The Problem of Free Education - Essay Example

Objective claims are claims that may be true or false. One objective application is the increased price of college tuition. The author states that the tuition cost is high and has soared from $1, 405 in 1971 to $19, 548 today. This statement is true based on factors such as increased taxes that have made the education needs expensive to meet. On the other hand, the subjective claims used in this article cannot be proven true or false. A subjective claim is when the author states that free tuition cannot possibly be free. We do not know if this is true or false because the author says that it is difficult for an electoral mandate to make the costs of college education to vanish.

• Identification and Description of Assumptions and Determining Whether they are Justifiable.

According to this article, a fundamental assumption is that introducing free college education will encourage people to waste it. This is evident in society because no product is valued if it is given away for free. This assumption justifies the modern society that does not value free things. Through this assumption, free tuition will make the college students unmotivated, and that will spend their time elsewhere, leading to poor class attendance and performance in the higher learning institutions. Therefore, this assumption shows that the students and stakeholders in higher education will not fully commit to their roles in higher learning because it will be free.

• Most Important Value Conflict in the Article.

The article presents the value of a conflict, which is free-tuition vs. paid tuition. I believe that the author prefers the need to stick to funded education rather than adopting free tuition. The value of free tuition in higher learning is that students from lower backgrounds will access more educational benefits. On the other hand, the opposition of free tuition believes that it will lead to increased costs, encouraging the students to waste it. Even though free education will mean that students from lower-income backgrounds will meet their education goals, the author believes that it will be a wrong move because it will lead to higher education costs. The students will not be serious with higher education expectations.

• How Assumptions Shape Point of View

In the article, assumptions have been used to shape the point of view. Firstly, the author states that 20 out of 22 economists surveyed judged the proposal as a bad idea (Para 5). This assumption has been used to prove that the introduction of free higher education will lead to a costly college education. This decision to introduce free tuition will not help cut down the costs because the cost of education has soared over the years at an increase of 1, 300 % since 1971. Another assumption to propose this decision is that if free tuition is introduced, more than 80% of the American families in the higher learning sector will benefit from this move.

• Articles Point of View and Other Perspectives

The article’s point of view is that there is no such thing as free education. Introducing free education is like a promise to stick someone else with the tab, which will make college education more expensive. The author also states that free tuition will encourage people to waste it, leading to failure of the decision. The other perspectives are that introducing free tuition will enhance the ability of the lower-income earners to afford education. It will also lead to better living standards of the students because of increased employment opportunities. Therefore, I believe that the author is single-minded and does not extensively discuss the two sides of the issue presented in the article.