Essay Example on American Education

Introduction

The cost of education is rising sharply all over the world, especially in African countries. Many tertiary institutions charge exorbitant prices to students to enable them to access education and the school facilities. Thankfully, The United Nations Educations programs aim to ease students' burden by providing programs to allow increased access to education globally (Spring 10). However, countries are weighing the pros and cons of offering affordable education with the ability to provide free education for all is becoming more of a possibility as time progresses as well as the advancement in technology provides the means for this milestone thus: as Nelson Mandela said, education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

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Education helps to better society. Educating more people enables better problem solving for daily challenges, making society grow faster than an uneducated society. For example, when people are educated on modern agricultural farming methods, it will lead to more farming hence more food for the community and better quality farm produce (Yell et al. 77). Besides, educated people can better understand their respective cultures' history, for example, Hinduism, and comprehend their economic situations. This makes them more ethnocentric and proud of their cultures, making them more inclined to them; hence they participate in decision making and improve their country. Also, when more people have access to education in a country, the number of skilled workers increases more people joining the work sector, eventually decreasing the wealth gap between the social classes.

Economic Improvement

Many students worldwide graduate with a considerable amount of debt on their shoulders, which is even more likely to rise with interest rates. It may take many years before they manage to pull themselves out of debt, which only keeps growing (Yell et al. 80). On the other hand, there is delayed spending on other things such as houses or land for investments. Contrary to that, if the students were to graduate without debt, I could quickly track their ability to earn, save, and spend, thus improving the economy. With increased consumer spending, there is more demand for goods and services relating to higher work demand in the workforce, which is a positive injection to the economic cycle due to the increase of employment opportunities. Furthermore, fear of debt among learners may make them avoid school altogether because the motivation to learn will be diminished with the reality of students' debts.

Increased Workforce

With technological improvements, a massive shift is being witnessed in the modern working sector; most automated jobs like proofreading emails are fast replacing the old manual labor model, especially with works that require repetition. Automation does not necessarily replace the entire workforce; instead, the economies are shifting to a more professional working society; with good analytical and creative thinking abilities. If more students are taught and practice these skills taught in colleges, then the entire working society will increase due to a more agile working and thinking workforce.

Equality

Affordability in access to education to many students attending college is a significant headache making the school environment partially an unequal playing field for academics and extra-curricular activities (Yell et al. 83). A huge chunk of bright minds come from low-income families, which shouldn't be a reason to hold them back from continuing their education and pursues their dreams. Learners should be presented with unequal opportunities to attend school and enjoy the privilege of going to any school. Hence affordable and free education is one of the critical steps in achieving equality.

Free Education

When learners are not distracted about school fees, they can focus more on intellectual abilities rather than worry about getting the money ((Yell et al. 89). Even with student loans and financial aids, the learners still fear how they will repay the loans in the future after schooling. These added distractions can negatively impact their focus when they are required to participate in learning activities with their instructors. Lowering school fees makes learners achieve more academically.

Lower Criminal Activities

On its own, education makes people spend time meaningfully studying and participating in other meaningful activities like drawing and playing ball games. It has a more relatively permanent impact in enabling one to change one’s behavior and preferences for time consumption (Spring 15).Teachers in school advocate learners to exhibit positive behavior by rewarding them, for example, being considerate to the other learners by respecting their properties in schools. Although some learners may deviate, many learners will accept positive behavior, which will help combat crimes like radicalization into cults, and other crimes. Therefore, education will help reduce overall crime in the long run.

Conclusion

With the provision of free education more learners would choose the course they enjoy and pursue it to the highest level possible (Sanders n.p). However, with parents' or students' influence, loans, current learners are pushed towards courses with more post-graduate jobs available and a promise of a job by a family member or a friend due to nepotism and corruption. Curses with more fees require making parents and students more reluctant to choose them regardless of whether they lack them or not. Free education makes learners enjoy their courses and stick with it and eventually avoid burnout while studying.

Works Cited

Goldin, Claudia Dale, and Lawrence F. Katz. The race between education and technology. harvard university press, 2009.

Gutmann, Amy, and Sigal BenPorath. "Democratic education." The encyclopedia of political thought (2014): 863-875.

Sanders, Bernie. "Make college free for all." The Washington Post 22 (2015).

Spring, Joel. American education. Routledge, 2017.

Yell, Mitchell L. et al. "Free appropriate public education." Handbook of special education (2011): 77-90.