POINT FOR :

Individuals have a right to equal opportunity in

order to maximize their personal utility, and to
break free from the social strata in which they are
born.
In order to guarantee equality of opportunity for all
citizens the state must acknowledge the right to
university education and to the opportunities such
education provides. University education gives individuals
many opportunities that will serve them enormously in
later life. It does so by providing opportunities to people
while they are in university and opens doors for them
once they leave. When people are attending college they
have the ability to gain exceedingly useful information
that they can employ in a future career. Likewise, the
people an individual meets while in university can be very
advantageous in later life; as a networking opportunity,
university has no equal. The advantages of attending
university likewise extend to life after university,
particularly in terms of career opportunities. The
employment prospects created by a university degree are
substantial, and many lines of work are only available to
university graduates. People are even hired with degrees
not specific to the job they will do, because the degree
itself, not the subject studied, is viewed as a signal of an
individuals intellectual and professional quality. Without a
university degree many paths are permanently denied.
Access to the careers and beneficial connections
furnished by university education should not be the

province of the wealthy and privileged alone. True merit

should define the ability to attend university, not the
accident of birth. With the institution of fees, access
becomes more difficult, and will certainly lead to lower
attendance by poorer groups, as the opportunity cost of
attendance is increased by higher prices of education.
This serves to lock people into the economic strata
whence they were born and raised, as getting out is much
more difficult when denied access to most highincome jobs. With free higher education, people have the
ability to improve their own future utility, irrespective of
their present economic standing.
There is no fundamental right to a university education; it
is a service, and people should pay for it, not freeload on
the taxpayer. Rights exist to provide people with the
necessities of life. Some people may never have the
opportunity, ie. wealth, to visit Hawaii, yet that is not
unfair and the state should not be expected to fund every
citizens tropical vacation. Yet even in the presence of
fees, access to scholarships and loans make it possible
for people from disadvantaged economic backgrounds to
find their way into university. In this way there is a degree
of equality of opportunity in so far as those who are able
are afforded the opportunities financial incapacity would
deny them. If people want to take advantage of the
networking opportunities available in university and the
employment benefits available to graduates, then they
may pay for it.
POINT AGAINST :

The quality of education suffers when university

education is free.
Without university fees, universities become dependent
on the state for funding. The problem with this is that the
states aim is to increase university attendance levels for
the sake of political gain, while at the same time striving
not to increase spending on the universities. The result is
an increase in attendance, without commensurate
increase in funding from the state. This leads to larger
class-sizes and less spending per student[1].
Furthermore, these problems result in disconnected
lecturers who, due to increased class sizes, cannot
connect to their students or offer more than cursory
assistance to struggling pupils. The decline in teaching
quality is further exacerbated by their need to focus less
on teaching and more on research, which is more
profitable and thus encouraged by cash-strapped
universities. With fees, on the other hand, the quality of
universities increases for three reasons. First, funding
improves, as university may charge in accordance with
need rather than with making do with whatever the state
gives them to fund teaching. The result is a consistent
quality in education resources rather than it being
dependent upon what the state happens to give
universities, and on how many students it pushes to be
accepted. Second, quality of teaching is improved.
Because a university wants people to attend and to pay
fees, the programs and degrees they offer have to be
good signals of quality. Universities thus stay in business

only so long as they remain purveyors of high quality

educational goods. They must thus let in smart people,
irrespective of their financial background, which will in
part serve to admit and finance capable people from
disadvantaged backgrounds through targeted financial
aid programs. Third, the average quality of students
attending university will improve. This is because
students feel they need to get the most from their
investment in education, which can be quite substantial.
They will thus be more attentive and more interested in
doing well. An example of higher quality education
stemming from fee-paying higher education systems is
that of the United States, which has twenty of the top fifty
ranked universities in the world[2]. Quality is clearly
improved when university is not free.
State funding of higher education is actually beneficial to
universities. It allows universities to get on with their
research and teaching without worrying about competing
and spending money on getting students to attend. The
money wasted in pursuit of high numbers of students is
thus saved, as the state can tend to the needs of
universities.[1] The idea that the state will simply neglect
its universities is silly, because society relies on having
capable professionals whose qualifications have value. It
is always in the interest of the state to promote the
success of its institutions of higher learning.
ITS A RIGHT , NOT A PRIVILIGE .
How can we deny a higher education to any young person
in this country just because she or he cant afford it ?

In the US , higher education is seen as privilege and not

alright , but not everyone has that privilege and with the
way higher education costs now , less and less people will
bw able to go. Sure theres aid , but its not enough to
cover the rising costs without putting students into an
insane amount of debt . Theres only a limited amount of
money one can take out without having the extra stress
in their lives , and not everyone can get their parents to
help take out loans .
EQUALITY.There is also a powerful argurment that
university education should be free to ensure the equality
of opportunity . If students have tonpay for university
education , this may dissuade them . In theory , students
could take out loans or work part-tine , but this may be
sufficient to discourage students from studying and
instead may enter the job market earlier .
Education in most of Europe is already ver different from
what it is in the US , Canada or Australia . In several
countries from the old continent ( most notably
Scandinavian countries- Sweden , Norway , and
Denmark ) education has been free for several years ,
and other countries are starting to follow suite . Germany
is the first ( in hopefully a long list of countries ) to
completely remove university tuition fees.

Tertiary education :
education, following secondary education at a
school, at a college or university

should be made free :

be done without cost or payment
for all students :
for all who formally engaged in learning especially
one enrolled in a school or college
tertiary education should be made free for all
students :