People say college is one of the best experiences in life, but how does it feel if someone can’t afford to go? Are people missing out on higher paying jobs and are work forces missing out on good employment due to the cost someone might not be able to pay?

Most prestigious colleges are pricey schools to attend.

Unless a student has some type of scholarship or unless they have a great sum of money, chances are they won’t be attending that college.

Students, if they want to go to college, are often required to pay account-busting amounts of money. This is because tax money doesn’t cover the whole cost of college expenses (like it does for public elementary, middle, and high schools). If colleges were to be free, then people would need to pay more in taxes to cover a higher sum of the expenses colleges require.

Is this fair, though? There are many high school students who want to have the opportunity to go to college, but some don’t have enough money to attend.

With the necessary grades or test scores, all students should be allowed the opportunity to attend the college they desire.

In an article by Kelly Dilworth, she states that by making colleges free, students get the chance to find better jobs and obtain higher incomes in contrast to the available jobs coming right out of high school.

This is an immensely true statement because when students come out of high school, they’re usually working at a fast food restaurant because they don’t have experience or knowledge to work anywhere else that requires a stronger skill-set. It’s not impossible for one to succeed at a higher job, but it is more difficult.

In a different article by University of the People (a non-profit and tuition free program that gives every student, who doesn’t have the choice otherwise, the opportunity for a higher education), the article makes a claim about how free colleges would create more opportunities for the workforce. It mentions how jobs are being taken over by computers. Having more people work in the actual work field could reduce mechanical errors machines might make.

This is another great explanation of why colleges should be free. When Covid happened, people lost many jobs, but when Covid started to come to an end, companies were struggling to find workers to fill their unfilled job positions. This could be due to the fact that some people just didn’t want to work, or this could be due to the fact that people didn’t know how or what to do in the higher industry fields because they never went to college to learn how to do it.

During Covid as well, companies tried to rely on robots, but robots, even though they’re greatly intelligent, can malfunction and make mistakes.

If colleges could at least lower their income rate, then that would give students who don’t have a crazy amount of money a chance to achieve what they want to do through college: increased opportunity to find the job they want as well as the job that pays more.