy Leagues and Ivy-like institutions if college were free, chances are that prestigious schools would end up being even more selective.

An acceptance rate of 1% might be commonplace in order to make sure that only the most deserving get admitted.

But this could also serve as an incentive for high schoolers to partake in worthwhile extracurriculars, take challenging AP classes and get high GPAs for considerably increased chances of getting an acceptance letter from competitive colleges and universities that have just amped up their admissions process.

Since money would no longer be a huge problem, many bright and talented students from low-income backgrounds might feel less apprehensive and anxious about applying to prestigious schools notorious for their high tuition rates.

Higher dropout rate

Many high school teens who dream big work hard to get high GPAs. And many college students work even harder to complete their respective programs because college is expensive — they don’t want the money that their parents or they themselves worked hard for to end up down the drain.

But if college were free, many students might lose track of the value of hard work toward a degree.

Going to college without having to pay for associated costs might make earning a degree less challenging and interesting, thus causing students to lose motivation and drop out of college — since it’s free and there’s nothing to lose but time, they could always go back to college whenever they regain the drive to become degree holders.

Lower graduation rate

The graduation rates of colleges and universities can be affected by many different factors . Some of them include family income, the age of the students, and race or ethnicity.

Failure of a school to meet the expectations of the students is another.

Besides an increase in the student-to-faculty ratio, as earlier discussed, free college could also lead to a scarcity of resources as a result of a surge in attendees, which could make the overall college experience bad.

Some students might switch colleges, which wouldn’t be a problem since college is available for free, while others might take a break from their studies.

And then there are also those that might completely quit trying to earn a degree in order to give getting a job a shot. No matter the case, free college could result in lower four- and six-year graduation rates.

Reduced value of a college degree

In the US, the percentage of individuals aged 25 years and older with at least a bachelor’s degree is 32.1%. If college came free of charge, the number of degree holders in the US would be significantly higher.

Suppose that everyone who went to college at no cost graduated and earned a degree. Then the world would be packed with adults equipped with the knowledge and skills they would need to get a job. However, companies would provide lower pay and fewer benefits since anyone who applied would be a perfect candidate.

An undergraduate degree, ultimately, might wind up being worth a little more than a high school diploma.

And as a result of this, everyone with a bachelor’s degree would have to strive to earn a graduate degree in order to stand out from the rest of the undergraduate degree-holding crowd.

Reduced job opportunities

It’s true that a college degree can open doors to many different career opportunities. However, if everyone had a degree because of free college, college graduates might cause mayhem in the job market.

Since all applicants would have a degree, which would equal the playing field, employers might end up using benchmarks other than having a college diploma for the selection of candidates to hire — it could be anything from GPAs, involvement in extracurricular activities to special abilities.

Overqualification for jobs

On the flip side, besides having fewer career opportunities, many degree holders would become overqualified for certain jobs, including especially those in fields not related to their majors.

There are many perks employers can enjoy for hiring overqualified candidates. Some of them include a broader talent pool, lower training costs, lower management requirements and faster return to full productivity.

What’s more, introducing overqualified talents can challenge employees to exceed current expectations.

However, there are some downsides, too.

For one, it’s the perfect recipe for a high turnover — overqualified individuals may get bored or frustrated and soon leave for a job they are better suited for. Other employees and the managers themselves may feel anxious for fear of being replaced. Hiring overqualified talents may also stretch the payroll budget.

So, in other words, free college could saturate the job market with overqualified individuals that no businesses or companies would like to welcome aboard for fear of the negatives associated with hiring them.

Depletion of government funds

According to the latest data , the amount of money the US government allots to the funding of public and state colleges is $189 billion. From 2017 to 2022, the annual increase in the total funding is 1.8%.

That’s how much money is needed to keep degree-granting public institutions up and running.

If the cost of earning a degree at these schools were zero, more students would apply and the government would have to allocate more money to them in order to accommodate all attendees. It’s also not unlikely for private donors to public colleges and universities to call it a day in order to avoid winding up bankrupt.

Termination of certain federal or state programs

If college were free and public and state colleges ended up jam-packed with degree-seeking students, the federal or state government might have to abort some existing or planned projects as more funding would have to be apportioned to public two or four-year institutions.

Some of the programs that could wind up on the chopping block might have a minor impact on only a certain demographic, while others might have a substantial impact on everyone across the board.

Either way, free college could prove to be a threat to the nation’s funds.

Just Before You Wish That College Were Free

Free college comes with so many different perks — from making a degree more accessible to low-income students, very little to no student debt to increased chances of financial stability.

Others can benefit, too, from the state government to the entire citizenry.

But then there are also things that can make college that’s cost-free a bad thing. For instance, it can make the overall college experience bad due to stuff such as increased student-to-faculty ratio and reduced worth of a college degree.

As one Insider article has put it, people just don’t value the things they obtain for free.

Whether you are pro or anti free college, there are free college programs available in some states for students who need them and meet eligibility requirements, too.

The good news is that students from low-income families need not wait for college to be entirely free before they decide to earn a degree.

That’s because there are numerous ways to make college affordable, and it usually starts by choosing the right institution to attend and filling out the FAFSA form and submitting it ASAP, too.

