Everyone one has a right to the equal opportunities university provides

The argument

A university degree substantially increases one's employment prospects. Degrees give students specialised knowledge in a field, thus enabling them to become more attractive to employers. That is what makes access a question of fairness rather than of consumer choice: what is being distributed is not only an education but the opportunities that follow from holding one. Therefore, there exists inequality in the status quo where fees prevent a lot of students from being able to upskill themselves. Merit should be the only determining factor in attending university, not the lottery of birth. Fees introduce a second filter alongside ability, and it is one that applicants cannot influence, since a student's capacity to pay is set by the household they were born into. Fees make access more difficult, leading to lower attendance by poorer groups. A lot of the brightest minds in the world stem from low-income households, but that should not prevent them from continuing their education — and where it does, the loss is not only theirs. The removal of fees leads to equal opportunity to attend school, which is a major step towards equality. The final step concerns what such a filter does over time. Fees further serve to lock people into the economic situation they are born into, as getting out is much more difficult when denied access to most high-income jobs. The barrier reproduces itself: those who cannot afford the qualification are kept from the earnings that would have made it affordable, and their children then face the same position from the same side of it. Given the importance of education and achieving a more equitable society, proponents conclude, the government has a responsibility to give everyone access.

Context

Most career paths require a university qualification in order to be employed. In an increasingly technological world, the labour force continuously undergoes mechanisation, meaning that low-skilled and manual labour is easily replaceable. The ability to make a sustainable living must be a right which everyone has access to. Otherwise only those fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families are able to financially support themselves in adulthood.

Premises

Counter-arguments

There is no inherent right to university education. It is a service and people should have to pay for it should they desire it. The role of the government is to provide individuals with necessities, hence why primary and secondary education is free. University is not essential for an individual to be a functioning member of society so there is no obligation on the government. Secondly, there are ways in which meritocracy is prioritised over privilege in creating access to university. Students who perform well academically can get financial aid, scholarships and bursaries which enable them to continue their education. Even though alternative funding methods are imperfect, that is an argument for improving them not one for making it the responsibility of the state to ensure everyone can go to university.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise moves from a real inequality to one specific remedy without comparing it with the measures already in place. Scholarships, bursaries and means-tested aid are aimed at exactly the students it is concerned with, whereas abolishing fees also subsidises those who could pay — so the premise establishes a problem rather than this solution to it. [Rejecting P2] Removing fees equalises the price of university, not access to it. The gap the premise identifies opens well before application, in schooling and in what students are prepared for, and it offers no account of why free tuition would close it. "Equal opportunity" also does not carry the further step to a right, which is what the position asserts.