In the present age, whether students should pay for their university study has sparked much debate. Some people assert that education in university be made free by the government for every student without considering their ability to pay. Personally, I think most people should pay for their university study, but we should make an exception for those, who are from poor background.
One of the main reasons I do not favor the statement is that when we obtain something that cost nothing, it loses its value. In other word, making university education free will make it too accessible and it is likely that some students will fail to provide enough value to it; thereby, education quality of universities will be hampered. Even, some of them might think that they would always get another chance of taking the same examination, if they fail in any course. For instance, these days, we observe a lot of students in Bangladesh’s public universities, where education is almost free of cost, spend more years in campus than they were supposed to do and destroy government’s money, but at the same time, most of them earn money through tuition or free lancing. If they had to pay some money for their education, the pressure in their mind that failing in any course will end up with paying more money to the university would cause them to be more attentive in study.
The second reason why I disagree with the idea is that free education would put an extra burden of excess expense on government. Not only the government will have to pay the salaries of all university teachers but also, they will have to look at all other possible expenses of universities including electricity bills, repairing of old buildings, purchasing new lab equipment and so on. Moreover, considering that universities are completely dependent on government, it may slow down any required development of the universities as any development in this case must go through many paper works and eventually it will also reduce the freedom of universities on it’s own decisions.
On the contrary, we should also believe the motto that knowledge should have no barrier. Specifically, Poor students, who do not have the ability of paying for costly university education, should also have the opportunity of going to university based on their merit. However, providing scholarships to poor meritorious can solve this issue and can ensure near equal opportunity for students from both poor and rich families.
To sum up, having considered both views, I completely disagree with the idea of making education in university free of cost for everyone including those who has the ability to pay as I believe it will demotivate students to study and will provide a burden on government. Accordingly, it would be generally advisable to take payment from students, who has the ability, and provide scholarships to those, who are poor but brilliant and will make the best use of opportunity of free tertiary education.