The question of who should pay for higher education has become a subject of considerable debate in recent years. While some argue that students should bear the cost of their own degrees, I would argue that governments should fund university education for all.
Central to this issue is the fact that a degree mainly benefits the person who earns it. This is largely because graduates typically enjoy higher salaries and a wider choice of careers than people without degrees. As a result, taxpayers who never attended university end up subsidising other people’s future earnings, which in turn creates a sense of unfairness. Consider a typical bus driver who pays income tax for decades: her contributions help finance the studies of future lawyers who will earn several times her salary. Even so, this is only part of the picture, since it overlooks the wider returns that society receives from an educated population.
What matters even more is that university education produces benefits that reach far beyond the individual graduate. The logic is straightforward: doctors, engineers and teachers serve the whole community, not only themselves. If students must borrow heavily to study, many talented young people from poorer families will abandon the idea of university altogether. A case in point is countries with high tuition fees, where graduates often start their careers with debts that delay buying a home or starting a family. It is precisely this loss of talent that makes the case for publicly funded universities so compelling.
Having weighed the arguments, I remain convinced that higher education should be paid for by the state, although the fairness concerns of taxpayers should not be overlooked. Only by removing financial barriers can societies hope to make full use of their young people’s potential.