Independent Education Consultant, Editor-in-chief. I have a graduate degree in Electrical Engineering and training in College Counseling. Member of American School Counselor Association (ASCA).

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The Case Against Free College

Without an overhaul of how we understand student benefits, making college free would boost the wealth of college attendees without any egalitarian gains.

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In the United States, as in much of the rest of the world, college students receive three kinds of public benefits: tuition subsidies, living grants, and public loans. Through various combinations of this benefit troika, almost all students are able to finance their college education. Some on the left are very unhappy with the precise mix of student benefits currently on offer. Student debt activists, among others, complain that tuition subsidies and living grants make up too little of the student benefit bundle, while public loans make up too much of it.

Recently, this complaint has begun to coalesce into a number of movements and proposals for “free college.” I put the phrase in quotes because it means different things to different people. For some, “free college” means subsidizing tuition to zero. For others, it means subsidizing tuition to zero and providing living grants high enough to completely cover room and board. For still others, it appears to mean putting in place some mix of means-tested tuition subsidies, living grants, and even subsidized work-study jobs that, combined with expected parental assistance, allow nearly all students to leave college with little to no debt.

One could write at great length about these different conceptions of “free” and the policy proposals that have formed around them. For instance, since people who do not attend college also have housing and food costs, is it really correct to say room and board is a cost of attending college? Why do none of these conceptions consider as a cost of college all of the potential wages students forego by choosing to study rather than work? Does parental assistance with college really help to make it free or is it more properly understood as a family wealth transfer that students then pay towards their higher education?

Of greater importance than all of those questions, however, is the more basic question about the fairness of free college as an idea. Those clamoring for free college make normative claims about the nature of a just and good society. As currently argued, however, these claims are largely uncompelling. Without a dramatic overhaul of how we understand student benefits, making college more or entirely free would most likely boost the wealth of college attendees without securing any important egalitarian gains.

The main problem with free college is that most students come from disproportionately well-off backgrounds and already enjoy disproportionately well-off futures, which makes them relatively uncompelling targets for public transfers. At age nineteen, only around 20 percent of children from the poorest 2 percent of families in the country attend college. For the richest 2 percent of families, the same number is around 90 percent. In between these two extremes, college attendance rates climb practically straight up the income ladder: the richer your parents are, the greater the likelihood that you are in college at age nineteen. The relatively few poor kids who do attend college heavily cluster in two-year community colleges and cheaper, less selective four-year colleges, while richer kids are likely to attend more expensive four-year institutions. At public colleges (the type we’d likely make free), students from the poorest fourth of the population currently pay no net tuition at either two-year or four-year institutions, while also receiving an average of $3,080 and $2,320 respectively to offset some of their annual living expenses. Richer students currently receive much fewer tuition and living grant benefits.

Given these class-based differences in attendance levels, institutional selection, and current student benefit levels, making college free for everyone would almost certainly mean giving far more money to students from richer families than from poorer ones. Of course, providing more generous student benefits might alter these class-based skews a bit by encouraging more poor and middle-class people to go to college or to attend more expensive institutions. But even reasonably accounting for those kinds of responses, the primary result of such increased student benefit generosity would be to fill the pockets of richer students and their families.

Student benefit campaigners tend not to focus on these sorts of distributive questions, preferring instead to gesture towards a supposed student debt crisis to prove that those who attended college really are a hurting class needing higher benefits. While there are certain extreme cases of students with very high debts, and certain college sectors such as for-profits that are truly immiserating specific groups of students, the reality remains that college graduates are generally on track for much better financial outcomes than non-attendees. Even in the wake of the Great Recession, which hit young people harder than anyone else, those with bachelor’s degrees had median personal incomes $17,500 higher than young high school graduates. Just one year of this income premium would be enough to wipe out the median debt of a public four-year-college graduate, which currently stands slightly above $10,000.

Although extending extra benefits to such a disproportionately well-off group is a deeply suspicious idea, the way American student benefit campaigners talk about it is somehow worse still. Due to the toxic American mix of aversion to welfare benefits, love of individual rights, and faith in meritocracy, the typical line you hear about free college is that it should be a right of students because they have worked hard and done everything right. The implicit suggestion of such rhetoric is that students are really owed free college as the reward for not being like those less virtuous high school graduates who refuse to do what it takes to better themselves through education.

Needless to say, such thinking is extremely damaging to a broader egalitarian project, even more so in some ways than its goal of setting aside a part of our national income for the inegalitarian aim of making college free. If we are actually going to push a free college agenda, it should not be under a restrictive students’ rights banner, but instead under a general pro-welfare banner. The goal of free college should not be to help students per se , but instead to bind them to a broader welfare benefit system. By presenting their tuition subsidies and living grants as indistinguishable from benefits for the disabled, the poor, the elderly, and so on, it may be possible to encourage wealthier students to support the welfare state and to undermine students’ future claims of entitlement to the high incomes that college graduates so often receive. After all, the college income premium would only be possible through the welfare benefits to which the rest of society—including those who never went to college—has contributed.

