Be Careful What You Wish For

“Free education” is often used to express a desirable goal. But we must be clear about what we mean. If we mean that it should cost no one anything, then it can never be quality education. Quality always requires effort, among other things.

The better question is who should pay for it. We can create systems where it is not the students who pay for their education, but everyone else, for example through taxes.

Publicly available media that is not behind a paywall can still cost something. Even if it is not in money, it will be in the time it takes to play the ads and recover from their distraction.

On a more fundamental level, you are introducing a massive bias towards one source of information, driven by the mechanisms that make each platform tick. What are the real incentives that allow creators to produce sustainably on that platform?

Consumers often don’t care, but that’s what shapes the spectrum of information they consume. It is part of a solid education to identify and understand the mechanisms behind the information presented to you. Are you being offered a bubble, an opinion, or rather clearly stated conflicts of interest and transparent evidence? Most students have never learned to ask for the latter.

When it comes to education, there is no free lunch.