By Josh Guckert
By now, you’ve likely heard about Belle Knox, the Duke freshman who had to resort to being a porn star in order to pay for college. While Ms. Knox’s story may be frowned upon by many, the general theme of sex for education may be even more prevailing that we originally thought. [RELATED: 20 Hottest Libertarian Ladies of 2015]
Canadian students suffer from the same problem that American students do: ever-increasing tuition costs and consequentially, unsustainable levels of student debt. The Huffington Post Canada reports that a website entitled SeekingArrangement has gained significant popularity across our northern border. The site allows potential “sugar babies” to find “sugar daddies” who will pay for their college. Sugar babies are not required to have sex with their sugar daddies to receive such payments…but it’s difficult to imagine what other type of agreements would be able to be successfully arranged when so much money is involved.
As numerous economic studies have found over the years, the advent of federal subsidies to education has been one of the prime causes of the inflation of tuition prices. It’s not all that complicated. Think of it this way: if a friend offered to buy your car from you and he told you that he could borrow an unlimited amount from his parents (even though he would obviously have to pay them back at some point in the future), would you keep the car at market value? Or would you try to make as much money as possible?
In this example, the colleges across the country have chosen the latter. It is of no concern to them if their graduates are unable to find jobs after they graduate and are saddled with thousands of dollars in debt. Once the students have paid all that they can to the university, those students have frustrated their purpose and worn out their welcome.
On top of all of this, college has become all but mandatory in most professions, as an all-time high number of Americans are earning college degrees. While some, like President Obama, laud this development as a sign of progress, we should take pause before any celebration. If college degrees have become so prevalent that almost everyone has one and those who do not are shunned by employers, is the choice of attending really a voluntary decision?
When combining these two issues, we come to the conclusion that college is now de facto mandated in order to enter the job market, and that colleges are free to charge as much as they want because students can resort to student loans to make up the difference in what they can afford. This is an unhealthy situation to say the least.
This brings us back to the original story. As lovers of liberty, we applaud the rights of individuals to do as they wish with their pocket books and bodies so long as they are harming no one else in the process. SeekingArrangement is a perfect example of individuals exercising their freedom to contract in a way which is beneficial to all parties involved.
However, as lovers of liberty, we also detest the use of force to coerce others into situations in which they would rather not be involved. This seems to be such a situation. These students, so dedicated to earning their education, are willing to sell the right to their bodies just for the opportunity to have a better life. When government, through the corporate welfare system that is education subsidization, is what is encouraging such a transaction through unintended consequences, we must speak up in favor of a freer market. Such a development would help lower prices, and in this instance, would help these students have more freedom of choice in what they do with both their finances and their personal lives.
about the author: Josh Guckert is a 23-year-old law student at the University of Pittsburgh. He graduated cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013 and was born and raised in the Pittsburgh area. He is a 2013 graduate of Cato University, hosted by the Cato Institute, and was first drawn to the ideas of liberty by reading 1984, Brave New World and The Conscience of a Conservative.