Without understanding and presenting student benefits as welfare handouts, a free college agenda has no real egalitarian purpose. Giving extra money to a class of disproportionately well-off people without securing any reciprocal benefit to poor and working-class people who so often do not attend college, all while valorizing the college student as a virtuous person individually deserving of such benefits, would be at worst destructive, and at best, totally pointless.

Matt Bruenig is a writer who researches poverty, inequality, and welfare systems.

This article is part of Dissent’s special issue of “Arguments on the Left.” Click to read contending arguments from Tressie McMillan Cottom and Mike Konczal .

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Should Higher Education Be Free?

Vijay Govindarajan
Jatin Desai

Disruptive new models offer an alternative to expensive tuition.

In the United States, our higher education system is broken. Since 1980, we’ve seen a 400% increase in the cost of higher education, after adjustment for inflation — a higher cost escalation than any other industry, even health care. We have recently passed the trillion dollar mark in student loan debt in the United States.

Vijay Govindarajan is the Coxe Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, and faculty partner at the Silicon Valley incubator Mach 49. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. His latest book is Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future . His Harvard Business Review articles “ Engineering Reverse Innovations ” and “ Stop the Innovation Wars ” won McKinsey Awards for best article published in HBR. His HBR articles “ How GE Is Disrupting Itself ” and “ The CEO’s Role in Business Model Reinvention ” are HBR all-time top-50 bestsellers. Follow him on LinkedIn . vgovindarajan
JD Jatin Desai is co-founder and chief executive officer of The Desai Group and the author of Innovation Engine: Driving Execution for Breakthrough Results .

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College & Careers

Tuition-free college is critical to our economy

Morley Winograd and Max Lubin

November 2, 2020, 13 comments.

To rebuild America’s economy in a way that offers everyone an equal chance to get ahead, federal support for free college tuition should be a priority in any economic recovery plan in 2021.

Research shows that the private and public economic benefit of free community college tuition would outweigh the cost. That’s why half of the states in the country already have some form of free college tuition.

The Democratic Party 2020 platform calls for making two years of community college tuition free for all students with a federal/state partnership similar to the Obama administration’s 2015 plan .

It envisions a program as universal and free as K-12 education is today, with all the sustainable benefits such programs (including Social Security and Medicare) enjoy. It also calls for making four years of public college tuition free, again in partnership with states, for students from families making less than $125,000 per year.

The Republican Party didn’t adopt a platform for the 2020 election, deferring to President Trump’s policies, which among other things, stand in opposition to free college. Congressional Republicans, unlike many of their state counterparts, also have not supported free college tuition in the past.

However, it should be noted that the very first state free college tuition program was initiated in 2015 by former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican. Subsequently, such deep red states with Republican majorities in their state legislature such as West Virginia, Kentucky and Arkansas have adopted similar programs.

Establishing free college tuition benefits for more Americans would be the 21st-century equivalent of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration initiative.

That program not only created immediate work for the unemployed, but also offered skills training for nearly 8 million unskilled workers in the 1930s. Just as we did in the 20th century, by laying the foundation for our current system of universal free high school education and rewarding our World War II veterans with free college tuition to help ease their way back into the workforce, the 21st century system of higher education we build must include the opportunity to attend college tuition-free.

California already has taken big steps to make its community college system, the largest in the nation, tuition free by fully funding its California Promise grant program. But community college is not yet free to all students. Tuition costs — just more than $1,500 for a full course load — are waived for low-income students. Colleges don’t have to spend the Promise funds to cover tuition costs for other students so, at many colleges, students still have to pay tuition.

At the state’s four-year universities, about 60% of students at the California State University and the same share of in-state undergraduates at the 10-campus University of California, attend tuition-free as well, as a result of Cal grants , federal Pell grants and other forms of financial aid.

But making the CSU and UC systems tuition-free for even more students will require funding on a scale that only the federal government is capable of supporting, even if the benefit is only available to students from families that makes less than $125,000 a year.

It is estimated that even without this family income limitation, eliminating tuition for four years at all public colleges and universities for all students would cost taxpayers $79 billion a year, according to U.S. Department of Education data . Consider, however, that the federal government spent $91 billion in 2016 on policies that subsidized college attendance. At least some of that could be used to help make public higher education institutions tuition-free in partnership with the states.

Free college tuition programs have proved effective in helping mitigate the system’s current inequities by increasing college enrollment, lowering dependence on student loan debt and improving completion rates , especially among students of color and lower-income students who are often the first in their family to attend college.

In the first year of the TN Promise , community college enrollment in Tennessee increased by 24.7%, causing 4,000 more students to enroll. The percentage of Black students in that state’s community college population increased from 14% to 19% and the proportion of Hispanic students increased from 4% to 5%.

Students who attend community college tuition-free also graduate at higher rates. Tennessee’s first Promise student cohort had a 52.6% success rate compared to only a 38.9% success rate for their non-Promise peers. After two years of free college tuition, Rhode Island’s college-promise program saw its community college graduation rate triple and the graduation rate among students of color increase ninefold.

