By TYLER BUSHEY
Contributing Writer
Without a doubt, many college students tuned into the Democratic debate this past Tuesday, and youth involvement in politics is on the rise. More so today than ever before, candidates spend much of their time in early voting states, courting the votes of politically active youth.
While growing interest in politics is certainly a positive influence on any republic, the accompanying factors are proving themselves to be anything but.
With the rising power of media and growing influence of political panderers in our nation, we are giving rise to an age of ignorance where the common voter doesn’t understand the real-world costs associated with the modern politician’s trove of socialized goodies.
At the first Democratic primary debate this past Tuesday, spectacular phrases such as “debt free” and “tuition free” were thrown about the stage in an obvious attempt to pander to the Democratic base. The growing tendency of powerful left-wingers to indulge their base with fantasies of free anything is important to discuss.
Unbeknownst to most college students, the term “free” is a misnomer.
The idea suggested by the word “free” is that the items described by it are of no cost, but this is simply not the case. Apart from the chanting and clapping encouraged by such bombastic speech, there is a real cost Americans can not feasibly pay.
Free college tuition is an increasingly terrible idea when regarded in any light outside of the flashy “it works for Europe” line.
The hand-out my peers are hooting, hollering, and posting on social media about is nothing more than a cheap illusion used by politicians to court our votes without solving any real problem. The United States not only owes too much money for this to be viewed as an intelligent choice of policy, but the consequences outside of financial costs are too severe for this to even be of consideration.
The United States currently owes nearly $18.5 trillion in publicly-held debt, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the Congressional Budget Office reports that the nation runs a slowly declining deficit of roughly $400 billion.
Now imagine each citizen was forced to pay an equal share of the U.S. debt. Every man, woman, and child would owe a whopping $60,000 to foreign bodies. A quick glance at my wallet reminds me that I personally lack the funds, and I assume many, if not all, of my peers do as well.
If we tighten the parameters and force only taxpayers to contribute, the number rises to a very scary $150,000. If the common American owed such a sum to the IRS, without a doubt they’d be doing practically everything short of breaking down your door to collect.
Those in favor of “free” tuition at the community college level argue that the cost is a mere $6 billion “well spent.” I myself digress.
First and foremost, spending outside one’s means is unacceptable in private life, and shouldn’t be tolerated in government. Not a single dollar more should be spent annually until the deficit has reached zero and the public debt has begun to decline.
Furthermore, why should we spend $6 billion on community college when four of five attendees don’t even make their way all the way through? You could estimate that 80 percent of that money would annually go to waste on students who don’t even push their way through programs.
Another issue is that many in the labor market today argue that workers lack diversity in training, and can’t fill current opening in many fields. The $6 billion does nothing to address quality concerns at the community college level, and goes to waste on a form of education that can be paid for nationwide on average through a full-time summer low-skill job, or a part-time job during the year.
Higher-level institutions have a higher success rate, and the chief complaint here is affordability.
A look at history, however, tells us that a government subsidy may not be the solution here. The Affordable Care Act, G.I. Bill, and other medical subsidies have driven up costs of care and insurance premiums.
Private organizations have a lot of leeway when it comes to fighting for government money coming through these subsidies. The only way to prevent this would be with artificial caps on tuition, or on its percentage growth, which would allow the government backdoor entry in to regulating schooling at all levels.
The present danger there is shown through a brief glance back at the establishments we’ve all visited in the past- high schools.
In high schools across the nation, government involvement has driven up costs, limited competition between districts to succeed, and shown us how the poor implementation of standards can harm learning environments.
Similar standards and government involvement could have an extremely negative impact on the way in which college courses are taught, and how much of our tuition is paid for. Free tuition is an underhanded way for bureaucrats to pick up and retool the college educator’s playbook.
The plans paying for our schooling don’t even make much economic sense, apart from their ridiculous costs. The economy doesn’t need this now.
Twenty of the 30 fields projected by the U.S. Department of labor to see the most growth nationwide by 2022 don’t require much beyond a secondary education, if anything. Many of these fields are middle skill work, and aside from this growth, companies are partnering to offer specialized career training that doesn’t require higher-level education. The career-attainment rates for these programs surpass that of some of the most well respected degree programs.
The American Bar Association posted only a 57 percent job attainment rate, as opposed to the rates of these programs ranging anywhere from 63-99 percent attainment.
Making college tuition free also expands on a problem that occurred with high-school diplomas around the time high-school education became publicly operated and widespread.
When the percent of attainment for graduate degrees as a result of widespread higher-level schooling, the value of that degree will decrease significantly.
The document becomes less valuable, and when it comes to the labor market, we will effectively be at square one again. Employers will be searching endlessly for workers with real-world skills, while we push students into educational institutions for a longer period of time.
We’ll slow the attainment of real world skills and sustainable income down by another two to four years, while decreasing the reward.
The last argument I could hope to make is that the usage of taxpayer dollars for tuition is essentially stealing. We recently witnessed the conclusion of a long and tiring legal battle regarding government forcing private bodies and individuals to pay for goods and services they don’t use or wish to use, thanks to Obamacare.
This same logic can be applied to tuition.
One could argue that it is immoral to reappropriate the tax dollars of those who are successful, work in the trades, or even those among us who are less productive and don’t wish to seek higher level education, and spend it to sponsor services they don’t want to use or no longer use.
I understand that without a doubt, people don’t like taking on debt. People take issue with loans, and ridiculous tuition bills, but the problem here isn’t the organizations we practically owe our souls to.
The chief cost of the tuition problem in the U.S. is the plethora of government subsidies available to higher-level institutions nationwide.
Our government spends and regulates its way into oblivion, creating problems that more competition and less government money could solve.
The government should be spending its time refocusing efforts to increase quality, and sponsor more widespread job-training efforts.
Real world skills are increasingly important in the labor market, and we are contributing to unemployment through this out-of-touch approach to a very real issue.
By reappropriating spending targeted at colleges, we can drive costs down and then college will become more attainable to the average high-school graduate. We’d save ourselves some dollars, and a couple thousand bureaucrats.
I hope in November 2016, when my peers and I enter the voting booth, we look past the fantasies and think of the costs. The best solution isn’t always the easy one.
