GRE ISSUE ESSAY - PLEASE GRADE AND CRITIQUE

[imonfire98]

Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequences shape your position.

 

MY RESPONSE

The ability to offer free education to every person who claims financial hardship is an expensive investment in which the pros and cons must be carefully reviewed. In a situation where the cons greatly outnumber the pro, it is wise to state that the government should not offer free education to every student who attains a university admission.

 

The first issue lies in the problem of regulation. Saying that the government should offer free education to every admitted student with financial hardship sounds almost musical to the ears until you consider the hidden costs of regulation. The question only gets harder: how do you define financial hardship and how do you regulate it? Assuming we found a way around regulation, the statement remains true that nothing ‘free’ is inherently free but is being paid for by someone else. The cost of education in a 4-year program, which is often a lifetimes investment for many Americans, will be an insurmountable cost which will only be shifted to the taxpayers.

 

Also, the concept of a free university education may, unfortunately, lead to the decline of the value of the education system. Basic economics teaches the inverse relationship between the cost of a product and its value. Removing the cost of education will only transfer the value of the proposed degree into the next best thing. A better model which preserves the value of education may be to offer free education based on academic excellence and merit.

 

However, if the system of government moves to a more socialist system in which every member of society is offered a free university education assuming they are able to acquire an admission, the proposed system may be worthwhile. A free education, although it increases taxes, begins to work like a well-oiled machine as it ensures that more people are able to enter the workforce and contribute to the cost of sending other people to school through taxes.

 

In conclusion, the system of sending everyone who attains a college degree to university is flawed because of the costs associated with it, the unavailability of a system to properly regulate and the capitalist model of government in the United States. One may even propose that offering a free education to everyone who claims financial hardship will only create more pandemonium in a flailing nation.