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Write a prompt response on the article "Free tuition for everyone" by Louis Grant .

Debt stinks. Ask anyone who's graduated and is now trying to pay off a big pile of debt while working at a regular job. I'm talking about student debt of ten, twenty, or thirty thousand dollars, which is not uncommon. Organizing a system so that young people start their careers shackled to years of debt payments is poor social planning. In fact, encouraging people to get themselves into such significant debt while completing diploma programs that lead to jobs paying a modest starting wage is downright dishonest. There has to be a better way.

However, solutions to the problem may not be easy to find. Let's face facts: many parents can afford to pay for the post-secondary education of their children, but they may not want to. They may feel too nicked by paying for so-called necessities like cell phones or winter break trips to Mexico. And just this week I heard a student complain about how long it took to get her OSAP, and then just a few seconds later she bragged that her parents had just bought her a new car. I'd say she and her parents are using public funds unfairly, even though the loan will eventually have to be paid back. As long as parents and students dodge their responsibilities like this, it is impossible to run a fair system of loans and grants based on student need.

The fair and logical way around this problem is to make tuition free for all students with a passing GPA and to fund the program with income taxes paid by everyone. Wouldn't it be better to have students leaving school unencumbered by debt? Then they would be more able to begin purchasing cars and homes and so keep our economy going. And wouldn't debt-free graduates, or at least graduates with less debt, be less likely to end up, as a CBC report says is happening now, depressed, broke, and bankrupt?

Meanwhile, the pretense that the system works continues. My Student Loan, a recent documentary made by a graduate of Trent University to recover the cost of his student loan, shows the film maker being hounded by a person from a collection agency. The film maker turns the tables and asks the collection agency guy how he paid off his student loan. Guess what? Collection agency guy got his father to pay. I say scrap OSAP, boost income tax, and make tuition free. If countries like Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Sweden and Cuba can provide free tuition, why can't Canada?