Debate Topic - College should be affordable for everyone

Debate Topic: College should be affordable for everyone.

It could be argued that in the United States at present, college is already affordable for everyone through any combination of scholarships, grants, work-study, and student loans.

Affordability is highly based on perception as well. As a group, we should consider defining the term affordable and consider including this in our debate.

Key assumptions with these arguments that should be addressed are that “affordability” is the only barrier to attendance and graduation from college. Consideration must also be taken that more expensive colleges may produce a better product, so are the students from “affordable” colleges going to really be able to compete on an equal playing field?

The quality of the college and quality of the student should also be considered. For example, does it benefit anyone if college is free, but expectations of the students are low. Would it be better to have free college, but high competition and expectations. This meets the argument that “college should be affordable for everyone” without compromising quality and disenfranchising tax-payers and private pay students.

Making college affordable should be based on merit in order to avoid many of the potential problems discussed below. The current grant system is based on “need”, which my inadvertently discriminate against those that are highly motivated to attend college, but right above the cut-off point.