The impact on student debt is more obvious. Tennessee, for instance, saw its applications for student loans decrease by 17% in the first year of its program, with loan amounts decreasing by 12%. At the same time, Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) applications soared, with 40% of the entire nation’s increase in applications originating in that state in the first year of their Promise program.

Wage inequality by education, already dreadful before the pandemic, is getting worse. In May, the unemployment rate among workers without a high school diploma was nearly triple the rate of workers with a bachelor’s degree. No matter what Congress does to provide support to those affected by the pandemic and the ensuing recession, employment prospects for far too many people in our workforce will remain bleak after the pandemic recedes. Today, the fastest growing sectors of the economy are in health care, computers and information technology. To have a real shot at a job in those sectors, workers need a college credential of some form such as an industry-recognized skills certificate or an associate’s or bachelor’s degree.

The surest way to make the proven benefits of higher education available to everyone is to make college tuition-free for low and middle-income students at public colleges, and the federal government should help make that happen.

Morley Winograd is president of the Campaign for Free College Tuition . Max Lubin is CEO of Rise , a student-led nonprofit organization advocating for free college.

The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. Commentaries published on EdSource represent diverse viewpoints about California’s public education systems. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us .

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Genia Curtsinger 2 years ago 2 years ago

Making community college free to those who meet the admission requirements would help many people. First of all, it would make it easy for students and families, for instance; you go to college and have to pay thousands of dollars to get a college education, but if community college is free it would help so you could be saving money and get a college education for free, with no cost at all. It would make … Read More

Therefore I think people should have free education for those who meet the admission requirements.

nothing 2 years ago 2 years ago

I feel like colleges shouldn’t be completely free, but a lot more affordable for people so everyone can have a chance to have a good college education.

Jaden Wendover 2 years ago 2 years ago

I think all colleges should be free, because why would you pay to learn?

Samantha Cole 2 years ago 2 years ago

I think college should be free because there are a lot of people that want to go to college but they can’t pay for it so they don’t go and end up in jail or working as a waitress or in a convenience store. I know I want to go to college but I can’t because my family doesn’t make enough money to send me to college but my family makes too much for financial aid.

Nick Gurrs 2 years ago 2 years ago

I feel like this subject has a lot of answers, For me personally, I believe tuition and college, in general, should be free because it will help students get out of debt and not have debt, and because it will help people who are struggling in life to get a job and make a living off a job.

NO 2 years ago 2 years ago

I think college tuition should be free. A lot of adults want to go to college and finish their education but can’t partly because they can’t afford to. Some teens need to work at a young age just so they can save money for college which I feel they shouldn’t have to. If people don’t want to go to college then they just can work and go on with their lives.

Not saying my name 3 years ago 3 years ago

I think college tuition should be free because people drop out because they can’t pay the tuition to get into college and then they can’t graduate and live a good life and they won’t get a job because it says they dropped out of school. So it would be harder to get a job and if the tuition wasn’t a thing, people would live an awesome life because of this.

Brisa 3 years ago 3 years ago

I’m not understanding. Are we not agreeing that college should be free, or are we?

m 2 years ago 2 years ago

it shouldnt

Trevor Everhart 3 years ago 3 years ago

What do you mean by there is no such thing as free tuition?

Olga Snichernacs 3 years ago 3 years ago

Nice! I enjoyed reading.

Anonymous Cat 3 years ago 3 years ago

Tuition-Free: Free tuition, or sometimes tuition free is a phrase you have heard probably a good number of times. … Therefore, free tuition to put it simply is the opportunity provide to students by select universities around the world to received a degree from their institution without paying any sum of money for the teaching.

Mister B 3 years ago 3 years ago

There is no such thing as tuition free.

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Higher Education

Don’t Ruin College by Making It Free

The 2020 Democratic primary has changed the debate on higher education in the United States. When Senator Bernie Sanders first proposed making public college free during his 2016 campaign, most commentators, myself included, dismissed the idea as radical and unrealistic, along with his candidacy.

Just four years later, Sanders is a serious contender for the nomination and many of the other Democrats also propose some form of “free college.” The idea has taken hold more quickly than many expected—but will it work? My answer: yes. But not well. In fact, free college could be the fastest way to destroy precisely what makes higher education in this country exceptional. And there are better ways to achieve its goal of removing the economic barriers to college.

The appeal of free college is clear. Americans have long embraced the college degree as an important mechanism for social mobility, but the price tag has increasingly put higher education out of reach for many. Making public college free would ensure that everyone could afford this ticket to prosperity, and in that sense, would deliver a piece of the American dream. Frankly, it’s hard to argue that this would be a bad thing.

But college is already free to the lowest-income students, who benefit from generous state and federal grants, as well as private scholarships from their college or university. According to a recent Urban Institute report , around 27% of students who are currently enrolled in college do not face any cost for tuition or fees. Additional spending to make college universally free will necessarily flow to more well-off students who weren’t already benefiting from the existing means-tested programs.

Despite the drawbacks of this seemingly unprogressive approach, “universality” does also offer some distinct advantages relative to means-tested aid. First, the administration of a means-tested financial aid program is expensive, both for individual students proving their eligibility and for the government offices that exist solely to review reams of paperwork and disburse aid. Doing away with means testing could generate savings in administrative costs, which would offset at least some of the revenue lost from eliminating tuition.

