ACADEMIA Letters “FREE” EDUCATION Taylor Overbey, The University of Louisiana at Lafayette The idea of free education is quite alluring in all of its egalitarian glory. The possibility of allowing the poor, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized access to education, and thus uplift these people from the grip of poverty, is an intoxicatingconcept. However, no matter how glorious a desire is, it may be an unachievable goal. The European Model of Free Education Oft cited, and held up as a model for the world, is Europe. However, according to Mar- cus (2019), “being unable to charge tuition means universities are overcrowded and thinly stretched, and those hard-pressed taxpayers are unfairly forced to fll the void.” Tuition is free at public higher education institutions in many European countries, but this free tuition does not include living expenses. In Germany, students can get additional monies to cover living expenses (Marcus, 2019), but students contend that the money is insufcient, and many still have to work. An anecdotal example came up in the United States when discussing the sub- ject of free education. Students who argue for free education also want things like rent, food, health care, and transportation included. Marcus (2019) discusses that the more free things in- cluded in the list of free education, the more of these burdens then fall on the taxpayer. These people may or may not have children that would beneft from free education, so they might not be so inclined to support it. Additionally, Marcus (2019) claims that with ever-increasing taxes, students with degrees tend to move to locales with a lower tax base after graduation, leaving a shrinking number of taxpayers and a higher percentage of responsibility. Academia Letters, August 2021 Corresponding Author: Taylor Overbey, taylor.overbey@solacc.edu Citation: Overbey, T. (2021). “FREE” EDUCATION. Academia Letters, Article 2951. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2951. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0