Free University Education Will Not Be Good
Do you think the tuition of the university is expensive? According to the data from Intake Education in 2021, the average tuition of America public university is from ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars per year, and in Australia the average tuition per year is about from twenty-nine thousand to fifty thousand Australian dollars, which is equal to about four hundred forty-two thousand NT dollars. As the amount of university tuition seems quite expensive, should the government provide free university tuition? In my opinion, university education should not be free for a number of reasons, the value of university certification, the tax problem, and the authentic function of university.
First of all, the value of university certification would decrease and impact the balance on the job market. Free university education might attract lots of people to get enrolled, causing the overly high amount of university graduates. Try to imagine that all of the twenty-two-years-old adults own university diplomas, would those diplomas be convincible for companies to hire them while they have no distinct advantages to the other candidates? It is possible that the more people are certified with university education, the less valuable the diploma will be. There will be an inflation on its value in the job market. Thus, the excess amount of university graduates that is derived from the free university may lead to the decline of the certification value, and make the job market imbalance.
Secondly, free university education cannot really help low-income households due to the tax. If the government wants to promote free university education, it must pay for it with the budget. Besides, to provide free university education is not only about the tuition, but the expenditure to maintain the education quality and the facility when more students are enrolled. However, the government’s budget come from the tax that people paid. As long as the government increases the budget due to free university education, people will be imposed on more tax. The purpose of low-income people getting into university is to live a better live, but not to be imposed with more taxes. How could they improve their life under a worsen economy circumstances? Therefore, it is highly possible that free university education fails to make low-income households live better, and we should not let university be free if we aim to give them a help.
Some people may argue that university education could help form a more prosperous society. However, primary education, like the elementary school, is actually the key to a better society. According to the book《Social Function of Educational Institution》(2000), written by a Taiwanese sociologist, Xie,Gao-Qiao, the function of elementary school is to spread the new information and value, and to accelerate the social changes, while the university is to research and develop new knowledge. Obviously, the main intention of the university is to do research, not to change the society. Thus, free higher education should not be the hope of improving the society, and the best strategy to live a better society is to enhance the elementary school education.
To sum up, university education should not be free since it will lead to some problems. It not only affects the job market in a negative way, but levies more taxes on the citizens. As to the function of the university, there must be a more efficient method to change the society other than having free university education, such as improving elementary school. As a result, university education should not be free since it provides few advantages.
Sources
“Australia Cost Fees - TW.” Intake, 17 Sept. 2021, https://intake.education/tw/study-abroad/cost-australia.
教育部 . “教育百科: 教育雲線上字典.” 首頁 - 教育百科, https://pedia.cloud.edu.tw/Entry/Detail/?title=%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E5%88%B6%E5%BA%A6%E7%9A%84%E7%A4%BE%E6%9C%83%E5%8A%9F%E8%83%BD.