With all the commotion that came from the Biden administration’s efforts toward student loan forgiveness, a certain question has to be answered: Why do we pay for college? Well, for starters, we pay because it’s not free like public schooling. Primary schools are free because they’re funded by taxes and the state (technically).

Theoretically, you do pay for primary school, just not directly. There’s a basic education fund for every student, then schools can also ask for grants for specific programs, like Drama Club. Then, of course, there are levies, which are like grants, but they’re paid for by the communities around the school.

That sounds good, right? School is free and paid for by the government (sort of), but the amount often isn’t enough to properly fund it. Add to that the regular attempts to cut down the education budget, and it’s no wonder the US has significantly lower math and science scores than its peers.

Primary schooling is underfunded, but college has a different issue. Colleges are directly paid for by their students, effectively making them customers. This is a strange circumstance as students pay to be educated. College also isn’t mandatory like primary schooling, which is required by law until the student turns eighteen.

The problem lies in the cost of attending college. It’s quite exorbitant and often leaves the student in debt. This begs the question, should college be free? The short answer? Yes, but that brings its own issues. Colleges pay for their expensive programs and well-maintained campuses and places of interest in said campus through student tuition, hence why it’s so costly.

Having it paid for by grants and taxes might reduce educational quality (especially in low-income neighborhoods), and could lead to the reduction of certain privileges (like the coffee shops and budgets for more expensive clubs). Of course, this depends on the quality of the tax program. After all, there are mediocre universities that are still privately funded.

Regardless, switching to a tax-funded program would either erase student debt or significantly reduce it to a more manageable level. Primary schooling suffers not because being tax-funded is an inherently worse method of managing educational institutions.

It’s because those in power have little interest in maintaining high educational standards. Think of it like this: If your parents give you an allowance of $20 every week, yet school lunches cost $35, what are you going to do? You’ll starve or go into debt. As a result, you’ll become malnourished or financially unstable. 

Now imagine that situation, but you’re a school, the allowance is tax funding in the US, and those school lunches are resources for students. No need to imagine as this page shows you exactly how it works, at least in Texas which has one of the lowest adult literacy rates in the US.

Whether that’s a decent trade depends on the person, but it shouldn’t have to be a trade-off. The problem lies in the disdain for proper education. Suffice it to say that your average person on the street isn’t against adequate education, but certain politicians in Congress and the Senate are. There’s a reason for this, of course.

Uneducated people are more likely to vote for candidates with toxic campaigns and are vulnerable to propaganda. In other words, certain politicians want uneducated people because it gets them more votes. As a result, primary schooling occasionally gets budget cuts and college is expensive. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but that’s another can of worms.

It shouldn’t be this way, but it is because our system is always in a perpetual state of disagreement. After all, the two primary parties in the US despise each other with a passion. Students who merely want to further their education are sabotaged by moguls and politicians who want uneducated people.

Many colleges and universities are trying a tuition free method, and there are some that are built around that even now. It’s possible to try a different method and find success, but there are all sorts of factors that must be considered. A lack of education on top of a lack of resources has consequences, like systemic injustice and racial inequality in rural areas.

College isn’t free because of greed and political maneuvering. If you’re uneducated, you vote for politicians who don’t care for you or your neighbors. Primary schooling lacks proper funding for the same reason. The reasons are the same and to change that, people need to be active. 

In order to improve educational quality nationwide, reforms must be made. Voting in local elections is better than nothing, but true change is found through rallying like-minded people who want to see change as well. Protests and petitions are where real power is held, and if you want real change, find some petitions and/or schedule protests of your own.