Why Education is Free Until University
I fully support the sentiments many share: why should everyone's taxes go up to support only those who choose to attend college? The argument that individuals who choose alternative paths should be penalized lacks logic. What if you graduate from college, only to face a graduate tax that further burdens you irrespective of your job? My grandpa’s generation often stopped after 8th grade and managed to fulfill their roles until retirement just fine. So, what has changed drastically enough to necessitate the current level of education?
Today, technology is something kids run with much better than their parents. An undergraduate degree for an administrative assistant job may seem like overkill. Associate’s degrees are essentially long stretches of high school. Where are the programs catering to middle-skilled jobs?
Another critical question: why the Bachelor's degree? Why is four years the magical amount of time that guarantees competency? There is a slippery slope here. If high school education doesn't equip students with necessary skills, how can throwing them into college solve that issue? Employers are already expressing dissatisfaction with recent graduates, and soon enough, Master's degrees might be required for basic jobs like janitorial work.
My proposal: it's time to revamp the education system. Bring back the high school diploma to its former status of envy. If tax money is spent on it, we shouldn’t consider it worthwhile if college is mandatory and needs to be paid for too. Why isn't the high school diploma “valued”? It opens up about a quarter of jobs, yet almost 90% of high school graduates lack the critical skills they need. The system is clearly broken.
The Cost of Free Education
Is it truly free? Not at all. It's paid for by the taxpayers. How much further tax burden should the taxpayers assume? The current annual cost to educate the country's children is astronomical. If you're going to ask why something is free, you should first understand that it's not free and then be able to look up how much it really costs.
The Dumbing Down of Education
Once, a high school education was sufficient for a well-paying job. It taught basic competencies in reading, writing, mathematics, history, geography, literature, science, and civics. However, leftist politicians have dumbed down the curriculum so far that even illegal aliens who don’t speak English can graduate. Today's high school graduates are often so illiterate that some can't even read their own diplomas.
Employers have long recognized that high school no longer guarantees proficiency in basic math or literacy in English, or proper knowledge of American history and civics. Instead, our students are now indoctrinated with identity politics, leftist ideology, love for socialism, and the belief that anything they oppose is racist. Their only response to opposing ideas is "cancel culture." This creates employees who are poorly equipped for the demands of most businesses, especially small businesses that value initiative, reliability, diligence, problem-solving skills, and basic reading and mathematics.
The Slippery Slope of Higher Education
Higher education is equally beset by political correctness and declining quality. Courses like “Western Civilization” and genuine American history are being replaced with politicized subjects like “Critical Race Theory” or “White Privilege.” Degrees are being conferred in useless or contrived majors such as “Gender Studies” or “Lesbian Dance Theory.” This dumbed-down college experience may be “free,” but it does nothing to enhance critical thinking, and it shifts a massive burden of wasted taxpayer dollars onto those who don’t deserve to carry the weight of the greed, racism, and miseducation inflicted by leftist ideologues in academia.
Not everyone is academically capable of success at college, even at these dumbed-down levels. Forty percent of college freshmen fail to graduate even after six years, saddled with student debt in the process. Businesses have clearly rejected many college degrees as useless for employment. It would be disastrous to suggest that anyone has a right to go to college for free and shift that cost onto taxpayers.
Even in European countries often cited as examples, what they do is not at all what Americans have come to expect or accept. The limited availability, high testing standards, and austere “college experience” fall short of American expectations.