Sterling Gates

11/18

Part l
Should we use Tuition free College to decrease student debt?
I have come to a point in my life where college is more relevant than ever, and
everything now counts and its very serious. It should have been more relevant earlier, but now
is when I have finally cared for my own personal benefit. My current job is a place where all my
coworkers are in college, and with college may come student loans. Right now, my knowledge
of student loans is slim, almost nonexistent. From what I know, student loans are something you
pay during/after college, and most everyone who goes to college pays for them. I set many
goals for myself, and my goal for college is to at least go, but being burdened with debt
afterwards frightens me. There are many ways to fix this, and a recurring topic is the idea of
tuition free college. Some see this idea as a revolutionary idea, allowing people to go to college
eliminating student debt afterwards. Others believe that tuition free colleges won't fix the
problem and that there is another way. My current belief is that tuition free would eliminate a lot
of the student debt in America, even though student loans could still be used for rooming and
other college necessities.
Student loans come up a lot in most everyone lives at one point, and I work with many
college students who are paying student loans. According to Isidewith.com, it's almost a 50/50
opinion on if student loans should be paid or if we should increase taxes so college is free. As of
2016 the interest on student loans are 3%-7%, causing a lot of students to go into debt not just
during college but rolling into their future/future career. This has lead some people to believe
that college isnt even worth going to. I disagree with that because college can be a gateway to
new people, opportunities and careers, both during and outside of school. I personally am
willing to pay student loans(even not knowing the full extent of which), but there are a lot of
students who are incapable of paying for student loans. My bias currently is somewhat
contradictory, because how can we lower college debt if we don't have people paying for it?
When I go to college, I dont want my dream to be unachievable just because I go into debt
because of student loans, and I know I am not the only one who feels this way.
Student Loans have have gotten to a point where the monthly payment is around can be
over $300. Many students don't have a stable job to pay these off, and some cant even begin to
pay off these loans because of existing debt. One of my coworkers goes to college, has 2 jobs
and works hard every day. She wants to go to graduate school and already has thousands of
dollars in student loans. A lot of students have very different situations: some have more classes
that require more work, some may have family situations that require some needed attention,
and some might not even have a job to begin paying off these loan. These obstacles make
paying student loans a whole lot harder. Student loans can lead new graduates into a spiral of
debt if they cant keep up. I have no personal experience with student loans yet, but since they
have/ are going to affect the people around me, and possibly put them at a place where they
aren't able to do what they went to college for, then this would make me sad. I believe that there
should be a way to fix college debt and bring millennials out of student debt. How this is
achievable I don't know, but my stance on this issue is that there are people who are paying
student loans but not able to pay for anything else, leading them to make choices that can
inevitably lead them to debt.
I have been taught my whole life that going to college will enable me to get a career that
I want for the rest of my life. This never really meant alot to me until recently, when I learned
what I enjoy doing most and what I can spend hours researching and learning more. If I am able

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to pursue a career where I can learn more of what I will, that I will without a doubt go for it. But if
there is a chance that after learning everything I need to what I love that I cant because of
being in debt, than that is not okay. I do not believe that to be okay for any college millennial,
and this is frankly killing the American Dream.

