College in America is far too expensive. This is not news to anyone who has gone to college or knows someone who has gone to college in recent years. College is supposed to be a place where people can go to get educated about a field in which they are passionate about. Not a ransom held over your head with the promise of a “good job” later in life.
Yes, there are other options such as a trade school, but I find this recent push to be suspicious. Trade jobs and skilled labor stand currently as an industry in which someone can expect a good living wage, but what do you think is going to happen when we flood this labor market with a huge influx of supply for this kind of labor? Wages will go down as employers realize that they can just hire someone else if you won’t take the job. We will always need this labor, but it is not a societal replacement for college education.
Education is a right. As a right it should be afforded to everyone who seeks it. Not just those with the privilege to afford it. The only thing that should decide whether or not someone can go and finish college should be their motivation and drive to succeed.
I encourage you to view any situation in which someone is not able to receive the education they want due to financial issues as a tragedy. We owe it to ourselves as a society and as individuals to give everyone the best opportunities possible. Besides, we already pay for 12 years of subsidized education. Why would we draw the line at the two to four years after that where people get to really specialize and focus on what they truly want to do?
We agree that education is good. Education benefits society. The more people who are educated, the more a society can grow. Why would we not want to make sure that all of our members are as educated as they can be in the topics they find fascinating? Truly beautiful things come around when people are passionate about something. Art, literature, science, mathematics, all of these were brought about and advanced because people cared a lot about their projects and they grew from there.
We owe it to ourselves to make sure everyone in this country has the opportunity to find what drives them. Education is a right. Not a privilege. And higher education should be regarded the same way.