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Should governments pay tuition fees for all students?
With an increasing cost of higher education, university students nowadays find it difficult to pay off their student loans. In many countries, governments make a series of policies to bear the cost for them, while some people argue that students should be responsible for paying tuition fees by themselves. In my view, governments should only help those who cannot afford the education cost, so that public finance can be spent most efficiently.
Students from disadvantaged families are more likely to drop out of school, which is a loss for society. They are not willing to impose much burden on their families and have to give up pursuing a degree at university. As a result, they could make fewer contributions to society because of limited levels of knowledge. For example, there could be fewer scientists who would have researched in medicine and technology fields if they cannot get equal access to educational resources. Instead, they may end up choosing some simple jobs, such as farming or cleaning.
However, it is not easy or realistic to pay tuition fees for all universities students. This will lead to a large amount of debt and governments will find it difficult to balance their budgets. They have to impose high taxes on citizens, which will increase commodity prices. By this way, although students can enjoy the benefit of free education, many taxpayers could be reluctant to pay taxes or buy expensive goods, and it could trigger a recession.
In addition, if students don’t need to pay their tuition, they may be less hardworking in their studies. University students will not take their schoolwork seriously, because they would think it is the benefit given by governments and take it for granted. By contrast, they would value the opportunity of studying at university if they need to afford tuition fees by themselves. This is because they would make an effort to raise funds for their education, which costs time and energy. Therefore, these students would not want to waste their precious chance after entering a university.
In conclusion, governments should realize the importance of giving financial support to poor students and take targeted measures to offer assistance instead of covering all college students.
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Distance-learning program
Distance-learning programs have become so popular, with more and more people using them to gain knowledge or even get a degree. However, some people argue that the experience of studying in these courses cannot be compared to that of attending a university in person. I agree with this opinion and think that distance-learning programs can never take the place of studying at university, although they have advantages in some perspectives.
Students who study in distance-learning programs could be easily distracted by something else on the electronic device that they use to take classes. There could be a wide variety of applications on it. Therefore, it is highly possible that students who are supposed to finish the study tasks end up indulging in mobile games. By contrast, in the university, they may be more disciplined under the supervision of professors.
Another reason is that there could be small accidents all the time. For example, the electronic equipment may be power off while students are taking online courses, and the courses have to be interrupted. Besides, they could miss out on important contents when the Wi-Fi signal is not well. It could be quite annoying and embarrassing to come across these things, and if they frequently happened, students may waste a large amount of time and tuition fees.
On the other hand, distance-learning gives students a chance to choose their study time flexibly, and this will benefit many people, especially those working full-time. They can complete their degrees at night while working in the daytime. Although some universities also offer night schools, students still have to be present in the classroom instead of staying at home and studying by watching videos.
In conclusion, distance-learning has a series of drawbacks such as the difficulty of concentrating and frequent accidents, so the effect is not so good as studying in a university, but it is still a nice choice in terms of its flexibility.
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Rules and laws
Rules and laws play important roles in a country’s operation, both of which restrict people’s behaviors and make society harmonious. I agree that, in most cases, they are necessary, although, in some perspectives, they have a negative impact on innovation.
The main purpose of the government to enforces a series of laws is to prevent crimes. The severe punishment deters many criminals from committing crimes. If there were no rule, they would do whatever they want and harm innocent people, for example, robbing money, bullying the weak or cheating customers. These will bring a huge loss to society. Thus, there should be rules, warning those who have evil thoughts and making them give up turning to crime in time.
In addition, rules can encourage public morals and virtues. At first, they force people to observe, but gradually, citizens will develop good habits. They will watch their manners spontaneously and have a guilty when doing something immoral like spitting. Therefore, rules do not only have their direct effect but also help people with telling right from wrong.
On the other hand, laws sometimes restrain human’s freedom and hinder social progress. Too strict laws could pose a threat to new things in society, no matter they are good or not. For example, many high-tech companies cannot enter a foreign market because of the supervision of the local government. Recently, the American government enacted a law to restrict the import of electronic devices produced by Huawei, a Chinese tech giant. This caused millions of dollars’ economic loss to Huawei and harmed those companies who were related to Huawei in the supply chain. This means a large number of companies lose their funding that they would have had to develop new technology.
In conclusion, it is a must to have laws and rules within a nation and they should be firmly carried out, given the merits of reducing crime rates and improving personal moral accomplishment. However, they are likely to impede the advance of society from time to time.
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Waste Production in Six countries
The table provides information about the quantity of waste produced in six countries in 1980, 1990 and 200.
The US produced the largest amount of garbage among all the countries, and there was a steady increase of 100 million tonnes for every ten years. The figure nearly doubled to 4005 million tonnes in 2000. There was a similar trend in Japan, where waste production rose from 44 to 52 million tonnes. By contrast, Korea saw a significant decrease from 1990 to 2000, with 12-million-ton trash being cut down.
Other countries produced relatively less garbage. The waste produced in Portugal roughly remained stable in all the years, while the figures for Ireland and Poland increased slightly to three and five million tonnes respectively. However, the amount of waste production in Ireland in 2000 became 15 times more than 20 years ago since only 0.2 million tonnes of waste was produced in 1980.
Overall, the US and Japan produced much more garbage than other countries did, and there was big increase in these two countries. Only in Korea, waste production showed a remarkable downward trend.
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Should air travel be more expensive to reduce pollution?
