Bernie Sanders has stirred college students with talk of making higher education free and debt-free, modeling his ideas after the education systems implemented in European countries, such as Denmark. As I myself am a college student who benefits from significant financial aid at a college with a generous policy, of course, I supported this plan, hoping it would make others as lucky as I am. However, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Denmark last semester and discovered some complicating factors I had not previously considered. While I still agree that higher education should be accessible and the steep cost of higher education is a major hindrance to those who desire it, these complications do give me pause in supporting Senator Sanders' plans.

At first glance, Denmark seems quite utopian in terms of education. Not only is higher education free, but students get a stipend to cover outside costs. But how is the money used? A Copenhagen University professor told me she occasionally has students whose parents are less than supportive of their education choices, so the stipend allows them to move away and follow their own path. Obviously, a major plus there. But are all Danish students using their stipend well? No. There are more than enough who waste it the same way American students would: drinking, partying, etc.

No one -- yet -- is seriously talking about instituting a student stipend in America, as we have a long way to go before that's remotely realistic here. So let's look at a comparison within the classroom. As far as I can tell, on average, American students take their education far more seriously. The Copenhagen professor told me it's quite typical for Danish students to not care if they pass their courses the first time or not, as they are not paying for their education and it is typical for Danes to spend many extra years in college, even more if you include years taken off to explore other opportunities. When she spent a year teaching in the US, she was amazed at how much more seriously students took their education. She noticed this, too, when her own children were in the public school system in California, saying their peers and teachers here influenced them to take education far more seriously than they had while in Denmark and actually seemed to enjoy classes more. I personally noticed this as well with the Danes I encountered. I talked with a Danish student who was spending a few weeks on a vacation in New York with three other university friends in the middle of the school year, completely unworried about what effect missing courses might have. While there are plenty of students who ditch classes in America, it may come down to price again, as a UC Merced research study showed that parental aid often correlated with a decrease in GPA.

So maybe it is paying for college that makes American students, particularly those who personally take on the financial burden, take their education more seriously, as some Danes working in education suggested to me. But I think that it's also very possible it's something earlier than that. Everywhere you look in Denmark, there's evidence of Danish homogeneity. This goes beyond looks and religion, a matter of their culture putting pressure on "sameness". To stand out as exceptional is highly frowned upon, even reprimanded. Contrast that to America's obsession with being the best, student rankings and Dean's Lists. While free education and student stipends certainly enable risky behavior towards one's education, perhaps the true problem is not in that as some critical Danes suggest, but rather simply a result of fearing success and not feeling that their hard work would be appreciated.

So that leaves us with a few questions: Could a free education lead to the devaluing of education in America? Is education a "right" that ought to be free, and if so, would that sense of entitlement to education decrease academic success and interest in higher education? I don't have the answers to this, and there might never be a way of knowing other than actually implementing free education. But it's certainly something to keep in mind next time you're at a Bernie Sanders rally.