Nowadays, there is controversy about whether the government should pay tuition fees for university students. While some people say that paying education fees for students offers many advantages, I would argue that it brings more disadvantages.
Free university education has several benefits. Firstly, because tuition fees at some universities, such as HANU or FTU university in Vietnam, are highly expensive, many students do not have the chance to enter those universities. When the government pays the education fees, students’ families could reduce their financial burden. As a result, students could have opportunities to study at the universities without worrying about fees. Another benefit is that students would be able to attend open education. Because the government pays university tuition for students, they could have the opportunity to study in an accessible education environment, such as with open learning materials, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. As a result, more students would become a skilled workforce after graduation, which leads to a stronger economy and a more developed country.
On the other hand, free university education also brings many drawbacks. Firstly, the most noticeable disadvantage is that students’ responsibility could be reduced. As education at universities is free, some students do not appreciate the chance to study for free, such as by not paying attention to lectures or skipping lectures. Therefore, students can be irresponsible about their studying, which makes them drop out of university. Secondly, because millions of students study at many universities or colleges, the government has to fund university education with a large amount of money, which leads to an insufficient country budget. Consequently, the government needs to increase taxes, which impacts people’s lives. For example, if the Vietnamese government increased taxes, people earning more than 11 million VND per month would be affected due to high taxes. Thirdly, as the government spends a great amount of money on university education, it has to decrease the budget for other sectors, such as health, agriculture, and the military, to pay the tuition fees for students. As a result, this could lead to poor-quality public services like healthcare or infrastructure.
In conclusion, government-paid tuition fees have both pros and cons. Even though free university education has some great aspects, from my perspective, the disadvantages of free university education are more significant.