Do you think university education should be free? Give your reasons and examples.
I think the university education should not be free because it is unnecessary, and could cause negative consequences for the education system.
Firstly, almost universities need sources of finance to operate effectively. Without tuition fees, they cannot pay considerable costs, such as: operating costs, administration costs, or labor costs. More seriously, it may lead to reductions in their budgets for teaching and research programs. The teachers would be dissatisfied with their salaries, so they could not devote entirely themselves to teaching and research work. Consequently, the education quality would be suffered, and the university could not attract good students and acclaimed teachers.
Secondly, it is regarded as normal for students to pay a fair price for the knowledge they acquire at university. The students are like customers who buy products from the universities. In this relationship, the price of the products as tuition fees will correspond with the education quality, as the saying goes "you get what you pay for". The universities should not offer free courses because they are not non-profit-making organizations, and they need to make money to develop their education products. For example: Tuition fees at the world's top universities such as Harvard, MIT are always exorbitant, but they still attract a number of applicants each year thanks to their high reputations for the education quality.
Thirdly, the university education should not be free because it is always accessible to needy students. When any students can not afford to pay for their education, they can apply for various kinds of education loans and scholarships to cover their fees and expenses. Moreover, students are grown-up enough to look for a part-time job after school. Briefly, needy students will able to overcome their financial problems as long as they are full of determination to achieve their university dreams.
For those reasons, I believe that the idea of free universities is rather theoretical and could not become a reality. In university education, the key question which we need to consider is how its quality is, not it can be free nor not.
I think the first sentence in this essay should be in a paragraph. It is your thesis statement and will be developed through the details you provide in the essay.
I feel you should explain what education products you are referring to. Education products could be books, technology, etc. The books are usually from educational companies. If you could have a good source to explain this, that would be great.
Also, I would describe in more detail how a university education is free to needy students. This is interesting, because some Ivy league schools were not affordable to needy students. However, to make education accessible to everyone, they provided the necessary funding to help needy students. This could make your opinion stronger if you have a source that describes this in more detail.
I will help you with some grammar changes a bit later. You are doing quite well thus far.
I have given you some suggestions regarding how you can improve your essay. There are some transition words that I suggested. However, you have done well with trying to use transitions throughout your essay. Here are the changes by paragraph:
- It is good to begin you opinion essay with firstly. However, I suggest beginning with, "I believe almost all universities need financial resources..." In this first sentence, I'm unsure if you think almost every university need these finances and how you think they should be funded. Yet, this revised sentence helps the reader to understand that you are giving your opinion. You should use a different transition word rather than, "More seriously". You could replace it with, "Therefore". In the next sentence, you should begin the sentence with another transition word. Here is how you can change that sentence:
- "For example, the teachers would be dissatisfied with their salaries, so they could not devote themselves entirely to teaching and research work." Delete be suffered and change to, "would suffer". (You should use another transition word (Therefore or Thus) to begin the next sentence. The sentence you began the essay with would fit at the end of this first paragraph.)
- Place the word "a" before university. Change non-profit making to "non-profit organizations". I am not going to quote the next sentence, but I will show you how to change parts of it.
- "For example, tuition fees at the world's top universities.... their reputation for academic excellence". If you use academic excellence this means quality in education. You could also end with "their quality in education"
- I'm unsure about the sentence where you discuss how students are grown up enough. Do you mean they are mature enough? A better way to say this would be to state: "...students could take the initiative..." Change your transition word from Briefly to Thus. The last sentence is confusing. Do you mean that we should consider the quality of education rather than the amount we pay for it?
@Lcturn87, I am very grateful for you help. They are very useful for me.
I will explain my essay in detail:
+ "Education products": I refered to the courses that universities offer to students. More precisely, courses are intangible products, the same as "services".
They need two necessary conditions to operate efficiently. These two conditions include: people (teachers) and facilities of a university (study rooms, dormitory, library, educational equipment...). And the university need money to pay for costs of two conditions.
+ The sentence "students are grown-up enough". I used "grown-up" because I think they are mature and independent enough to make their own living by doing some part-time jobs, which could help them pay for their tuition fees.
+ "Do you mean that we should consider the quality of education rather than the amount we pay for it?": Yes, I want to underline that the quality is more important than the tuition fees: If the tuition fees were free, the quality of education would be reduced. Moreover, free universities is an unfeasible idea, so we need to focus on the quality of education.
almost universities-> most universities
in this relationship-> in this mutual relationship
they need to make money to fund scholarship programs, educational products such as textbooks, syllabuses, laboratory equipments, so forth and upgrade their infrastructure.
