Free College Education Is Still Idealism In the United States

Free high education tuition, is somehow idealism before for people who live outside Europe. The idea of the article by Chau Vu (April 5, 2019) sounds like a spring rainstorm that thunder and lighting come over, rain approaches together and is staying for a while, in the brain. Fortunately, it seems turned to be a real trend, has started in some small areas, that Americans may expect. Following the brainstorm, how will it be going, is it really blooming over the United States like happening in other countries such as in Europe? What do the American people need to know, and what do they really do for free high education?

According to valuecolleges.com, there are over 40 countries around the world offering free post-secondary education so far, and 10 countries of them offer free or almost free of cost for international students, according to scoopwhoop.com. As people have learned, those European countries do so for all students equally, regardless of family income level. However, the first program in New York offers free tuition at public colleges only to families making up to $125,000 annually. That is not the model, as most people think, for other states to follow.

Despite whatever the policies are, the "free tuition" has to be a relative term base on the fact that all the free tuition cost are absorbed by the taxpayers. In European countries, people pay higher taxes than that in the United States, which allows those countries to offer more social services than the United States. While tax as a percent of GDP is about 27.1% in the United States, it is about 37.5% in Germany, for instance, according to the preliminary 2017 data, Mish Talk.

Another substantive difference is the college enrollment percentages, it is much lower in Europe than in the United States. Which means a lower percentage of college students in the European countries population take advantage of free tuition policy; obviously, it works well then and could be a successful model. If the United States was going to follow the footsteps of European countries in this way, to finance a free college education to every student, like Germany, by increasing tax, the additional tax can be calculated as 10.4% of the income for each family, if it is assumed the college enrollment rates are about the same level in the two countries.

It is true that eliminating financial stress will help students with low income to get degrees if free tuition is the means for encouraging people to seek high education. On the contrary, the universities will be overcrowded, hardly maintain the quality of teaching, and provide adequate studying support for each student under the current campus circumstance and enrollment policy. The adjustment approach might have to be lower enrollment, that any family or student would not like. As a result, the number of college students will be decreased, as well as the number of graduators with a degree. This will completely deviate from the original intention of free education. At the same time, the taxpayers are unfairly forced to pay off the tax gap, no matter how many kids they have or if they have any kids go to college.

To sum up, it is still not appropriate to introduce free college education over the current United States. The program in New York is a chance to test how it works, how people react, and should it be continued. At the same time, we should take an eye on the countries who are already doing that, such as Germany, whose people are interestingly divided into two groups about free education after the last few German universities went tuition-free, one group advocate reimposing tuition, while another group prefers to keep it. Let us wait.