Negative Effects Of Free College Tuition
College/university is an opportunity to learn about adulthood and responsibility. It is also a time to learn about personal financial management and budgeting as an important part of education. Making post-secondary education free will be a good thing that everyone wants, but it comes with more negative effects than positive. In this paper I am going to be analyzing the negative effects of free tuition in the post-secondary education level. I will be arguing this view from the perspective of a Primer. Some of the points I will be using to argue against free tuition includes: student loan defaults increase, completion rates decrease, determination among college students will decrease, private colleges will suffer enrollment declines and financial hardships, tax increase for tax payers, free college will not help solve crippling student loan debt.
According to statistics Canada, Post-secondary education is defined as any education whose highest level of educational achievement is beyond high school including a trade certificate, apprenticeship or diploma. A college education is an example of a post-secondary education.
Completion rate will decrease or may increases. When you think about it, if as a student, you put your own money on the line for education or almost anything, you will tend to take your education or whatever you are investing in more seriously. You will be less likely to skip classes when you realize how much each class actually cost you. And you feel the impact when you fail, which gives you the chance to seat up and plan better. As enrollment rates in public schools increases, so do the fees needed to keep this schools functioning and also need for more teachers and class supplies. More money would be required for these functions, or waitlist would have to be created to accommodate students when there is space or more resources. This could result in federal or provincial taxes for education-related purposes to go up, or funding for other things such as military expenses might be diverted to pay the increase. In addition, because public post-secondary schools are now tuition free, a large number of graduates might create an overflow of workers in some workforce areas, leaving gradates to work jobs they are overqualified for.
Universities lean on tuition fees for revenue but when universities become free, they lean on taxpayer’s money and the government for support. If universities rely more on government than students for funding, a lot of schools will close down due to insufficient monetary support. Free tuition for post-secondary education will increase taxes for the rich and probably middle-class tax payers. Long term this would be become too expensive for the federal and provincial governments to maintain. As a result, Canadians may have to start paying much higher taxes. And that could affect the economy since rich people might start spending less or invest back to the economy.
If post-secondary tuition were to be free College student determination and success may decrease. Free college has the potential to weaken determination. Currently, the University of Manitoba charges tuition for a repeated course. When students are faced with challenging and difficult classes, some students will realize they are in danger of failing and withdraw from that class early enough or wait till VW when they don’t get the money back. Once tuition becomes free, there will be an increased abuse of withdrawing from classes. After all, the financial incentive to finish what you start has been removed and the financial burden is covered by the government and tax payers.
Private colleges will definitely suffer enrollment decrease and financial difficulties because when Public colleges and universities become tuition free, they will have to expand their waitlist to accommodate students while the level of enrolments and registrations from private school will start to decline because more people will prefer to go for a tuition free college rather than racking up student debts or financial destabilization when they graduate from private schools. If all post-secondary and university institutions were made tuition free, we could see the decline of private vs public schools. Since these schools depend on tuition, grants, and donations for a significant amount of their funding, competing with free post-secondary schools could force many private schools to close. This would reduce the amounts of job opportunities for professors and could result in the closure of courses or programs offered in private schools.
Student loan defaults increase: Canadian students in postsecondary education get financial support from a wide variety of sources including employment income, family support, scholarships, grants and loans from government and other private sources. Many students lack better financial planning or knowledge on how to take care of debts and can end up behind payments in student debts. College is the start of many learning experiences, one of which is learning how to create a budget and can save money. College loans are typically the primary financial dealing that students deal with. Paying them off in a timely manner proves you know how to budget your money; skills people use again and again when buying cars or houses which are usually large purchases financed over time. Without having to pay for school, that experience of expenditure budgeting may not exist, which might be trouble down the road for buying that house or car because of the lack of experience paying for things on their own.
Free college will not help solve student loan debt. As much tuition adds a significant amount of debt for students’ other things factors into those debts such as their living expenses as well as books and supplies. So, they wouldn't get to leave school completely debt-free.
