The topic of free education, or at least free tuition, continues to float around the country. I believe, and I am sure most people would agree, that the price of tuition is grossly overpriced. Many teens and young adults do not even have the thought of attending college due to the cost. Others in the middle class leave college with an exorbitant amount of student debt that could take decades to pay off. We have seen that free education in other countries works, yet would a similar system be able to function in this country? I believe every country should strive to have an educated citizenry, and every individual the opportunity to educate oneself. Higher education should be free while attending college to promote economic prosperity and individual awareness, but we should adopt a system of income-driven repayment that would offer a practical solution to this complicated question. 

Australia is a country with a very realistic form of free education that the United States could model after. Although higher education is not free in Australia, it is free while attending tertiary school. Through the Higher Education Loan Program, also known as HELP, the government will pay up to the entire cost of a student’s higher education if necessary. This allows students to attend college with out any financial burdens that may inhibit an aspiring student from attending college or distress a current student actively enrolled in post-secondary school. Australia also utilizes a sensible approach in the repayment of their loans. After young adults graduate from tertiary school, they generally move into the work force. An individual can start repaying his debt through a taxation system that takes a percentage of one’s income if his or her “income is above the compulsory repayment threshold,” which caps off at eight percent (www.studyassist.gov.au). Many young Australians cannot obtain a high-income job at the beginning of their careers, and the Australian government does not punish these graduates for that. According to the Australian governmental website Study Assist, if the income of an individual is less than $55,847, or about $42,812 in the U.S., the individual is exempt from repaying their loan due to their current economic state. This frees up young adults to perhaps take a lower-paying job in a field that interests them. Granted, the tuition in Australia is much lower than that of the United States, and for students to pay back the government in a reasonable amount of time, tuition in America must come down. Still, Australia’s system benefits middle and lower class families, which are often times the families in America paralyzed by exorbitant student loans. 

Student debt detracts from economic prosperity. One could ask whether Australia’s loan program is just another form of debt, and in a sense, you would be correct. One thing about student debt in America, unlike that of the loan program in Australia though, is that if a young adult does not have the income to pay back his or her student loan, the debt remains ever present —and may even grow due to interest. According to The Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit working to make higher education more affordable, the average student debt at graduation was $30,100 per borrower as of 2016. With debt like this, young adults struggle with becoming working and integral members of society. This is not to say that young adults are not important to the country, but student debt holds back these individuals from making big life decisions such as buying a home or a car, traveling, or starting a family. Graduates must postpone significant life choices that often times benefit the economy. If the majority of the population participated in higher education and could exit their school without student debt, or perhaps a streamlined and easy repayment process, perhaps the United States could see a stronger economy. 

Moreover, we have the money to pay for our students’ tuition. The U.S. Senator from Vermont, and 2016 presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders is widely known for his stance on free tuition. Whether as a country we decide to make tuition free, or implement a repayment system, the United States has money to allocate toward education. One area the government can pull from is the military budget, which in 2015 amounted to $598.5 billion—according to the National Priorities Project. This leaves us with a difficult question: “What do we value more in the United States?” What if instead of our country being known for our large military, we are known for our great education system? We have the ability to foster a more educated citizenry that could articulate their beliefs and opinions on voting for the next president for example, yet we choose not to. Through Sanders’s College for All Act, he estimated that the act would cost $70 billion annually. The federal government would provide $47 billion while the states covered the remaining cost. The decision to remove only $47 billion from an already enormous military budget seems like a reasonable one. The likely advantages of an educated and prosperous society seem far greater than the drawbacks of a potentially smaller military. 

Universal education improves the life of the individual. In the works “3 Reasons College Still Matters” and “Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers,” both authors, Andrew Delbanco and Scott Samuelson, reference the idea of a “liberal education.” The term comes from the ancient Greeks and Romans during a time when only wealthy, free men received an education. In present day, where the inability to afford tuition is one of the main reasons one would not attend college, the meaning of the term “liberal education” has changed. Now, a “liberal education” can set a man free. Attending a college can allow for upward social mobility, but also a greater sense of oneself. College is supposed to open one up to new ideas, new cultures, and alternative ways of thinking. College allows for discussion, debate, and hopefully, a more objective mindset of the world. David Foster Wallace, in a commencement speech to Kenyon College, talks about a “close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up” (par. 5). Without an education, a person is subject to a way of thinking that is limited and narrow. A college student learns how “to be well-adjusted” and decides “what has meaning and what doesn’t” whereas someone with out a liberal education may have total certitude that comes from the lack of exposure to new ideas. More simply, an educated individual becomes self-determining. 

As free tuition continues to be a fairly appealing proposition, and I agree could prove advantageous for our country, I ask that we evaluate what may work best for the United States. Whether free tuition outright would be best or an income-driven repayment system, there may be no correct answer. However, maybe a system like a repayment plan could offer a compromise between the bipartisan split in this country. This could reach a middle ground for those that argue students will not value their education because they are not paying for it. This system is not exclusive to Australia either. Many other countries implement the same method, including New Zealand, England, Wales, and South Africa to name a few. Even the U.S. has a repayment method. However, our method is highly complicated and often times made unavailable to many students. For this method to work, the system needs simplification and every student the opportunity to apply for this system. Hopefully, as a result, we can elevate our citizenry on an individual and societal level.