University gives young people the opportunity to grow in other ways which are not related to academics. It helps broaden their minds and gives them the skills they need to succeed in life.
The argument
This argument holds that higher education is a right everyone is entitled to because university provides personal growth — a development of the whole person — that every human being deserves the chance to undergo, regardless of wealth. The claim is that university is far more than vocational training or a route to a salary. It is a formative experience that develops people intellectually and personally: it teaches critical thinking, exposes students to ideas, disciplines and perspectives they would never otherwise encounter, and offers years in which to mature, question, and discover who they are. It widens horizons, builds confidence and independence, fosters lasting relationships, and cultivates the capacity for lifelong learning and reflective citizenship. These goods are part of a full and flourishing human life, not luxuries — the realisation of a person's potential to grow into their fullest self. The argument moves from the value of this growth to a right. If personal development of this kind is among the things that make for a flourishing life, then access to it should not be rationed by the accident of birth or family wealth. To make such a profound avenue of human growth available only to those who can pay is to declare that the poor deserve less opportunity to become their fullest selves than the rich — a proposition the argument rejects as unjust. Just as societies came to treat basic education as a right owed to all because of what it does for the person, the same logic, on this view, extends to the deeper formation universities offer. A good that every person deserves, and that develops the human being so fundamentally, is the kind of thing a just society guarantees. From this standpoint, gatekeeping personal growth by price is indefensible. Because tertiary education provides personal growth which everyone deserves, this argument holds, higher education is a right everyone is entitled to.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Critics reply that this establishes university's value without establishing either a right or free provision. Rights of this kind are usually defended by showing a good is necessary for a minimally decent life and can be supplied universally, and the growth described is neither: critical thinking, exposure to unfamiliar ideas, maturation and independence are also produced by work, apprenticeship, travel, military service, reading, parenthood and civic life, and graduates hold no monopoly on any of them. The analogy with basic education breaks down for the same reason — compulsory schooling is universal and supplies literacy and numeracy everyone needs, whereas university is selective by design, so a right to it is either a right to admission, which would mean abolishing entry standards, or a right to funding once admitted, a far narrower claim than the argument makes. Free provision does not follow from the right in any case: a right to healthcare is compatible with charging those who can pay, and the evidence from free-tuition systems is that participation gaps by social class persist, because the binding constraints are prior attainment and the cost of living rather than tuition. Critics add that funding universal free provision from general taxation transfers resources from non-graduates, who on average earn less, to graduates, who on average earn more — an awkward result for an argument grounded in fairness to the poor.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] Granting university's formative value does not distinguish it: the growth described is also produced by work, apprenticeship, travel, parenthood and civic life, so it cannot ground a right specific to university. [Rejecting P2] Goods that make a life go well are not thereby rights; rights of this kind are usually defended by necessity for a minimally decent life together with universal suppliability, and university is selective by design. [Rejecting P3] The analogy with basic education fails because schooling is universal and supplies what everyone needs, and free provision does not follow from a right in any case — free-tuition systems still show class gaps, since the binding constraints are prior attainment and living costs, while general-taxation funding transfers from lower-earning non-graduates to higher-earning graduates.