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NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

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Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#401

Post by jkaplowitz »

avip wrote: post #395
geff82 wrote: post #391

What a surreal discussion about something obvious: University and college should be free for everyone. First, this is a great equalizer in the positive way: it does not depend on how wealthy your parents are, so you get an equal opportunity. Second: the society as a whole benefits from well educated people. Accounts need well trained doctors, doctors need well trained accountants, both need an engineer to craft them…

Always replace "free" with "I'm paying for you". I don't know what's "obvious" about me paying your tuition fees. For once, I may be happy to fund your auto-mechanic studies as I know I'll need you to fix my car. But if you're studying ancient Akkadian I'm less inclined to pay your bills.

I actually took an Akkadian course during my undergraduate years. It doesn't help directly with most careers, of course. But that and the other humanities courses I took there and in high school make me a better-rounded member of society.

Especially grateful for the Islamic Civilization course giving me an informed attitude toward Muslim friends and colleagues, and for my Latin and French studies helping my SAT scores and enabling me to immigrate to Quebec.

My degree was in computer science overall. Though aspects of student life and paid employment at my university helped my career and skillset way more than even the CS classes.

In my particular case, my parents paid for my education, but they could only afford that because US science education funding policies when they were students let them gain cheap entry to well-paying professions. Both of their undergraduate degrees were in the humanities.

Before that, my one grandfather who went to college got a good education at what was then a free city university, and I'm sure it helped his attitudes toward my dad's education. Many of my great-grandparents were poor Jewish immigrants at a time when the US immigration policies were extremely open for healthy light-skinned immigrants from Europe (even their low-class type).

I've had several high-paying tech jobs and paid plenty of taxes to society, but clearly these elements of my family history are factors in enabling that, not just anything about my career-related classes.

All of which is to say, we all benefit from affordable education, in surprisingly broad ways that rebound down generations and across spheres of activity. We shouldn't take a narrow vocational approach to this.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#402

Post by orbifold »

hayd wrote: post #400
orbifold wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not super rich most likely you are paying a tiny fraction towards the higher education of someone else's child. Plus if you have kids you benefit from the same system. I actually know several people with useless degrees that now have well paid jobs here in Germany, one studied Ancient Greek and Latin and is now at Germanies federal reserve the other studied art history and is now a SAP consultant. Those de…

Math is pretty cheap too.

Good luck training more than 2% of your population in math without significantly degrading the difficulty, I studied math and probably half of the people dropped out after the first semester.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#403

Post by geff82 »

avip wrote: post #395
geff82 wrote: post #391

What a surreal discussion about something obvious: University and college should be free for everyone. First, this is a great equalizer in the positive way: it does not depend on how wealthy your parents are, so you get an equal opportunity. Second: the society as a whole benefits from well educated people. Accounts need well trained doctors, doctors need well trained accountants, both need an engineer to craft them…

Always replace "free" with "I'm paying for you". I don't know what's "obvious" about me paying your tuition fees. For once, I may be happy to fund your auto-mechanic studies as I know I'll need you to fix my car. But if you're studying ancient Akkadian I'm less inclined to pay your bills.

>> Always replace "free" with "I'm paying for you".

Your thinking is flawed in this regard. Sure you are paying "my" tuition fees. But in an either indirect or direct way, you (you as the society, not necessarily you as the single person) are also profiting from my services. And as you are more than a being measured by money, but a human with a cultural background, even studying Akkadian on taxpayer's money might be ok (as long as not everyone does it).

I am a semi-libertarian myself so I get your argument somehow. Then again I am for equal opportunity (not equal outcomes) and providing education for free is a great equalizer and a great way that people can actually live up to their potential (or not, in which case they still need well educated doctors, car mechanics, whatever...). Good education also does not have to be really expensive by itself, it is a matter of organizing. When I hear the big US universities hording billions, I know that there is too much money in the system.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#404

Post by h4b4n3r0 »

pfisch wrote: post #387
h4b4n3r0 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of withholding tuition from future earnings. That way we can get rid of all the "underwater basketweaving" courses that are so popular today, and focus on the ones that the economy actually needs (as in, is willing to pay top dollar for). There's one "but" however: this does absolutely nothing to improve affordability, so some mechanism needs to be devised to reduce overhead costs, and put a cap on pr…

This whole idea of taxing future earnings is like one step away from indentured servitude.

