Hello, my name is Esther.
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start from 2021
Should University Education Be Free in Taiwan?
Imagine each student in Taiwan equally gets the chance to have access to free university education, what would happen? People who graduated from universities indeed have more job options and higher salaries because they have gained not only academic knowledge but also practical skills. As a result, graduates usually think critically and independently to help them make well-informed decisions. To be honest,
university education truly benefits the whole society in some ways, such as cultivating talents. However, is “free” college education really necessary? If university education is free, it would lead to several negative impacts on society as well, which are, higher levels of taxation, devaluing college education, and its unfairness.
First of all, free college education will lead to higher level of taxation. Undoubtedly, high level of public spending demands high level of taxation; therefore, if Taiwanese government takes care of not only National Health Insurance and social welfare but also university education, the increase in the tax on college education will be the inevitable consequence. Take Norway for example. Though college students in Norway do not need to pay for tuition, their tax-to-GDP ratio was at 44.9% in 2018, while the tax-to-GDP ratio of Taiwan was at 13.4% year on year. As a result, if university education is free, people have to pay higher tax.
Secondly, students may not value college education. Since college education is free, students may take courses for granted. Therefore, some of them might cut off or skip classes which are difficult to pass but can learn lots of knowledge, while others may tend to spend more time on entertainment such as going to KTV, movie theater, or picnic. Yet, the current education policy prompts students to learn harder in order to get scholarship to pay for their tuition, and it also drives them to complete studies as quickly as possible to graduate earlier owing to the expensive college tuition. All in all, if college education becomes free, students may be lazier to try or learn new knowledge in university and devalue university education.
Thirdly, free college education is not fair to both low-income and wealthy families. Some people may argue that college education should be free. By doing so, diligent and intelligent students from low-income families can get the opportunity to have access to university education as well. However, wealthy students will also benefit from free education likewise. Besides, if college education becomes free, an increase in tax will be unavoidable. In other words, whether people from low-income or high-income families have children or not, they still have to be taxed heavily. Therefore, it is hard for Taiwan to bring about the reform of taxation since it requires the fundamental change in social structure. Hence, free education is actually not fair to anyone in this society.
