College tuition has a big impact on whether students decide to go college or not. The cost of tuition has progressively become more expensive and it has mainly affected lower-income students and, sometimes financial aid isn’t enough. Many students go to college to learn more about their careers and follow their passions. For the people that can’t afford college, they are not able to do that which puts them at a disadvantage. The education system of colleges makes students pay big amounts of money on tuition just to attend college and there are many people that are not able to do that. In the YouTube video, “The Problem with ‘Free’” where the author Joe Rogan believes that tuition free colleges isn’t something that can possibly happen in reality. Rogan effectively addresses the issue by having a conversation with Andrew Yang about the problems of free college. Rogan uses logos to show how not everyone doesn’t need to go to college to go on the right path. He captures the audience by using pathos by mentioning people he knew that had gone to college that either had debt or went to college and doing something completely different now. College should eliminate tuition so lower-income students have a fair chance to attend college and get the education that they need. 

Many students when they come out of college, they remain with debt that can possibly stay with them for most of their lives. In Joe Rogan’s You Tube video he states, “friends that are in their 30s and 40s around, yeah it just stays with them like a wet blanket that you can never get out of.” By Rogan saying this he is using pathos because he connects to the issue by having people he knows that go through the issue of tuition. The tone he said it in made it seem that he felt empathy for his friends that have to deal with debt. With tuition being so high, there are many people that can’t afford to pay it back so quickly. Rogan is trying to say that if people are not able to afford tuition then it is not worth going to college because at the end of the day, those people are going to come out of college with a lot of debt to handle that can take years to pay back but this can be avoided if tuition was gone. In an article titled “Why College Should Be Free: Pros and Cons” by Ellen Andersen mentioned, “Without the weight of student loan debt, more college graduates might buy houses rather than renting apartments.” The elimination of tuition would benefit the economy even more because most college graduates will start making purchases such as buying a house or a car instead of worrying about paying off their debt that they accumulated throughout college. Andersen is suggesting that without tuition, the younger generation would contribute much more to the economy than if they collected a bunch of debt. Money is a big issue for many students coming out of high school and trying to go to college. A lot of low-income students and families are struggling financially and most of them can’t afford to go to college. Anderson states, “Getting rid of tuition would eliminate this reason for not graduating.” This goes to show that if tuition were gone, many lower-income students would have the chance to go to college, therefore more of them would be able to graduate. According to the article Andersen wrote, The average American college student graduating with debt is $37,000. That is a lot of money to worry about, especially after graduating from college. This just forces college graduates to continue to pay back what they owe for long periods of time. 

There are many people that go to college and believe that it leads them on the right path but it takes them somewhere else. Rogan mentions, “it’s so common that they thought there was going to be this path and this path just didn’t exist once they got out.” Rogan believes that college isn’t for everyone and that is true, there are many people that don’t need college to be successful and follow their dreams. There are many others that need the education to pursue what they want to do but they can’t afford it. Which forces them to not go to school and choose a different career path. Rogan’s goal is to let his intended audience know that college isn’t needed and that there are so many other paths that can be taken than wasting your time going to college. Andersen is straightforward in the article by letting the audience know that by getting rid of tuition, more college students will enjoy choosing what major they want. She argues, “ Interest and enjoyment from a field of study goes a long way in helping students stick with it and avoid burning out.” With tuition not being a thing, more people are going to want to go to college because they are going to have the freedom to choose what majors they want. The process of going to college would be more enjoyable if college students don’t have to worry about paying off their tuition than they can worry about what major they want to focus on. 

