If school is work, shouldn’t students be paid?
When it comes to higher learning, the mental and physical energy we exert is grueling. We study long hours, sit at cramped desks, and perform menial tasks for a vague authority. More and more people agree that college should be free. But going to school is work. And we should be paid for our work.
Paid higher education is not unheard of. Denmark gives students about $900 a month to attend college, and other countries have similar programs. And it’s not that far-fetched. Students are already being groomed for work, from backpack to briefcase, campus to office. What is a diploma if not a certificate of achievement? And if you measure the benefit of an educated populace against the lost opportunity cost of an unskilled workforce, it makes economic sense, too.
Right now, many students skip college because they need to start earning an income, or because the prospect of making money is too enticing. While state and federal aid programs certainly exist, and free tuition would remove a barrier, simply neutralizing the cost of tuition isn’t enough, and doesn’t offer a reward for furthering your studies. Paid higher education would motivate high school students to keep going, and keep college students from dropping out.
When I wrote the book about school, I learned that governments have long viewed students as “human capital.” The purpose of learning—once a revered, mystical art—has become narrowly defined by industry. We go to school to get a job. Until broader reforms can be made, and education is once again seen as an intrinsic good, students should be treated with the same pragmatism they’re viewed with. If governments are serious about investing in students’ futures, they can start by funding them.
Not everyone should be paid to go to college. Rich students shouldn’t be paid to go to college (in medieval times, rich students had their books stolen and ransomed by their poor peers—when they weren’t beaten over the heads with them). But paying poor students would help even out the income inequality gap, and regrow the middle class. Instead of being burdened by debt, poor students would arrive to the job market with the same opportunities as rich ones, and the freedom to start building a life.
But mostly, college should be paid because it’s hard. If you don’t think that’s a good enough reason, consider another area of life where we’re expected to pay for the privilege of doing work. (Hint: There isn’t one.) Since students didn’t make college a prerequisite for work, there’s no reason they should have to pay for it. Apprentices are paid. Many interns are now paid. Why not pay students?
Paid higher education would be expensive. If we gave students $900 a month, it would cost billions. But would it be less expensive than the cost of high school graduates’ unrealized earning potential? What about all the inventions those students don’t invent, the diseases that remain uncured? Many of the students who don’t attend or complete college still work. In some cases, they become enterprising. In a few, they excel. But the majority work for other people, companies, or the government in roles they hate for an income they can’t live on.
Another way this could be afforded: Bring back corporations that earn obscene profits but underpay their share in taxes. Those corporations, in the tech and retail and food-service industries, headquarter their offices in tropical tax havens in order to avoid paying their dues. The tax income generated by their return could fund any number of public enterprises, including paying students to study.
The strangeness of higher education is that it’s already essentially workplace training. In college, students refine the academic skills they’ve spent most of their lives developing—a task that requires prolonged concentration and effort. While even moderate liberals now agree that college should be available without cost, college is work. We shouldn’t have to pay to work. Work should pay us.