[IELTS WRITING TASK 2] Should students pay the full cost for their own study?

Question:
Students should pay the full cost for their own study because university education benefits individuals rather than society.

To what extent do you agree?

Answer:

Some people think that university tuition should be paid by students since higher education brings advantages for individuals rather than society. Nevertheless, I believe that the government should help students cover tertiary education.

Firstly, paying full tuition could reduce the opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to get higher education. Due to not being able to afford tuition, some students would choose to work after finishing high school. Without higher education, it's hard for them to get decent jobs. They may end up getting low-paid jobs or being unemployed, which is not good for the progress of society. Thus, free tertiary education would lift the financial burden from many students, empower them to fulfill their potential, and generate social mobility.

Secondly, offering free education can benefit the country in the long term. If higher education was subsidized, more and more people would opt to study for university degrees. A well-educated workforce would no doubt boost the productivity of the nation, contribute more to tax revenue, and reduce the unemployment rate. Moreover, these skilled workers could come up with solutions to tackle social problems and bring about innovations in lots of aspects of life. Society would indeed become better with a large population of skilled workers.

In conclusion, I am convinced that providing free education would be a smart step for the government to take because higher education is the key factor that drives the development of individuals and the nation.

Depends upon University to University and its pre-requisites. If they fund you partially or not, then you have to study self-paid. Otherwise, there are so many governmental programs that run for those students who want to study and have some potential to do.

There are 2 problems with your presentation. The first problem has to do with the paraphrasing of the original topic. The second problem, is related to your response format. Both of which can lower your TA score in the actual test.

The paraphrasing is problematic because you did not change enough of the keywords from the original prompt to convince the examiner that you did not a mere cut and paste job in the presentation. Your LR score is based on your ability to use synonyms within your paraphrasing. So, what phrase should you have rephrased to avoid that error? You should have replaced , "individuals rather than society". If you had said, "to the person ( or graduate) rather than the community." That would been a direct rephrasing of the original phrase and eliminate the cut and paste possibility in the mind of the examiner.

Next, you were asked for an extent response. Yet, the response you gave did not respond to the question as there was no measurement indicated nor a related response topic. Compare:

OQ: To what extent do you agree?
R: I believe that the government should help students cover tertiary education.

If you notice, you had changed the discussion from:
OT: Students should pay the full cost for their own study

to:

YT: the government should help students cover tertiary education.

Your TA score will be based on an unrelated response presentation. You changed the prompt instructions and caused a prompt deviation, which will earn you a failing TA score even if the reasoning paragraphs are on topic. The reasoning paragraphs are scored on a different consideration basis.

Your concluding paragraph will not help your TA score because the response you presented is based on the altered discussion presentation that you used in your paraphrasing, further resulting in a low TA percentage score. I am not convinced that you can manage to get a passing score based only on the reasoning discussion as you have other GRA errors in those sections as well.

Thank you for your feedback. I have learned something from your feedback. I will notice these mistakes and improve my essays. Thank you.