Informal Writing #6 for Group 1

                Our group's debate question is “should the cost of education be reduced?” Our group is comprised of Jeremy, Kelly, Nicole, Tony, Dave, and Nate. On the affirmative side, in favor of lowering the cost of college, are Jeremy, Kelly, and Nicole. Each of them will perform a rebuttal, and Nicole will provide the opening, while Kelly provides the closing. On the negative side are Dave, Tony, and Nate. Each of them will be presenting a rebuttal, while Nate and Dave have provided an opening and closing respectively. For the most part, we know a lot about our topic already. This is mainly due to the fact that we have experienced the college process firsthand. For example, most of us had cost as one of our factors in our college decision. As well, some of us pursued scholarship opportunities to help offset that cost.

                Moving on to the arguments themselves, the main argument for the affirmative side is more specifically that it is unfair that some people cannot afford to go to a college because they may be very intelligent but cannot do anything with their talent because they cannot receive a degree. The argument for the negative side is that, not only would lowered costs of college increase taxes, but it would also diminish the significance of college degrees.

                We have done some research to help each side of our argument. The articles that we read for class have also helped very much. However, we will need much more research. We should be looking for scholarly sources that have reasonable, logical arguments.

                In order to better understand our topic, we first must answer some philosophical questions. For example, even though free tuition would be wonderful, would it possibly change how hard students work? If students did not have to try to get into college, surely it would impact how they treat their work. Also, if the cost of college is lowered, would that indeed affect the value of degrees that have already been acquired? Would someone’s degree suddenly be worth much less than what they worked for because of the cost change? Realistically, how much they paid to get a good education should affect the value of the degree. These questions must be left unanswered for now.