It seems the idea of free college isn't exclusive to America. We're old enough to remember Al Gore campaigning on sending every American student to college, despite many of them having a lack of aptitude and the trades being in need of apprentices.
Why does college cost so much in the first place? Townhall's own Katie Pavlich was fact-checked back in 2019 for saying that Sen. Elizabeth Warren was paid $400,000 by Harvard to teach one class. PolitiFact found that Warren was paid $429,981 in salary from Harvard during 2010 and 2011, and Pavlich didn't take into account "the other work Warren was doing at that time." Warren's husband also made $402,897 in 2018 as a Harvard law professor.
But what if like so many other things (e.g., broadband internet) a college education is a right? British Member of Parliament Zarah Sultana brought her latest student loan statement to the floor. She should cross the Mexican border and have Joe Biden pay it off with American taxpayer dollars.
Students shouldn't have to pay tuition fees this year. Or next year. Or any year.
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) September 23, 2024
That's because education is a right, not a commodity.
Four years ago I took my student loan statement to Parliament to make this point 👩🏽🎓
pic.twitter.com/JtmJMCovhf
So teachers and professors are slaves.
— Amy Curtis 🇮🇱 (@RantyAmyCurtis) September 23, 2024
Cool. https://t.co/s2aaiST3eb
If students don't pay tuition, how do professors get paid? How do the maintenance workers keep the campus up and running? Obviously, it would be left to taxpayers to pay the tuition, which would be set by the government, along with professors' salaries.
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A college education is not a right.
Nothing that requires the labor of others is a human right. We outlawed slavery for a reason, and if we have to make you lose another Civil War to send that message again, we're more than happy to oblige.
— Eric Spencer (@JustEric) September 23, 2024
Well congratulations Zarah, on your £92K you can pay back pretty quickly.
— Orchard_Man (@Turnditch_Man) September 23, 2024
Is anything not a “right” in the eyes of progressive leftists?
— Matt Cleeve (@cleeve_matt) September 23, 2024
I assume there's also a right to not have to pay for someone else's university education?
— Mark Thomas (@playboyreview) September 23, 2024
Some confused students seem to think that college should be free because look at all of the benefits it would have if everyone in the country had a college degree.
Zarah wants people who don't benefit from university education to pay for people who do, a regressive form of taxation where the poor contribute to the rich to get richer.
— the_VP5 (@the_vp5) September 23, 2024
Economic illiteracy. So someone who works on the tills at Tesco has to fund the education of a middle-class person with professionally employed rich parents?
— Jack Lakeland 🇬🇧 (@Jack_Lakeland) September 23, 2024
Why should a tax payer have to pay for your degree? If you want one, pay for it yourself! And if you have to take a loan to do it, that's on you.
— Bou XX Native 💥💫 (@happy_foxxy) September 23, 2024
Don’t call it a “right”—call it an “obligation” for someone else to pay.
— The Matthew Principle (@MattPrinciple) September 23, 2024
Better they pay for it than the taxpayer, far too many degrees create no economic value, and for the ones that do, they can pay it back themselves when they become high earners.
— David Brown (@DavidBr10466239) September 23, 2024
We're guessing Sultana didn't get her degree in economics. Google says she's 30 years old, so she's old enough to know better.
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