This is a terrible policy. Nothing is free. This "free college" that you are arguing for comes from taxpayer money. Why should taxpayers, many of whom don't go to college, be forced to contribute to others' tuition? Especially when there is no guarantee that they will pursue a useful degree, or actually graduate, or use their degree to the fullest potential and set themselves up in the workforce after college. Many students pursue degrees that are useless in helping them provide for themselves in a career, and either their parents pay out the backside for it or the student… Read mores themselves go into debt. So your solution to this is pass that debt along to the taxpayer? Have you seen our budget deficit recently? Or our national debt? I mean I agree the price of tuition has gotten out of hand but there are better alternatives here.
We should stress the importance of choosing a degree that can actually help a student get a good job or career, and present alternatives to university like trade schools and community college. If a student is going to go into debt that is going to follow him around for years, he shouldn't go to that school and should instead pursue other options. We should also stress the importance of applying for and earning scholarships. If I hadn't earned the scholarships I did, I wouldn't have been able to attend and graduate from my choice university. I graduated from Notre Dame in 2010 with $12k in debt, and it was paid off in full in 2016. Not exactly chump change, but considering the many students graduating with 6 figure debts nowadays I consider myself lucky.
Students should work to earn scholarships, and considering the scholarships they earn, if they have to borrow too much that will take them half their life to pay off in order to go to their college, they should not enroll and choose a more affordable university or a trade school or community college. I think there is merit to offering more assistance to students for tech schools or trade schools or community college with training for a job in mind, as long as they maintain certain standards of conduct and grades. And that is something we should explore. But a sweeping blank check for anyone who goes to college is not only unjust, it is foolish. And your last part is also highly concerning. Illegals should receive no welfare benefits of any kind, let alone a free education, even my proposed assistance for trade school/community college. If you're talking about non-citizens who are working here legally however, I would agree to that, depending on how long they have been here. In my opinion immigrants should have to work and pay taxes here for a minimum of 5 years before being eligible for any type of government assistance.