Another, and less obvious, benefit of free college is that it could potentially eliminate the information barrier that currently keeps many disadvantaged students from even applying to college. Despite the fact that nearly one-third of students already attend college for “free,” many assume that higher education is out of reach. These potential college students are victims of the opaque structure of our college application and pricing system. Students considering college generally need to apply, then wait months before learning how much they’ll receive in aid. The message that “college is free” would encourage more people to apply than would have otherwise, bringing down the economic barrier to education—and that’s a good thing.

But do these benefits outweigh the tremendous cost? Many on the right worry about the economic weight of a free-college regime. It’s difficult to estimate how much it would cost, but according to Sanders , even just to replace the current revenue collected from public college tuition, we’d need to come up with $70 billion per year. The real cost would undoubtedly be higher due to increased enrollment. To put that in perspective, the same $70 billion would allow the U.S. to double our current spending on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and related programs aimed at eliminating hunger.

While the financial burden should be taken seriously, we stand to lose far more than money in implementing free college. In fact, the fiscal cost pales in comparison to the threats to quality and innovation.

In the current system, colleges operate in a market of sorts, albeit a highly regulated and subsidized one. Colleges are competing for students and the tuition dollars that come with them. As a result, we’ve seen the introduction of services like online coursework, competency-based education, which appeals to working adults, and even dramatic alternatives like coding bootcamps. The result of these changes is that higher education is more diverse than ever before. These innovations have expanded access to college to populations that weren’t served, or weren’t served well, by the traditional college model.

Some innovations, like the rise of for-profit colleges, haven’t served all students well. But we shouldn’t write off all innovation to protect against potential abuses. Better to embrace smart oversight while maintaining the incentives for colleges to innovate.

A free college regime would dampen the market forces that encouraged these innovations. The pull of “free” would divert students away from private colleges and training programs and into the public options.

Institutions in the public sector generally have less incentive to innovate because they have less to gain by improvements in quality and less to lose from falling short. For example, private colleges that don’t deliver for their students will have to close their doors. That’s a risk that public colleges just don’t face. The public colleges thus don’t have the same need to think of new ways to deliver education more effectively or efficiently. Sure, some public colleges consolidate campuses, and others innovate (think of Arizona State University), but those are exceptions.

Even the most generous free college regime couldn’t avoid these problems, because they are not a question of funding. The shift in incentives inherent in a public takeover would necessarily threaten innovation and quality.

Just because free college would cause more harm than good, though, doesn’t mean the status quo is the best way forward. The status quo was designed to deliver the most aid to the neediest students. That’s hard to beat—but there is room for improvement.

Tuition isn’t the only, or even the most important, barrier to enrollment for low-income students. The rest of life’s expenses—food, clothing, housing, transportation—for oneself, and often a family, are what stand in the way between many young people and a degree. For them, free college isn’t enough. Rather than make college free for all, those funds should be spent to offset these non-tuition costs for the poorest students through expanded Pell Grants, the federal need-based grant program.

For those worried about the growing burden of student debt, a subtle change in that same program could be a game-changer. By moving grant eligibility up earlier in the course of college enrollment, we could substantially reduce the risk of attending college. Those who struggle most with unaffordable student loans are those who take on debt but don’t achieve a degree. By moving grant-based support into the early years of college, we would allow students at all income levels to try college with less financial risk.

Simply adding more money won’t eliminate the information barrier that stands between many low-income students and college enrollment. A better idea would be to automate the process of federal financial aid so that grant awards and loan eligibility can be retrieved from a website, perhaps hosted by the IRS, at any time. This might require some tweaks in how eligibility is determined, but would be worth the cost to ensure that every potential college student understands exactly what they can expect to spend on a degree. Some students would be surprised to find that “free college” has been true for them all along.

Yes, free college would work, insofar as it would make college free. While this has its merits, its laudable goals are ultimately outweighed by the harm it would do to higher education in the U.S. We should aim to reduce the economic barriers to college while maintaining the market structure that drives the quality and innovation that make our system exceptional.

Beth Akers is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and co-author of Game of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student Debt .

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Those Who Preach Free Speech Need to Practice It

Too many leaders, on campus and in government, are failing to uphold the First Amendment rights they claim to champion.

A photo of student protesters facing off against riot police.

Updated at 9:35 a.m. ET on April 30, 2024

Say you’re a college senior, just a few weeks from graduation. For as long as you can remember—even back in high school, before you set foot on campus—older people have talked about free speech. More specifically, older people have talked about free speech and you : whether your generation understands it, whether you believe in it, whether you can handle it.

After watching some of those same people order crackdowns on campus protests over the past few days, you might have a few questions for them.

Last week, from New York to Texas, cops stormed college campuses clad in riot gear. They weren’t there to confront active shooters, thank goodness, or answer bomb threats. Instead, they were there to conduct mass arrests of students protesting the war in Gaza.

