Vaught 1

Graham Vaught
Adam Padgett
English 102
9 February 2016

In what ways will having free college education affect our economy?
In the past few months, there has been heated debates, verbal attacks, and commercial
campaigning between all the candidates on the republican side and on the democratic side. With
all of the argument and issues the candidates bring up, one interested me the most. Berny sanders
had proposed a plan for free college education for the middle class. But before I got too excited
about this, I became very suspicious about how the college tuition was going to get payed if this
plan was to put forward and who will pay for it? This is what interested me in this research to
find out if free college education is actually great or will it hurt the economy by increasing the
tax of the middle class. By having this research question it will affect me and my values by after
researching my question, it would make my understanding about the plan better and therefore
affect if I should vote for Berny Sanders or any other candidates. My personal experience
regarding to this question I want to research is that I am current enrolled in college and facing the
finical issues and debt issues that most college student are having currently. Because I am
enrolled in college and 19 years old, I have the experiences from the financial issues that college
student have and old enough to vote for the next president, make me qualified to write about this
and to make a decision on which candidate I want to vote for.
The first source I will use is The Cost of Free College by Andrew P. Kelly, KELLY,
A. P. (2015). The Cost of 'Free' College. National Review, 67(19), 39-42. The central claim of the
article is that the cost of having a free college education would have to be through the tax payer
1

Vaught 2

money and therefore the government would control the education system. The major evidence in
this article is that the author uses Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clintons plans on how they are
going to make college education free and explains how they work and who pays for it. The major
values and interests that are at stake in this article is the average middle class familys interests,
because they are going to be the most affected if the free college education plan is set forth. The
bias in the article is only on the side against free college education system because of the
presentation of the facts and how the author talks about the free college education system. The
author of the article Andrew P. Kelly, is very credible because he is a scholar in education policy
studies and the director of the Center on Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise
Institute. The source is credible because it come from Academic Search Complete.
The second source I will use in my research is the article titled A Better Plan for DebtFree College: Give Money Straight to Students by Haney P. David, Haney, D. P. (2015). A
Better Plan for Debt-Free College: Give Money Straight to Students. Chronicle Of Higher
Education, 62(4), 28. . The central claim of this article is that Bernie Sanderss and Hillary
Clintons plans for a free education system are the wrong solution that college education system
needs. The major evidence of the article is that the author writes about how that there plans
would further federalizing higher education accountability. This would abandon the studies of
humanities, the arts, and other learning that does not have a short-term return on investment. In
this article there is a little bias that is against the proposed free college education system by
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, but the author come up with a new plan that would eliminate
some of the bad parts in their plans. The credibility of the author is that the author is the Vice
President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at Emory & Henry College, and focused on

Vaught 3

building new programs and developing models for higher education. The source is credible
because it come from Academic Search Complete.
The third source I will use in the research paper is But Can America Afford This
Approach to Solve Student Debt by HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS, Edwards, H. S.,
Altman, A., Miller, Z. J., & Thompson, M. (2015). But Can America Afford This Approach to
Solving Student Debt? Time, 186(22), 92-99. The central claim to this article was to show
multiple way from the republicans and the democrats approaches to solve the student debt
problem. The major evident was the facts and statistics that were presented to show that there is a
problem to student debt and the way to solve it. The major values and interests at stake for the
article is how to choose the approach of the student debt problem. Because of all the plans have
statistics in favor of them, they could all effect the way of life for some people in certain ways. In
the article there is no evident for bias because the author write about both the view point of
republicans and democrats views. The author is highly credible because she is a correspondent at
Time magazine, and was an editor at the Washington Monthly about policy and regulation. The
source is credible because it come from Academic Search Complete.

My research question is arguable to the fact that there many ways to look at how the
economy is affected. You could look at a point of view from an average middle class family, or
the economy as a whole and see what is affected and what is not. All of my sources agree with
the fact that the proposed plan by Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are not best for what the
3

Vaught 4

American People want and what the college student needs, the also agree that there needs to be a
change in the college education system so that student can afford it. The different sources
affected my own view in the way that made me be more skeptical and curious about what the
candidates from both parties say on the major issues in America. It also help me see that there
was a lot more to the free college education system then what I previously knew. I would revise
my research question by maybe making a little more specific.
Graham,
This is a really intriguing research question you are investigating here. Its timely
and certainly complex enough to sustain a research project. I wonder what would
happen if you avoided framing this topic around the idea of who you are going to
vote for. I think politicizing the topic might turn audiences off, and ideally, youd like
to open your audience to a new idea. Also, this research project shouldnt simply be
a documentary of how your investigation influenced or changed your opinion. You
should simply be seeking to answer a worthwhile question about the world, and
your topic certainly evokes lots of worthwhile questions. Looking forward to seeing
how this develops.