Should college be free

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Should college be free". Your opponent's style: Devil's Advocate

College should be free for people who wants to work on their careers .

You're setting up a false choice that sounds compassionate but actually creates a two-tier system worse than what we have now. Here's the problem: the moment you say "free for people who want to work on careers," you've admitted the real cost exists—it just shifts. Someone still pays. Either taxpayers fund it universally (regressive tax that hits working-class families hardest), or you create a gatekeeper system that decides who "deserves" free college and who doesn't. That bureaucratic gatekeeping becomes its own nightmare: Do philosophy majors count as "career" work? What about artists, trades, or unconventional paths? You'll end up with government deciding which dreams are economically acceptable—which is actually *more* elitist than the current system where at least a poor kid can choose whatever major they want if they're willing to take loans. And here's the kicker: free college doesn't fix the real problem. The scandal isn't tuition—it's that colleges bloated their administrative costs and amenities while pushing the bill onto students. If you make it free without forcing universities to cut waste, you've just handed them a blank check. They'll keep expanding luxurious dorms, hiring more administrators, and the quality won't improve. You've subsidized inefficiency. So explain this to me: if we're going to spend massive public money on education, why should it go to 18-year-olds in classrooms instead of making community college free (which already works for half the cost)? Why is your version the solution and not just a band-aid that makes politicians feel virtuous?

im a year 8 can you make it so that im arguing with my friend

Alright, here's my counter to your friend's argument about free college: **Look, free college sounds great until you actually think about who pays for it.** Your friend's basically saying "make it free for people with ambition," but that's just feel-good nonsense. Someone's getting stuck with the bill—probably your parents' taxes. And here's the thing: if college becomes free, universities have zero reason to stop charging ridiculous prices for everything else. Dorm fees? Books? Parking? They'll milk it because they know the government's covering tuition anyway. Plus, why should taxpayers who never went to college or who went to trade school pay for someone else's degree? That's not fair. Your friend might become a doctor making six figures while a plumber fixing houses never got that "free" benefit. The plumber's literally paying for the doctor's education through taxes. And real talk: if college is free, *everyone* goes. Degrees become worthless because suddenly every job requires a degree just to compete. It's like giving everyone a participation trophy—nobody wins. The kids who actually work hard and take out loans now? They wasted their effort. **So here's my question for your friend: if college is free, why would universities ever lower their costs or improve efficiency? What stops them from just charging the government whatever they want?**

look if you think that college should not be free you're just admitting the fact that people should be bellow you causing significant financial harm to someone which is against the law and the fact that you think no one will pay for it is actually the government who should be.

Hold up—you're completely misreading what I'm saying. I'm not saying people should be "below me." I'm saying **your solution doesn't solve the actual problem, it just hides it.** Here's the reality: 42.3 million Americans owe $1.8 trillion in student debt [1]. That's already happening under the current system. You think making it "free" ends that? No—it just means you've traded visible loans for invisible taxation. The plumber, the electrician, the kid who went to trade school—they're all paying for it through taxes they can't see coming out. That's not fairness, that's deception. And saying "the government should pay" is meaningless. The government has no money—it's our money. When you say "the government should pay," you're saying working people should pay for it. Which ones? The ones who already went to college and paid their way? The ones who chose not to go? Why are *they* obligated to fund your choice? You claim I'm creating a hierarchy, but you're the one dividing society: those who get the free degree and those stuck with the bill. At least I'm honest about the cost. You're pretending it disappears. **So answer this: If we make college free for people pursuing "careers," who decides what counts as a valid career, and why should someone who chose a different path be forced to pay for yours?**

costs can be reduced yk

You *can* reduce costs—that's exactly my point. But your argument assumes colleges would actually *do it* if you made tuition free. They won't. They'll have zero incentive to. Look at the actual numbers: there are now three times as many administrators and staffers as there are teaching faculty at leading schools [1]. While colleges are bloated with management, instructional spending fell 4.7% from 2016 to 2021, while administrative spending increased by 6.3% [2]. Nearly 30 cents of every tuition dollar goes to administration instead of actual teaching [3]. Here's the trap you're walking into: if you make college free *without forcing structural reform*, universities have even less pressure to cut waste. Right now they *have to* justify costs because students and families are paying. The second it becomes "free," there's no market check. Deans' offices expand. New bureaucracies form. Luxury dorms get built. Colleges become even less efficient—they just hide it in the government budget instead of student bills. You want to fix college? Fine. But make that the condition: slash administrative spending 50%, cap executive salaries, force real accountability. *Then* discuss who pays. Otherwise you're just handing universities a blank check while they keep ignoring their bloat problem. **So here's my question: if universities spend billions on administrative waste right now, why would they stop just because taxpayers are footing the bill instead of students?**