Why I think free college tuition will never work

As a college student, Bernie Sanders’ plan to make college tuition free seems very enjoyable to me. Even though our school is very affordable, sometimes I wish I had nothing to pay.

Bernie Sanders hopes to make this a reality for everyone. What he has not acknowledged in his speeches much, however, are the downsides to this proposal.

I think making college free would be a very joyful act, but there are problems that could make this proposal impossible to implement. First of all, making college free would put us into even more debt. This is because the funds from college tuition go to the state directly. At the University of Maryland, the money we pay will go to the state of Maryland.

If tuition was free, however, the states would become in debt as they would not have any way to make millions of dollars to supplement this deficit. Although students would love a free college experience, our nation would keep growing in debt and this seems unrealistic.

States are already having trouble funding higher education even with the price tag that they put on students. If we made college free, states would have to cut many programs that we may take for granted. I would not be able to be a part of the many publications and clubs that I am a part of with free college.

The countries with most of their population being college educated have colleges that you need to pay for. This includes the United States, South Korea and Canada.

Brazil, which has free college, is ranked at the bottom of this tally with only 15 percent of their population having a college education. Even though college is very expensive, many find the cost worth it and choose to pursue higher education with the price tag.

“I think it’ll take years to implement policies that support free tuition and it would be hard to pass them but I think something should be done [to force] the government to control tuition prices,” said UMD student Lindsay Gray.

States would have to provide the same benefits that neighboring states do. Students and their parents would demand the same benefits that other people are getting. This can cause a lot of pressure on state legislators and create conflict within your state.

“I’m not sure if the United States could handle the difference in the taxes that free tuition would require,” said student Nicole Lach.

Additionally, free college would not be actually free. You would not pay tuition, but you would spend loads of money on certain things that you need to survive in college. This includes food, clothes, laundry supplies, sorority or fraternity dues and much more. So although your paycheck would not go towards tuition, you would still have to pay money to survive so it would not in fact be free.

There are many more problems why college cannot be free. These reasons are the most important to me, however, and I do not see free college as a possibility. Although I would love for this to be a law, it seems very unlikely to me.