By Allison Garvey
Yes—college and free in the same sentence. For students studying in Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, to name a few, higher education is free-of-charge. The idea has quite a pull: study in your field, gain a specialized education, and begin a career all without the stresses of a premium price tag. Though the setup sounds idyllic, there is no free lunch, and college in any nation is certainly not “free”. The real costs of Scandinavia’s higher education lie in a delicately orchestrated social structure: one even other powerhouse nations maybe find a hard press to duplicate.
While the education is free, the lifestyle is not. Students can still expect to graduate with the US equivalent of $19,000 in debt. One of the more unique intricacies of the Scandinavian education system is their uptake of government aid—a near 100% of students accept federal loans and aid to fund their life through college.
I found myself asking, why would someone with access to free postsecondary education graduate with much, if any debt to speak of? The Scandinavian model’s roots tie more into a cultural and social agenda than one might expect. Part of a cultural practice more than anything, it relies on the assumption that students can and will get out on their own and begin to build a productive life for themselves. While student loans in Scandinavia are somewhat comparable to rates in the United States, the schedule of repayment facilitates a realistic ability for a young adult to work, save, and make payments on loans and other costs on an average starting salary. This is one of the tough breaks the American loan repayment system has encountered in recent years—students graduate with debt and begin working, yet are unable to keep up with repayment schedules in entry level positions.
Scandinavia is playing the long game—they see untapped potential in younger generations. Subsidizing postsecondary education derives from their faith in this age group to seek out and take seriously a path of higher education, move out from under their parents and take on their social responsibility of contributing to and building up their respective country. This repayment is manifest in producing well-educated, college bound children of their own and by building successful careers that allow them to contribute to innovation. While these young scholars work to become successful, their governments patiently wait for this rising generation to become established so they too, can get in on a piece of the pie. The pie, in this case, is mainly taxes.
Tax rates in Scandinavian countries are notoriously astronomical. Denmark, for example, boasts a marginal tax rate of 60 percent compared to the United States’ average tax rate of about 39.6%. Only those outliers in the $400,000 and above tax bracket can expect a tax rate as high as 46.8% in America.
United States Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders boasts a plan very similar to the Scandinavian method of higher education and social reform. Under his College for All Act, various taxes on Wall Street and the very wealthy would fund public higher education in its entirety. According to literature from Senator Sanders,
“a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on Wall Street would be implemented– a 0.5 percent speculation fee on investment houses, hedge funds, and other stock trades, as well as a 0.1 percent fee on bonds and a 0.005 percent fee charged on derivatives”
The College for All Act would shift even just slightly the American revenue scheme to bring in $300 billion per year as funding for public education costs. While this plan does provide equal opportunity for higher education, with equal opportunity comes with it equal responsibility—something individualist American society is less familiar with. Inevitably, the pursuit of the American dream to realize success on one's own perpetuates the culture of education and education funding that is currently in place.
The Scandinavian system of higher education is not a one-size-fits-all model. Their delicate balance of government authority and social programs has been carefully tailored over centuries to withstand today’s global landscape. The Swedish system finances a growth period for the generation of people who will sooner rather than later be charged with the task of taking care of the people and the society that raised them. The means to an end is in large part intended to groom future generations of socially responsible individuals who have a strong loyalty, as well as a strong obligation, to quite literally pay it forward.
Allison Garvey is a student at Brigham Young University.
