There are many policy issues that I feel passionate about, but I chose to focus on the free college proposal. Although this has not gotten approved yet, there are many questions and potential problems surrounding this controversial piece of legislation. If I were in the position to vote, I would not be in favor of Governor Raimondo’s proposal. First, it would cost taxpayers a very large amount of money to fund this program. While it is a great idea in theory to support those who would not have an opportunity to attend college otherwise, lower and middle-class citizens would also have to pay money for the children in families with large amounts of wealth and income. Next, the overall value of a college degree will decrease if there is a significant …show more content…
I first asked him for brief overview of his position so I could get a sense of where he stands on the debate. His primary concern was that this would be a difficult process that would come with a heavy expense. It would be a great opportunity to see anyone with potential be able to go to to college and have help paying for it, but this honorable ideas, as it stands now, is not feasible. Both he and I believe that if you give something away, it holds less value and he mentioned that it sometimes can be important for students to have “skin in the game”. In addition, he feels the academic requirement is too low. A C- average throughout college will not be appealing to employers, so many of these graduates will end up with low-paying jobs that do not require a bachelor’s degree. Finally, he believes that there needs to be an income and residency requirement. If a family makes over a certain amount of money, he said perhaps $150,000, college should not be completely free. Also, students should not be allowed to immediately leave the state after graduation because that will not be helping the Rhode Island economy. In contrast, the main benefit to this program would be that more professors would be hired and more money would hopefully be given to the schools to support all of the new students. Therefore, we certainly agree that there are changes that must be made before this proposal is