I would like to start off by stating that I am from an affluent neighborhood on Long Island in New York. I was born into a middle class/upper middle class family and have never had to struggle to afford necessities for myself or for my family. I am lucky, I am privileged and I understand that. But I did not earn this privilege. Nothing that I have done has earned me the luck of being born to my family. In other words we cannot help where we come from whether we come from the top 1 percent or the bottom 5 percent.

Despite where I came from, I worked hard in high school. I pushed myself to get the best education I could. The public school I attended, however, had fabulous resources –– teachers who were paid usually between $70,000 and $130,000 a year and who genuinely wanted to be there. My teachers supported me and gave me resources so that I could succeed. My school district had phenomenal technological resources like smart boards in every classroom including the dance studio, which it also happened to have. My school district truly had outstanding opportunities for all students in attendance.

I now attend a private college in Memphis, Tennessee. I have academic scholarships and grants based on determined financial need, but none the less, my family is paying a lot of money for me to be at this college. I did not earn this, I did not work for my family to be able to afford my education. I was born into a lucky situation, a fortune most Americans do not have, which brings me to the main point of this article: the necessity for free higher education in the United States.

The majority of children in the United States are not born into my fortunate situation. They do not grow up being encouraged to follow their dreams and go to an elite college, etc. They grow up working hard. Frankly, they work their asses off just to survive. In order to survive in today's world you need an income. In order to obtain an income, you need a job and in most cases, in order to obtain a job, you need an education. In order to get an education, you need to be able to afford one, which perpetuates this unfortunate cycle. There is, however a plausible solution: making higher education easier to obtain by making it free.

If the United States were to make community colleges, vocational programs and public four year colleges and universities free, college would no longer be a far fetched dream for many children, teenagers and parents, but rather, a feasible goal. Taking away the costs of these institutions does in no way demerit any work that has been done by high school students. There will still be the prestigiously named private colleges and merit based acceptances, etc. Making these higher education institutions free would rather make it easier for lower income students to receive the educational background that is becoming more and more necessary.

There are many arguments against the premise of creating free higher education opportunities, the most important of which I would like to address.

These students won't need to work hard for their education, it will just be handed to them.

False. Just because educational institutions are more accessible financially does not mean that they are going to be less prestigious. In other words, colleges and universities will still be merit based. You still need to be accepted into the programs, but the financial burden is eliminated.

If these students didn't have a proper high school education they shouldn't be bringing down colleges and universities.

There are undeniable flaws within the primary and secondary educational systems throughout the country. Where common core has attempted to eliminate some of the learning gaps, those gaps are inevitably still prevalent and quite visible. The fact of the matter is, a private high school is going to have greater opportunities than a bottom 5 percent inner city public high school. While fixing education issues at this level is crucial, it does not mean that we cannot try to find other ways to even the education and learning gaps. Community colleges and vocational programs that are free of charge are a great way of combatting this issue. If a student is too far behind educationally to start off at a four year college or university right out of high school, community college programs are a great way to help them to catch up.

I don't want to pay for other students to go to college when I already paid for my own education.

An increase in taxation is not necessarily needed in order to make these higher educational programs free. Redistribution of funds is an option and even some of the funds that are already implemented in bettering education can be redirected to helping this cause. If increased taxation were to occur, the impact would be minimal since there are over 120 million Americans paying taxes each year.

The best way to improve the economy is to have everybody working. In order to have everyone working, everyone needs to receive an education. In fact the economy would improve with more educated workers! The argument at play is not to make every single educational institution free. After all, most private institutions operate as businesses and without sufficient funds would not be able to operate at all. The argument is to make public colleges and universities, community colleges, and vocational programs free and accessible so that Americans who were not born into upper middle class or upper class families still have the ability to survive and thrive in this country.