Part ll
Tuition free can fix college debt
College debt plagues the lives of many college students, both during and after college. A
study done in 2012 showed that 71% of millennials graduated college with some form of debt1.
Many politicians, such as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have begun to take action to end
this debt and make college affordable and worth going to. Bernie Sanders believe that if we
create free tuition for Colleges and Universities that this will benefit our workforce and prevent
debt for our graduating students. Free college tuition would not only benefit our society, but also
our higher education as a whole, allowing students to graduate and pursue careers that they
want to pursue.
How it has affected Graduates:
College tuition is a strong way to eliminate the student debt in America, allowing
graduates to pursue careers after college. As of now, 44.2 million students are in some form of
debt and there is a total of 1.26 trillion dollars in total US student debt. 7 of out ten college
students are now graduating with some form of debt. In the state of colorado alone the average
debt is $25,8401. A study done by the research Agency TNS said that 59 percent of those
polled have no idea when they will be able to pay back their student debt. Some millennials
even went so far to say that they regret taking out as many loans as they did, but a third took it
a step further, saying they wouldn't have attended college at all had they known the extent of
the costs in advance.2 These are the students that stayed in college. For those who left, their
debt is even worse than those who graduated. As of 2016, the student delinquency(In this
context, delinquency means a student is late on paying their debt) rate is 11.1%, nearly double
of what it was during the early 2000s. This should also be another incentive for us to take action
on student debt. Eliminating college tuition would enable students to be able to focus on only
paying for supplies they need for college and living expenses, severely decreasing college debt.
How we can stop College debt
Bernie Sanders has been known during our 2016 campaign to be a huge advocate for
college without tuition. He argues that colleges worldwide are already/are going to change to
tuition free college, and that we could greatly benefit from doing so. Bernie Sanders plan to
make college for all was to impose tax on wall street to create enough money to decrease
student debt and create tuition free colleges and universities. There are many different plans to
decrease student debt that many politicians have argued about, but Bernie Sanders has been
the first advocate for Tuition free college. Specific to college debt, Bernie Sanders step 5 to his
plan is to Allow Students to use need-based Financial Aid and Work study programs To make

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college Debt free.3 He says in this step that low income students would be able to use state,
college, and financial aid to help cover expenses for room and board, allowing college to be
debt free. The Bernie Sanders plan is highly focused on creating a more educated populous,
and having tuition free college would allow people who typically wouldnt go to college enabled
to do so, thus creating ideas and plans that we may not currently have.
Will it work?
Many skeptics believe that having tuition free college is not going to solve the problem
college debt, but having less to pay back will allow a future generation to not have to spend
years paying off so much tax. Bernie sanders plan had steps to ensure both tuition free and
elimination of debt after college, but even eliminating thousands of dollars of tuition could
significantly decrease student debt. A big problem people see with this plan is how are we going
to pay for it? Again, in the bernie sanders plan he says that by imposing a tax of $75 million
dollars on wall street that we can make colleges in America tuition free. High taxes are already
being placed on countries with colleges who are tuition free. The average total tax wage for
major european countries in 2014 was 10% higher than the United States total tax wage.
Having an increased tax has been shown to work well in other countries to help pay for a
lessened even tuition free college.
Tuition free college is not a radical idea, and has worked well in many different countries.
Having this implemented into our colleges would allow many new graduating students to fulfill
the careers that they went to college for, not having to worry about debt. Tuition free college will
allow our country to recede the tide of college debt we have, allowing more people to save more
money. This will also enable our higher education system, allowing us to create a better
educated populace.

Part lll
Tuition Free is not the Way
In spite of being a happy dandy idea, tuition free college is not the way to solve college
debt. Many people argue that Europe has tuition free colleges and they are doing fine. The fact
is that Colleges in Europe are not the same sort of colleges that we have in the United States,
and there are still colleges in Europe that have tuition they just are not the same prices as they
are in America. College debt needs to be fixed, but allowing tuition free college would be
benefiting the higher class rather than the lower. Too many students are going into debt
because of insane amounts of loans. Instead of having tuition free colleges, a new solution
should be sought out to make college effective and still pursuable by all.

What colleges actually look like in europe

There is a popular belief that colleges in Europe are tuition free. While this is true(to an
extent), they arent the same sort of colleges that we have in the United States. In European
colleges there is a campus, no fancy gyms, sport stadiums, and no cafeteria. There is just the

