GRE Issue Governments should offer college and university education free of charge to all students Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take

The issue of whether for students, pursuing education at college and universities must be made free of charge by the government is a contentious one. While it can be considered that free education would ensure that the burden of paying for the education is relieved from the students side. It needs to be understood that there are costs involved in the running of a college or a university, and thus free education will create a significant financial burden as either the government or the university will need to pay for the costs.

Firstly, the reputation of a university depends on the quality of research that is undertaken at it, and research into new technologies, theories and discoveries will require funding for materials involved and the experimentation's. However, by free education the research cost will also need to reduce thereby impacting the research work. Incidentally, this impact of the reduced research work will affect not just the reputation but also the same students the government tried to relieve by eliminating tuition costs.

Secondly, if the students will not be paying the tuition fee the university will have financial issues while paying the salaries to the faculty/teachers of the college. This will either result in reduced salaries, which could make the professors look for teaching opportunities elsewhere. It could also result in cutting down of jobs and removal of professors, thus impacting the quality of education at the university. Thus it can be observed that the elimination of the tuition fee has an adverse effect on the professors of the university by reduced salaries and research funding opportunities.

Thirdly, the government funding that the college/university receives will be exhausted in maintaining of all the costs discussed above. As there are a lot of costs involved in the maintenance of a college, like faculty salaries, research funding, college premises cleanliness and maintenance, class room maintenance, obtaining books for the library and keeping the software and hardware of the labs at university updated. Therefore, in maintaining these costs the university could end up not being able to save any money and when a sudden requirement of a significant amount of money comes up in the future, it could cause the university to go bankrupt.

Fourthly, government should make a system where in deciding which students should be paying tuition fee and which students should not. This can be accomplished by an assessment of the financial situation of the students family and lifestyle, if the student is financially incapable of paying for the tuition fee, then the government should provide scholarship to these students to pursue education. Also, exceptionally talented students who have the capability to do research should be recognized, and these students should be provided with research funding. However, students who have the ability to pay the tuition fee should try avoiding free education and contribute to help the university financially.

Finally, it can be suggested that the government utilize the money that it is paying as tuition fee to cover the education of students in other domains where it is required. It could be used to improve the infrastructure of the country, utilized in research work and should look for reducing the costs involved in education making it easier for the students to pay, than to pay the exorbitant amount to the colleges to ensure free education.

Therefore, upon consideration of the above reasons it can be concluded that instead of making education free of cost, the government should try to reduce the costs involved in university education making it easier for the student to pay it themselves. Also, a plausible solution is to help those who are incapable financially to pursue education or research by providing them scholarship's and research funding.