College Should Be Free For Everyone In the US She Said – I Agree Albeit for a Different Reason

Not long ago, I was having a conversation with a neo-liberal left-leaning friend who actually denies being a socialist, but voted for Obama twice and would vote for him again for a third term if that were allowed. She suggested that college ought to be free for every American. It is in some countries you know. For instance, Ireland had that program for a while and then lowered its corporate tax rate and the amount of FDI, Foreign Direct Investment, soared and their economy flourished. Surely, a decent example indeed, only one problem with that as my liberal left-leaning friend didn’t really understand the economic situation there.

Namely, when you get government out of the way of business, lower corporate taxes and less bureaucracy, that’s when companies flourish. Did the educated workforce help? Yes, quite a bit, but it wouldn’t have without the other free-market mechanism of lowering the cost to do business and getting the government out of the corporations’ deep pockets. I wish to nix that example of hers and alert my friend to a different dilemma in the US, that is if the US was to ever guarantee free tuition and college to every high school graduate.

My friend wants everyone to have access to upper end education and says that “College should be free for everyone in the US,” and personally I think college ought to be free. Why you ask would a conservative think tank man say that? Well, it’s simple really so let me explain. You see, our current situation in academia is to brain wash the students in socialist venues, and neo-liberal left-leaning thinking in my opinion. Why should our students have to pay to be brain washed and told only one side of the economic theory, the worst side in my opinion?

They shouldn’t and it isn’t worth $50,000 for a bachelors liberal arts degree, nor should colleges charge that much, nor can those student be guaranteed gainful employment once they graduate thus, able to pay off those student loans. We know this based on the 35% default rates of student loans now (over 90-days in the rears). This is why interest rates for tuition must be doubled to help pay for all those future bad loans. College tuition ought to be valued and priced at what it’s worth, and if it isn’t worth anything, then it ought to be free.

Okay so, at least on the price point – my left-leaning friend and I can not agree.

What say you?

Please consider all this and think on it, pass it on if it makes sense to you or if you’d like to debate these academia realities further.