The cost of college education today is so high that many young

“The cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up their dream of going to college, while many others are graduating deeply in debt.” So declared Bernie Sanders, the steadfast voice of the people, who has long thundered against the injustices that weigh upon the common soul. His words are not the idle complaint of a spectator, but the cry of one who has gazed upon the hopes of youth strangled by the chains of debt, and who has seen the gate of opportunity barred by the golden lock of tuition.

What is the meaning of this lament? It is that in a world where knowledge is the lamp that lights the path of nations, that lamp has been set too high for many to reach. The promise of college education, once a beacon calling forth the diligent and the poor alike, has become for countless families a burden heavier than stone. The young, who should stride forth boldly into their destiny, now stumble before they have begun, for the price of their learning is counted not in sweat alone, but in years of bondage to lenders. Thus the dream of education, which ought to be the foundation of liberty, has become a source of fear.

The ancients would have called this a tragedy, for in their wisdom they taught that the strength of a city lies not in its walls, nor its armies, but in the virtue and knowledge of its citizens. Athens fell when wisdom was neglected, and Rome decayed when corruption prized wealth above learning. If our age places a price upon knowledge so great that the poor cannot attain it, then we, too, walk the road of ruin. Sanders’s words are a warning: to make education the privilege of the wealthy is to starve the very soul of democracy.

Consider the story of the GI Bill after World War II in the United States. When returning soldiers were granted access to higher education at little or no cost, a generation was transformed. Farmers’ sons became engineers; factory workers’ daughters became doctors and teachers. The economy flourished, the middle class grew, and democracy was strengthened, for knowledge had been opened to all. This stands as a living example: when education is made accessible, society rises; when it is withheld, society falters.

And yet, in our time, the reverse has taken hold. A young woman may labor long hours in study, earn her degree with honor, and yet emerge into the world shackled by tens of thousands in debt. A young man may abandon his dream of becoming a physician or teacher, for the cost of the first step is too steep to climb. This is not freedom, but a quiet form of servitude, binding the future of the young before it has even begun to flower. The weight of this burden is not only personal—it is national, for the talents that are lost, the inventions that are never made, the cures never discovered, are a theft from all humanity.

What lesson, then, must we take? First, that education is not a luxury, but a right, as essential to a free people as bread is to the hungry. Second, that the youth must not grow weary, but raise their voices together, demanding that the doors of learning be thrown open. Third, that we, as a society, must remember that to invest in the education of the young is to invest in the strength of our collective future.

So I say to you: do not be silent. Guard the dream of learning as you would guard the flame of a sacred fire. Help those who struggle with the burden of debt, guide the young toward knowledge, and demand of leaders that they treat education not as a marketplace, but as a trust for the people. For Bernie Sanders has spoken a truth we cannot ignore: if the cost of knowledge becomes a chain, then the future itself is enslaved. But if we break that chain, then the children of tomorrow will walk free into the dawn of possibility, carrying not the weight of debt, but the light of wisdom.