As the legal director of a First Amendment advocacy nonprofit, I teach students across the country that the government can’t silence speakers because of their beliefs, even—and perhaps especially—if those beliefs are unpopular or cause offense. That’s a foundational principle of free-speech law. But many of the crackdowns appear to be a direct reaction to the protesters’ views about Israel.

After sending a phalanx of state law-enforcement officers into the University of Texas at Austin campus, for example, Governor Greg Abbott announced on X that students “joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled.”

Erwin Chemerinsky: No one has a right to protest in my home

But no First Amendment exception exists for “hate-filled” speech. And for good reason: In our pluralistic democracy, everyone has their own subjective idea of what, if any, speech is too “hateful” to hear, making an objective definition impossible. And empowering the government to draw that line will inevitably silence dissent.

At UT, the officers arrested scores of protesters for “ trespassing .” But the students don’t appear to have violated school rules. And you can’t trespass on a place where you have the right to be, as students at the public universities they attend clearly do. Even a cameraman for a local news station was tackled and arrested . The next day, the Travis County attorney’s office dropped all of the trespassing charges for lack of probable cause—a telling indicator of the disturbingly authoritarian response. (Shockingly, the cameraman does face a felony charge , for allegedly assaulting a police officer—an allegation difficult to square with video of his arrest.) The government can’t throw Americans in jail for exercising their First Amendment right to peaceful protest.

Governor Abbott’s illiberal show of force has no place in a free country. It’s especially galling given the governor’s previous posture as a stalwart defender of campus free speech: In June 2019, he signed a law prohibiting Texas’s public colleges and universities from shutting down campus speakers because of their ideology. So much for that.

Governor Abbott isn’t alone. During her congressional testimony earlier this month, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik pledged investigations of students and faculty who voiced allegedly anti-Semitic criticism of Israel and Zionism, and agreed—on the fly—to remove a professor from his position as a committee chair because of his speech.

Michael Powell: The unreality of Columbia’s ‘liberated zone’

Columbia is a private institution, so it isn’t bound by the First Amendment. But the university promises freedom of expression to its students and faculty—and Shafik’s willingness to sacrifice faculty and student rights to appease hostile members of Congress betrays those promises.

If such things had happened only at UT and Columbia, that would be bad enough—but the problem is spreading. At Emory University, in Atlanta, police officers reportedly used tear gas and Tasers against protesters. State troopers with rifles directed toward protesters stood watch on a rooftop at Ohio State University. At Indiana University, administrators rushed out a last-minute, overnight policy change to justify a similar show of force from law enforcement, resulting in 34 arrests. It’s hard to keep up.

Students nationwide are watching how the adults who professed to care about free speech are responding under pressure. And they are learning that those adults don’t really mean what they say about the First Amendment. That’s a dangerous lesson. Our schools and universities could still teach the country a better one.

“Free Speech 101” starts here: The First Amendment protects an enormous amount of speech, including speech that some, many, perhaps most Americans would find deeply offensive. You may not like pro-Palestine speech; you may not like pro-Israel speech. You may think some of it veers into bigotry. The answer is to ignore it, mock it, debate it, even counterprotest it. But don’t call in the SWAT team.

George Packer: The campus-left occupation that broke higher education

Granted, free speech is not without carefully designated exceptions, and these exceptions are important but narrow. True threats and intimidation, properly defined, are not protected by the First Amendment. Neither is discriminatory harassment. Violence is never protected.

And public universities can maintain reasonable “time, place, and manner” restrictions on speech. That means, for example, that for the authorities to place a ban on playing heavily amplified sound right outside the dorms at 2 a.m. likely does not violate the First Amendment. A prohibition on camping overnight in the quad probably doesn’t either. And taking over a campus building, as Columbia students did early this morning , is not protected.

But the enforcement of these rules must be evenhanded and proportionate. The use of force should be a last resort. Students must be given clear notice about what conduct crosses a line. And any student facing punishment for an alleged infringement should receive a fair hearing. Consistency counts. Our leaders—in government, in university administration—must demonstrate their commitment to free expression in both word and deed.

Students are protesting on campuses nationwide, and they’re watching the reaction of university presidents and elected officials closely. The current moment presents a generational challenge: Do older people and people in authority really mean what they say about the First Amendment? Do they believe in free speech—and can they handle it? Right now, too many leaders are failing the test.

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David French

Colleges Have Gone off the Deep End. There Is a Way Out.

A dozen tents surrounded by students sitting on the ground on the quad at Columbia University; one sign reads, “Welcome to the People’s University for Palestine.”

By David French

Opinion Columnist

I had my head in a law book when I heard the drums. That was the sound of the first campus protest I ever experienced. I’d come to Harvard Law School in the fall of 1991 as a graduate of a small, very conservative Christian college in Nashville. Many of my college classmates had passionate religious and political commitments, but street protest was utterly alien to the Christian culture of the school. We were rule followers, and public protest looked a bit too much like anarchy for our tastes.

But Harvard was different. The law school was every bit as progressive as my college was conservative, and protest was part of the fabric of student life, especially then. This is the era when a writer for GQ magazine, John Sedgwick, called the law school “ Beirut on the Charles ” because it was torn apart by disputes over race and sex. There were days when campus protests were festive, almost celebratory. There were other days when the campus was seething with rage and fury.