It’s a tendency that more people choose to travel by air worldwide, which, at the same time, brings about a series of environmental issues. Thus, some people argue that ticket fees should be increased to control passenger volume. I think this is unnecessary, although it will have a positive impact on the environment. In fact, a more feasible solution to is to often upgrade the equipment of airplanes.
Cheap air travel provides everyone with affordable prices to travel across borders, which is beneficial for economic growth. For example, people in some positions have to go on business trips very often by air. If the travel fare had become more expensive, they would have to reduce the frequency of their flights. It may cause economic loss to their companies further. Therefore, many business activities will be reduced if the cost of air travel is too high.
On the other hand, airlines may lose money due to passenger loss. High prices will impose a burn on customers, and correspondingly, there will be less consumption of air travel. This means that the total revenue will be influenced to a large extent. And the demand of for air travel tends to be elastic, so airlines are likely to have a deficit.
Nonetheless, such concerns about pollution due to a large amount of emissions from airplanes are still reasonable. Many people who could have chosen eco-friendlier transportations travel by air because of the merits of relatively low price and high speed. Therefore, if air tickets become expensive, they could turn to alternatives like high-speed rails, which will reduce air pollution as well as noise pollution.
In my opinion, the global economy may suffer a recession because it will harm commercial activities, which seems to be a more severe problem than the pollution that air travels make. In addition, policymakers can focus on how to encourage technological innovations on airplanes instead of controlling passenger flows traveling by air to mitigate the pollution.
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Why some people throw away what they use in daily life and how to address this issue?
It’s not usual that some people dispose of something every day after temporary usage rather than recycling or keeping the item. It is a waste of resources and could cause more pollution to the environment, and thus, should be stopped.
More flush with money, people tend to buy new products even though the older one remains intact. With the increase of income, goods become less wealthy nowadays. By contrast, people valued them more and were reluctant to drop them in the past because they had only limited chances to buy a new one. Another reason is that brand new products are pretty attractive to consumers. For example, there are always new functions added to the latest electronic products like the iPhone, which is a big incentive for consumers to renew them every year. On the other hand, quite a few people lack awareness of environmental protection and do not have the habit of recycling. They don’t realize how serious it could be to abandon things casually.
All sectors of society should be engaged in garbage recycling to solve this problem. Communities are supposed to be responsible for educating people to change the previous bad habit and recycle waste. They can also donate the items to disadvantaged families to maximize their use. Besides, Social media ought to take action to publicize the knowledge of how to recycle garbage. And the government could even enforce some laws to deter consumers from throwing away goods.
In conclusion, higher income, the desire for new products, and a lack of environmental awareness are the main reasons for the problem of a throw-away society. Therefore, it needs the cooperation of communities, social media, and the government to raise citizen’s awareness of environmental protection.
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Does ageing population have positive or negative effects on society?
With lower birth rates and death rates, plenty of nations are faced with the problem of an ageing population. This issue, in my opinion, generally has adverse impacts on society, although from some perspectives it could be beneficial to society.
Older people are not as productive as younger ones, and thus, this trend may cut down the GDP (gross domestic product) within some countries. This is because young people are more capable of some jobs which require a large amount of energy and intelligence, for example, computer engineering, actuarial accounting, and artificial intelligence. As ages grow older, the people who work in such jobs may not be able to either absorb new knowledge or work overtime, and thus, fall behind the times. This means that efficiency and profitability will be lowered. Furthermore, it will endanger the whole economy.
On the other hand, the steady increase of senior citizens could impose a burden on the younger generation. They do not only have to earn their livings, but also have to support their parents and even grandparents. When older people find it hard to make ends meet or need care because of illness, younger ones have to spend much time and energy on them. This may bring out a series of younger people, for instance, using up all the savings for curing their parents’ cancer or quitting their jobs to take care of their old parents. When these situations begin to accumulate, it will become a common problem in society that could exist in every family.
However, the growth of the older population still could have a positive influence on society. In the long term, with a high demand for health care, the government will take action to improve the quality of medical services.
In conclusion, the rise of older people may reduce economic growth and affect the life quality of the younger generation, while it possibly promotes the reform of the medical system.
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Should children obey rules or do what their parents and teachers want them to do?
It’s not unusual that parents and teachers set all kinds of rules to children, which is deemed to be obstacles to children’s growth, in certain people’s opinion. However, I would argue that obeying rules is an important lesson for children and should be encouraged.
Some people hold the idea children are supposed to abide by regulations either at home or school because children are too young to tell right from wrong. They could easily behave in a wrong way which they may not even notice, for example, playing video games over time, ignoring table manners, or bullying other children. All of these behaviours could cause severe outcomes if they are not stopped in time. Thus, children should always be under parents’ and teachers’ control.
Nonetheless, other people complain that children are regulated too much, which may cause a series of problems. On the one hand, it may cause mental issues to these children. They live a life in the shadow of parents and teachers, fearing of failing to meet their requirements. On the other hand, it could stifle these children’s creativity. They will find it difficult to make innovations since what they only know is to take orders.
In my view, it is every parent and teacher’s mission to set rules to children, as no children can independently regulate themselves well. Even though there are such concerns that over-control could limit children’s minds, it is still necessary to teach them rules to avoid misconduct. The reason for this is apparent by weighing the harm of over-control and lack of control. After all, over-control cannot do severe harm to children since they will at least know how to behave themselves decently, while a lack of control inevitably brings about a large number of problems to children and lead them astray.
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