Governments should offer a free university education to any student who has been admitted to a university but who cannot afford the tuition Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take

Education affords us, amongst many other benefits, economic and social mobility; it empowers the average man to by his own labors make a better life for himself and for his family, achieving in ways his fathers could only dream. But therein also lies its greatest proponent and advocate: personal agency. While I sympathize with the author’s desire that every student get a solid university education, I cannot wholeheartedly endorse his recommendation for how to pay for it. This recommendation introduces other challenges that risk the effectiveness of this institution, rendering it effete and superficial.

To start off, not all governments can afford providing tuition for all students. Some are very small, others poor, and while some other governments simply cannot be trusted with influence over such an important institution. Some governments are corrupt and already do a poor job in providing goods whose efficacy are more immediately apparent. In my native Nigeria, governments would often raise taxes for infrastructure; but years later the roads are not made, citizens are still driving through unrelenting traffic jams, and people are still losing their children to terrible and preventable interstate road accidents due to potholes and the overall decrepit nature of the roads. Would we then task such a government with overseeing the dispatchment of school funds and with its concomitant obligation—ensuring the quality of such an important institution?

The governmental dispatchment of school funds naturally leads us to the question of quality of instruction in such subsidized schools. Just like most things in the free market, providers are motivated to provide good service to their constituents because of the promise of economic rewards for good work. If government takes over the role of paying for the schools, the schools will no longer feel accountable to the students. They would only need to fudge the report numbers or provide a good presentation on the day of inspection to receive their government funding. Meanwhile the students who are actually involved in the day-to-day operations of the school would go under-served of the quality instruction they need to be competitive in the job market, repeating the history of under-served communities. For a counterexample, consider the success of college preparatory schools in India and South Korea. Due to years of impotent public education and the widespread availability of the Internet and video technology, South Korea have started scaling up the online instruction of private “celebrity” teachers who not only engage their students but also instill them with the skills needed to excel in domestic and international college admittance exams. Students love these teachers and would tune in for evening instruction hours after they leave their regular daily public schools. These types of schools have been responsible for the increasing success of South Korean and Indian students in tech fields like IT both in the United States and in their native countries. Because of the scalability of these classes, costs are low, nominal fees are paid for by students and their invested parents, while teachers are adequately compensated for good work, motivating them to come up with better methods of successfully getting complicated ideas over to their students. Would we consider these schools a bad personal investment?

Lastly, any talk of personal responsibility cannot be complete without discussing the level of student engagement in their own personal success. Students should have the opportunity to plan their own education to ensure personal accountability and the promise of life-long growth. Atlanta City Schools in recent years have developed an epidemic for low-quality education and student disengagement. Students show up late to school, prioritize social desirability, and are overall disengage with their studies. The pressure to procure government funding despite failing schools prompted some teachers to provide students with answers to the regional CRCT annual competency reference tests in what became a national scandal. What if there was a student contribution requirement as part of the funding efforts? What if students had to keep a part-time job to receive government school funding? What if vouchers were instead provided to students and parents, tasking them to research the best private and charter schools in their community and challenging them to meet the transportation challenge? I believe these measures would have alleviated the challenges of low quality education and set some more students on towards a path of personal attainment.

For the reasons listed above, I cannot fully support a governmental endorsement of university education. Instead I would propose that government offer subsidized university education to under-served and economically disadvantaged children as long as they maintain a certain level engagement and success throughout their educational program.