Do you think college should be free to anyone who wants to go....or is it something that everyone interested should be willing to pay for?

Marc™ wrote:

Do you think college should be free to anyone who wants to go....or is it something that everyone interested should be willing to pay for?

Yes I think it should be free to anyone that wants to go. Maybe just pay for your books.

It should be Damn near free. Grad school is the one I can see you shelling out big bucks for.

i honestly believe that 4yrs colleges should be free. All we have to do is cut the forgeign aid we give out, the welfare that we give to former Presidents, and prevent politicians such as mccain from collecting his va disability, plus social securty, and his pension all at once!

That would be great if it were free.

Nah, I don't think it should be free, but it should be a fraction of the stratospheric costs they are now. Let tuition pay for property taxes (which I don't think they should pay), school staff, and supplies/equipment (to some extent) and that's it.

It cannot possibly be free. SOMEBODY will have to pay for it. I know people like to think that if we make it free, rich people will end up paying for it. Not gonna happen. The only thing making it free will do is make all of us pay for it (regardless of whether or not we use the college), and also make the college education quality start matching those of public school. Is college supposed to be just an extension of High School?

Also, we know that colleges will have to teach very specific curriculum if they are going to get the money to give students free admission. So discrimination will be practiced.

Are college costs too high? HELL YEAH! WHY? Because colleges no longer have to earn business. We've turned a privilege into a right and anytime we attempt to do that, we screw it up. Government aid has driven up the cost of college like crazy. Everytime we pour more money into education, the quality of education seems to go DOWN! Throwing money at it is not the problem.

So NO! College SHOULD not be free, because it CAN not be free. And heck, why make it free? I've seen students drop classes just because they apparently got bored. They don't do the work. They come in late if the teacher allows it. They basically are just enjoying free rides into college and not really taking it seriously. And we want to give these students all of this for FREE? Maybe if they had to pay for it, they'd take it a bit more seriously. If we want college costs to go down, we have to start making it where the college has to work for OUR business. They gotta give me a reason to come to them. But that's never gonna happen because we've turned college into some right. We've turned going and listening to some teacher yammer on about Buddhism for 3 hours into qualifications for jobs with no connection to the subject. WE have driven college costs up. It's our fault. Making college free would 100% destroy college.

Forgiveness Man wrote:

It cannot possibly be free. SOMEBODY will have to pay for it. I know people like to think that if we make it free, rich people will end up paying for it. Not gonna happen. The only thing making it free will do is make all of us pay for it (regardless of whether or not we use the college), and also make the college education quality start matching those of public school. Is college supposed to be just an extension of High School?

Also, we know that colleges will have to teach very specific curriculum if they are going to get the money to give students free admission. So discrimination will be practiced.

Are college costs too high? HELL YEAH! WHY? Because colleges no longer have to earn business. We've turned a privilege into a right and anytime we attempt to do that, we screw it up. Government aid has driven up the cost of college like crazy. Everytime we pour more money into education, the quality of education seems to go DOWN! Throwing money at it is not the problem.

So NO! College SHOULD not be free, because it CAN not be free. And heck, why make it free? I've seen students drop classes just because they apparently got bored. They don't do the work. They come in late if the teacher allows it. They basically are just enjoying free rides into college and not really taking it seriously. And we want to give these students all of this for FREE? Maybe if they had to pay for it, they'd take it a bit more seriously. If we want college costs to go down, we have to start making it where the college has to work for OUR business. They gotta give me a reason to come to them. But that's never gonna happen because we've turned college into some right. We've turned going and listening to some teacher yammer on about Buddhism for 3 hours into qualifications for jobs with no connection to the subject. WE have driven college costs up. It's our fault. Making college free would 100% destroy college.

I actually agree. I'm all for reducing tuition fees, but free college would put the institution out of business because people too easily drop in and out.