Joe Rogan fails to discuss how tuition-free college would benefit the lower-income students, he was mostly talking about how many college graduates come out of college with a lot of debt for most in his YouTube conversation with Andrew Yang. A New York Times article written by David Deming titled “Tuition-Free College Could Cost Less Than You Think” mentions, “Yet at the moment, only 37 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 have a four-year college degree, and completion rates are lower for poorer students.” Deming uses logos to show readers that lower-income students are effective by the large cost of tuition, therefore preventing them from completing college. By doing this he is able to get the readers’ trust because he provided statistical information that shows that tuition does impact lower-income students. How come when Joe Rogan speaks about free college, he doesn’t mention the less fortunate? Free college is supposed to help everyone, especially the people that couldn’t afford paying tuition. There are many lower-income students that want to go to college to follow their dreams but the cost of tuition stops them. Even help with financial aid isn’t enough for them to continue to go to college. Deming also states in his article, “Dollars and cents aside, there is a strong ethical case for devoting more public spending to policies that encourage poorer students to get a college education, giving them some of the opportunities that richer students receive as a matter of birth.” By eliminating college tuition, it gives everyone the equal opportunity to attend college because it isn’t fair that someone rich that can afford it can go to college but someone poor can’t. In another article titled “Why Free College Is Necessary” by Tressie McMillian Cottom, the author is fighting for free college tuition and for change in the education system. Cotton argues that “free college would likely benefit only an outlying group of students who are currently shut out of higher education because of cost—students with the ability and/or some cultural capital but without wealth.” This goes to show that college is very privileged because most of the people that go to college can afford to pay tuition while there are others that go to college but worry about paying off their debt. If tuition is out of the picture when it comes to college then it wouldn’t be as privileged anymore because anyone that wants higher education can get it.

Rogan’s solution is that people don’t have to go to college because people don’t need higher education to make money to survive. He states in his video, “if you abandoned like the idea of higher learning and going to college and just went right into learning to be a carpenter or something like that, people look at you oh you sold yourself short.” Even though there is nothing wrong with people wanting to be a carpenter and not go to college, there are many people that don’t want to do that. The people that want to be doctors, lawyers, pilots, etc, they need to go to college and learn to become what they want to be. Some of these people are low-income students that want to have those kinds of jobs but they can’t pay for tuition which stops them from pursuing their passion. 

Joe Rogan makes it look like a tuition free college is impossible and unlikely going to happen because it doesn’t sound realistic. Eliminating tuition would help every college student by not having to worry about collecting debt and worry about their career and their goals. Rogan left his audience wondering if tuition will ever not be a thing in the education system and what type of solutions are going to happen to solve this problem. 

Reflection

When thinking about the thesis statement, it was hard coming up with one because I had to have my sources to be able to support it. As I found sources to use, the thesis statement slowly came together. While finding the sources to support my thesis statement, it was hard to find information about the issue I was trying to address. I was able to overcome this by typing different words on google to find information about my topic. For example, I would type“free college tuition” first on google and get not the results I was looking for. Then I would type “Benefits of college free tuition” and get better results than before. While conducting my research, I found many sources that I discarded because they seemed like they were going to go well with my topic but then I realized after analyzing the resources that it was going to help my topic or go back to supporting my thesis. I also discarded those sources because they were proving my thesis statement wrong or going against what I had to say about this topic of free college. While analyzing the texts and resources, the problem I had was how I was going to use these resources and include it in my essay while it connected to my argument. I was able to solve this problem by being picky on what evidence I want to use in my essay because I had to find the best evidence to support my argument. Also while analyzing my sources, I noticed that some had information about ideas going against my ideas about the same topic. I overcame this by using the information that I needed for my essay and I didn’t use the information that was going against my thesis statement. The sources I used to support my thesis statement helped prove my argument. All the information I used in the sources to support my thesis statement also contributed to my argument because they both related to each other and also strengthened my stances on the topic.

Works Cited 

1. Rogan , Joe, director. The Problem with “Free” College | Joe Rogan & Andrew Yang. YouTube, YouTube, 12 Feb. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DMCsXq_mYw.   
2. Cottom, Tressie McMillan. “Why Free College Is Necessary.” Dissent Magazine, 23 Sept. 2019, www.dissentmagazine.org/article/tressie-mcmillan-cottom-why-free-college-necess 
3. Andersen , Ellen. “Should College Be Free: Pros And Cons – College Raptor.” College Raptor Blog, 31 July 2020, www.collegeraptor.com/find-colleges/articles/affordability-college-cost/pros-cons-tu 
4. Deming, David. “Tuition-Free College Could Cost Less Than You Think.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 July 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/tuition-free-college.html