That first protest was in support of faculty diversity, and it was relatively benign. I walked outside and followed the sound of the drums. A group of roughly 100 protesters was marching in front of the law school library, and soon they were joined by an allied group of similar size from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. I watched as they danced, sang and listened to speeches by student activists and sympathetic professors. That first protest had an angry edge, but it was also completely peaceful and endlessly fascinating to a kid from a small town in Kentucky who’d never seen a drum circle before.

But things soon got worse, much worse. Protests got more unruly, and student activists got more aggressive. The entire campus was in a state of conflict. In Sedgwick’s words, students were “waging holy war on one another.” Small groups of students occupied administrative offices, and angry activists shouted down their political opponents in class and often attempted to intimidate them outside class. I was shouted down repeatedly, and twice I received disturbing handwritten notes in my campus mailbox in response to my anti-abortion advocacy. My student peers told me to “go die.”

Watching the protests and experiencing the shout-downs changed the course of my career. I was both enthralled by the power of protest and repulsed by the efforts to silence dissenters. Given the immense cultural influence of American higher education, I agreed with the Supreme Court’s famous words in the 1957 case Sweezy v. New Hampshire : “Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise, our civilization will stagnate and die.” Those words, combined with my own negative encounters at Harvard, helped define my legal career. From that point forward, I would defend free speech.

It’s been more than 30 years since that first campus protest, and over that time I’ve seen countless protests, I’ve defended countless protesters — and I’ve even been protested against at several schools. In the course of those cases and confrontations, I’ve learned that the issue of campus protest is remarkably complex and that campus culture is at least as important as law and policy in setting the boundaries of debate.

There is profound confusion on campus right now around the distinctions among free speech, civil disobedience and lawlessness. At the same time, some schools also seem confused about their fundamental academic mission. Does the university believe it should be neutral toward campus activism — protecting it as an exercise of the students’ constitutional rights and academic freedoms but not cooperating with student activists to advance shared goals — or does it incorporate activism as part of the educational process itself, including by coordinating with the protesters and encouraging their activism?

The simplest way of outlining the ideal university policy toward protest is to say that it should protect free speech, respect civil disobedience and uphold the rule of law. That means universities should protect the rights of students and faculty members on a viewpoint-neutral basis, and they should endeavor to make sure that every member of the campus community has the same access to campus facilities and resources.

That also means showing no favoritism among competing ideological groups in access to classrooms, in the imposition of campus penalties and in access to educational opportunities. All groups should have equal rights to engage in the full range of protected speech, including by engaging in rhetoric that’s hateful to express and painful to hear. Public chants like “Globalize the intifada” may be repugnant to many ears, but they’re clearly protected by the First Amendment at public universities and by policies protecting free speech and academic freedom at most private universities.

Still, reasonable time, place and manner restrictions are indispensable in this context. Time, place and manner restrictions are content-neutral legal rules that enable a diverse community to share the same space and enjoy equal rights.

Noise limits can protect the ability of students to study and sleep. Restricting the amount of time any one group can demonstrate on the limited open spaces on campus permits other groups to use the same space. If one group is permitted to occupy a quad indefinitely, for example, then that action by necessity excludes other organizations from the same ground. In that sense, indefinitely occupying a university quad isn’t simply a form of expression; it also functions as a form of exclusion. Put most simply, student groups should be able to take turns using public spaces, for an equal amount of time and during a roughly similar portion of the day.

Civil disobedience is distinct from First Amendment-protected speech. It involves both breaking an unjust law and accepting the consequences. There is a long and honorable history of civil disobedience in the United States, but true civil disobedience ultimately honors and respects the rule of law. In a 1965 appearance on “Meet the Press,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the principle perfectly: “When one breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust, he must do it openly, he must do it cheerfully, he must do it lovingly, he must do it civilly — not uncivilly — and he must do it with a willingness to accept the penalty.”

But what we’re seeing on a number of campuses isn’t free expression, nor is it civil disobedience. It’s outright lawlessness. No matter the frustration of campus activists or their desire to be heard, true civil disobedience shouldn’t violate the rights of others. Indefinitely occupying a quad violates the rights of other speakers to use the same space. Relentless, loud protest violates the rights of students to sleep or study in peace. And when protests become truly threatening or intimidating, they can violate the civil rights of other students, especially if those students are targeted on the basis of their race, sex, color or national origin.

The result of lawlessness is chaos and injustice. Other students can’t speak. Other students can’t learn. Teachers and administrators can’t do their jobs.

In my experience as a litigator , campus chaos is frequently the result of a specific campus culture. Administrators and faculty members will often abandon any pretense of institutional neutrality and either cooperate with their most intense activist students or impose double standards that grant favored constituencies extraordinary privileges. For many administrators, the very idea of neutrality is repugnant. It represents a form of complicity in injustice that they simply can’t and won’t stomach. So they nurture and support one side. They scorn the opposition, adopting a de facto posture that says , “To my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”

I’ve experienced this firsthand. I vividly remember representing a campus Christian group in a dispute at Tufts University in 2000 . The group had been derecognized for requiring that student leaders of their group share that group’s traditional sexual ethic, which reserves sex for heterosexual marriage. You might disagree strongly with that view, but granting religious groups the flexibility to impose faith-based requirements on religious leaders fits squarely within the American tradition of free exercise of religion.

