Do people have the right to a free college education?

TTKDB

No, a college education should be earned and paid for. 

YeshuaBought

@TTKDB I agree. I need my money for my own things, not to send someone to med school.

John_C_87

It would help greatly if you would clarify if you are talking human Right, Constitutional Right, United State Constitutional Right?

John_C_87

As principle explanation itself creates a right, the dependence on which direction you are facing to this type instruction has the greatest argument that by simple right we make a square, and although it is all straight lines to our view, it still shares a united state with a circle in where we end here we start.

AmericanFurryBoy

No. College is not free because A, our government has no money to pay for it, and B, if you’re so broke that you can’t pay for college you can just not attend, get a scholarship, or get a loan.

cheesycheese

Interesting how capitalists claim that the world is fair under capitalism but don’t care that rich children go to university without a scolarship

McSloth

Education is one of the best investments a country can make, countries with higher levels of college graduates do better in almost every metric. They see lower crime rates, lower rates of teenage pregnancy, higher average income, higher levels of reported happiness, etc. By making higher education free or even cheaper, everyone is able to share in these benefits (1) (2).

MayCaesar

Education system not based on the principles of market competition has no incentives to innovate and improve. There is a reason that out of 200 top world's universities, over a half are private and all located in one country: Harvard or MIT, driven by the competition and business goals, depend on the quality of the education they provide - while some public university from France is only dependent on the current mood of the bureaucrats assigned to work on the education it provides.

In general, educated population is better than non-educated population. However, population educated by universities of poor quality can actually be even worse off, than a population that did not have pseudo-scientific ideas instilled in it. And we all know how much regard politicians have for actual science.

The best system, hence, is the one where colleges are private and affordable. And that is how it works in the US: you just take a loan at a credit union, get your education and then pay back once you get a well-paying job. And you can avoid having to do even that if you have worked hard when in high school and secured private funding of your education.

Feynman, Nobel laureate and the father of Quantum Field Theory, was right when he said that the less the government puts its paws into education and science, the better. Private market deals with the related issues very effectively, while the bureaucratization and nationalization of this field tends to lead to nothing but problems. Sure, education becomes more affordable - but, at the same time, there is little value in that education left.