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11/18
campus where you learn. An article written by Allison Schrager, an Author from Quartz, said
When I went to college in the late 1990s in Scotland, there were no fancy gyms or spectacular
student unions. Campus was where you went to class and your life and activities happened offcampus. The American college offers a more intense community experience. That may confer
some social benefit, but it is not without a cost. Colleges in America wish to create a community
within a community, having facilities where people can learn, play sports, eat, hang out, and
various activities you can do outside of school. Colleges in Europe are there to learn and only
learn.
There are still colleges in Europe who do have tuition, it is just very lower than the tuition
we have here in the United States. There is a long list of differences between European and
American colleges, but just because countries are beginning to make their colleges tuition free
does not mean that American colleges should follow suit. There are many different aspects that
us Americans have to look at when deciding how to fix our debt, such as the money we need to
fix this and if people will actually take time to fix this. Just because Tuition free colleges works
for one country, it wont guarantee work for another, and we do not know if it will work for ours.
Before jumping head first into this, we should try a different route more personalized to our
needs and affordability.
Why tuition free isnt the way and What are other alternatives?
Right now, it is estimated that the government will make $110 billion dollars off of student
loans over the next ten years. For a country wanting to decrease student debt this is not helping
in the slightest. With student debt still on the rise, a new solution is needed now more than ever.
The traditional conservative way to solve this to let students be able to take out loans from a
private banks, eliminating the government to give the loans. Jake Herrera from Stanford
university said Republicans want to move toward the way things used to be. In the past,
borrowers could get student loans from the federal government or from private banks. When
banks provided loans to students, the government would subsidize the banks to provide the
loans. Allowing students to take money out of private banks will enable the government
subsidize their loans, making it easier to pay off. This form of student loans was stopped the
obama administration wanted to create a more equal system. Many republicans now want to
open the private banking, making tuition more competitive2. This is an example of minimizing
student debt other than Tuition free college.
There are many different ways to tackle the issue of student debt. One way, proposed by
Maggie Mcgrath, a Forbes Staff member, argues in her article The Best Way To Fix The
Student Debt Crisis (And It's Not Free Tuition) is to decrease the amount a student has to pay
and extend the amount of time they have to pay it off. She said that making college tuition free
will not solve the student debt crisis because even if a student had free tuition, they might still
have to borrow small sums for living expenses. What's more, none of the free-tuition proposals
apply to for-profit or private colleges, where borrowing is high. The Bernie Sanders plan only
affects public colleges and universities, and while only tuition is being taken away the expenses
of living are still relevant. This article then continues to say that elongating the time a student
has to pay off their loans will better benefit the students and decrease debt.

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It should be well known the other alternatives of fixing student debt, rather than just
always resorting to making colleges tuition free is the way. Although it is a great idea to begin
with, the reality of colleges in the United States being tuition free is unrealistic. In all hindsight,
college cant be free because there will always be something to pay for, whether it be a new
building, living expenses, or funding, a higher education should be paid for for the benefit of our
society as a whole.
Sources
Redd, Luke. "Should College Be Free? Pros, Cons, and Alternatives." Should College Be Free? Pros,
Cons, and Alternatives. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
Quora. "Senator Tim Kaine on the College Debt Crisis." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d.
Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
"U.S. Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2016 | Student Loan Hero." Student Loan Hero. N.p., n.d. Web. 06
Dec. 2016.
Mulhere, Kaitlin. "Will the Democrats' Free College Tuition Plan Really Work?" Time. Time, 26 July 2016.
Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
Kasperkevic, Jana. "College Affordability in 2016: Debt-free v Tuition-free, Explained." Millennial Finance.
Guardian News and Media, 11 Aug. 2015. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
Ellison, Keith. "The Argument for Tuition-Free College." The American Prospect. N.p., 14 Apr. 2016. Web.
06 Dec. 2016.
@TCFdotorg. "Graph: Why Student Loan Delinquency Is Still So High." The Century Foundation. N.p., 05
Oct. 2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
Jackson, Abby. "'Free' College in Europe Isn't Really Free." Business Insider. Business Insider, 06 Mar.
2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
McGrath, Maggie. Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 7 Jan. 2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
Anderson, Ellen. "Pros and Cons of Tuition-Free College - College Raptor Blog." College Raptor Blog.
N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
Mosendz, Polly. "Majority of Millennials Have 'No Idea' When Student Loans Will Be Paid Off."
Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 7 Apr. 2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.