Access to affordable education is something everyone in the United States should have, according to panelists discussing higher education and its funding Thursday at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
“The very least we can do is to make sure people have the opportunity,” said Jimmy Arwood, an Andrew Goodman Foundation Ambassador and journalism sophomore at ASU. “We need to concentrate on trying to get something. Student debt is rising.”
Arwood was one of three panelists at the New York Times Talk on Education, hosted by ASU’s Undergraduate Student Government Downtown. He, along with Andrew Morrill of the Arizona Education Association and Casey Dreher of the Voice of the People Association of Arizona, discussed how although free education is ideal, it is not feasible.
Morrill said almost every other country in the world is fighting to expand education, and he is unsure why America is not as well.
“I can’t even believe that we’re at a time in America where we are asking the question, ‘Is higher education still of value?’” Morrill said.
Arwood said a college degree is becoming increasingly necessary in the job market, with more employers seeking candidates with at least a bachelor’s degree.
“Sixty-three percent of jobs in 2018 are going to require a bachelor’s degree to get the job,” Arwood said. A study by Georgetown University projected identical figures.
Dreher added that there is “a huge disconnect” between legislators and students when it comes to funding education. When students march to the capitol protesting against tuition increase, they are met with politicians who disregard their opinions and tell them to go to community college if they cannot afford to go to a four-year university, he said.
Expensive education is hurting the economy, Dreher said, because graduates are so busy paying loans rather than buying a car, buying a house and starting a family like they did in past decades.
College degrees and the college experience are so important in building additional skills that one does not get in high school, Morrill said. “The longer you’re in school the deeper the knowledge you learn about whatever it is you’re doing,” he said.
According to Arwood, the incentive for higher education is to give students something to strive for.
“When students learn they can do that and they can achieve that, I think it gives them motivation and inspiration,” Arwood said.
Morrill said that investing in affordable higher education would play out because giving people an education allows them to earn more, and in earning more they are able to contribute more to the economy.
Masai Hunter, a 19-year-old journalism student at ASU, said she agreed with the panelists that free education seems unrealistic.
“We can focus on making [education] affordable so it’s an opportunity, not necessarily a promise, because free is a promise,” Hunter said.
Contact the reporter at lmhahn1@asu.edu