Tufts is a private university, so it has some flexibility in suppressing religious expression on campus, but it had no excuse for attempting to toss a Christian group from campus at the same time that it permitted acts of intimidation against those Christian students. For example, at the most contentious moment of the dispute, Tufts officials prevented my student clients and me from entering the hearing room where their appeal was being heard, while a crowd of protesters gathered in a darkened hallway, pressed up around us and herded us into a corner of the hall. There was no campus outrage at this act of intimidation. We saw no administrative response.

University complicity in chaos isn’t unusual. In a case I worked on when I was president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, we discovered that administrators at Washington State University’s Pullman campus had actually helped plan a disruptive protest against a play put on by a student director, an intentionally provocative show that mocked virtually every group on campus.

University or faculty participation in unlawful protest isn’t confined to the cases I worked on. At Oberlin College, administrative facilitation of ugly and defamatory student protests outside a local business ultimately cost the school $36 million in damages. At Columbia, hundreds of sympathetic faculty members staged their own protest in support of the student encampment on the quad, and there are reports that other faculty members have attempted to block members of the media from access to the student encampment.

None of this is new. All of it creates a culture of impunity for the most radical students. Disruptive protesters are rarely disciplined, or they get mere slaps on the wrist. They’re hailed as heroes by many of their professors. Administrators look the other way as protesters pitch their tents on the quad — despite clear violations of university policy. Then, days later, the same administrators look at the tent city on campus, wring their hands, and ask, “How did this spiral out of control?”

There is a better way . When universities can actually recognize and enforce the distinctions among free speech, civil disobedience and lawlessness, they can protect both the right of students to protest and the rights of students to study and learn in peace.

In March a small band of pro-Palestinian students at Vanderbilt University in Nashville pushed past a security guard so aggressively that they injured him , walked into a university facility that was closed to protest and briefly occupied the building. The university had provided ample space for protest, and both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students had been speaking and protesting peacefully on campus since Oct. 7.

But these students weren’t engaged in free speech. Nor were they engaged in true civil disobedience. Civil disobedience does not include assault, and within hours the university shut them down. Three students were arrested in the assault on the security guard, and one was arrested on charges of vandalism. More than 20 students were subjected to university discipline, three were expelled , and one was suspended.

The message was clear: Every student can protest, but protest has to be peaceful and lawful. In taking this action, Vanderbilt was empowered by its posture of institutional neutrality . It does not take sides in matters of public dispute. Its fundamental role is to maintain a forum for speech, not to set the terms of the debate and certainly not to permit one side to break reasonable rules that protect education and safety on campus.

Vanderbilt is not alone in its commitment to neutrality. The University of Chicago has long adhered to the Kalven principles , a statement of university neutrality articulated in 1967 by a committee led by one of the most respected legal scholars of the last century, Harry Kalven Jr. At their heart, the Kalven principles articulate the view that “the instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. It is, to go back once again to the classic phrase, a community of scholars.”

Contrast Vanderbilt’s precise response with the opposing extremes. In response to the chaos at Columbia, the school is finishing the semester with hybrid classes, pushing thousands of students online. The University of Southern California canceled its main stage commencement ceremony , claiming that the need for additional safety measures made the ceremony impractical. At both schools the inability to guarantee safety and order has diminished the educational experience of their students.

While U.S.C. and Columbia capitulate, other schools have taken an excessively draconian approach. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas posted on X, “Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled.” On April 25 the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sent a forceful letter to the president of the University of Texas at Austin condemning the display of force on campus. “U.T. Austin,” it wrote, “at the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott, appears to have pre-emptively banned peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters due solely to their views rather than for any actionable misconduct.”

At Emory University, footage emerged of police tackling a female professor who posed no obvious danger to the police or anyone else. Protests are almost always tense, and there is often no easy way to physically remove protesters from campus, but the video footage of the confrontation with the professor was shocking. It’s hard to conceive of a justification for the violent police response.

At this moment, one has the impression that university presidents at several universities are simply hanging on, hoping against hope that they can manage the crisis well enough to survive the school year and close the dorms and praying that passions cool over the summer.

That is a vain hope. There is no indication that the war in Gaza — or certainly the region — will be over by the fall. It’s quite possible that Israel will be engaged in full-scale war on its northern border against Hezbollah. And the United States will be in the midst of a presidential election that could be every bit as contentious as the 2020 contest.

But the summer does give space for a reboot. It allows universities to declare unequivocally that they will protect free speech, respect peaceful civil disobedience and uphold the rule of law by protecting the campus community from violence and chaos. Universities should not protect students from hurtful ideas, but they must protect their ability to peacefully live and learn in a community of scholars. There is no other viable alternative.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation .” You can follow him on Threads ( @davidfrenchjag ).

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Why College Should not Be Free:: [Essay Example], 1365 words
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