But you're in indentured servitude either way, except it's debt servitude, and there's no accountability on the part of the college for teaching you anything that's actually useful. Under the proposed setup, the college is directly incentivized for maximizing your earning potential. I like that a lot. Think of it as a tax that you'd pay in e.g. Germany anyway in order to get "free" education, except the amount you pay directly depends on the quality of education and people who chose to get vocational degrees don't have to pay for you. The whole thing entirely bypasses the government, so that's at least 30% savings right there.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#405

Post by geff82 »

orbifold wrote: post #398
avip wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always replace "free" with "I'm paying for you". I don't know what's "obvious" about me paying your tuition fees. For once, I may be happy to fund your auto-mechanic studies as I know I'll need you to fix my car. But if you're studying ancient Akkadian I'm less inclined to pay your bills.

If you are not super rich most likely you are paying a tiny fraction towards the higher education of someone else's child. Plus if you have kids you benefit from the same system. I actually know several people with useless degrees that now have well paid jobs here in Germany, one studied Ancient Greek and Latin and is now at Germanies federal reserve the other studied art history and is now a SAP consultant. Those de…

You, my fellow German (Frankfurter? I know too many people at the federal reserve...), are making the same mistake as most: beancounting and measuring everything in money. Degrees in Ancient Greek and Latin mean that besides being rich in money, society is also rich in culture. We might need more STEM probably, but we would miss the people knowledgeable in cultural things a lot.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#406

Post by rrcaptain »

nostrebored wrote: post #385
rrcaptain wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was because states covered most of the budget. Austerity policies changed that. And supply and demand is not applicable to macroeconomics, which education is part of.

States still cover most of the budget. As someone who went to school while poor and on a scholarship, I hated this, the price was so inflated because 1) The government pays the majority of it if you're poor, schools know you'll pay 2) If you're middle class your parents pay half of it, the government pays half of it, schools know they'll pay 3) If you're upper class, you might have a legacy admission and the school k…

There's a difference between the government funding education and the government funding students. Costs are high because the government funds students (sometimes), not education.

And very few people get government scholarships, most get loans which must be repayed: essentially an extra tax on the middle class.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#407

Post by nostrebored »

rrcaptain wrote: post #406
nostrebored wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

States still cover most of the budget. As someone who went to school while poor and on a scholarship, I hated this, the price was so inflated because 1) The government pays the majority of it if you're poor, schools know you'll pay 2) If you're middle class your parents pay half of it, the government pays half of it, schools know they'll pay 3) If you're upper class, you might have a legacy admission and the school k…

There's a difference between the government funding education and the government funding students. Costs are high because the government funds students (sometimes), not education. And very few people get government scholarships, most get loans which must be repayed: essentially an extra tax on the middle class.

Government funds most public universities to an absurd degree. Tuition is a drop in the bucket for most schools. Government loans are an extra tax on everyone, and are best seen as a money transfer from all taxpayers to public institutions.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#408

Post by alexgmcm »

pfisch wrote: post #386
wyattpeak wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems fine to me. Banks are in the business of calculating risk on loans, they can work out under what conditions they're willing to loan money to students who have little to lose by declaring bankruptcy. If they basically shut down all student funding, that doesn't seem like a huge problem either - it's a fairly bad model and I think society would benefit for from the pressure to find a better way to educate pe…

That would cause a crazy economic implosion in the education sector. Anything like that would need to be done very gradually or else there would be massive layoffs at every university all at once.

I agree but we must also realise the amount of struggle and suffering the current system causes to graduates.

In general it's a lot easier to see the flaws of a new proposal than take notice of the problems with the status quo.

So doing things really gradually also has a cost.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#409

Post by dragonwriter »

rrcaptain wrote: post #406
nostrebored wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

States still cover most of the budget. As someone who went to school while poor and on a scholarship, I hated this, the price was so inflated because 1) The government pays the majority of it if you're poor, schools know you'll pay 2) If you're middle class your parents pay half of it, the government pays half of it, schools know they'll pay 3) If you're upper class, you might have a legacy admission and the school k…

There's a difference between the government funding education and the government funding students. Costs are high because the government funds students (sometimes), not education. And very few people get government scholarships, most get loans which must be repayed: essentially an extra tax on the middle class.

> And very few people get government scholarships,

Untrue. Lots of people get Pell Grants, but the value of each is very small.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#410

Post by h4b4n3r0 »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #384
h4b4n3r0 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of withholding tuition from future earnings. That way we can get rid of all the "underwater basketweaving" courses that are so popular today, and focus on the ones that the economy actually needs (as in, is willing to pay top dollar for). There's one "but" however: this does absolutely nothing to improve affordability, so some mechanism needs to be devised to reduce overhead costs, and put a cap on pr…

I very heartily disagree with letting the market decide education priorities, for two reasons. First, education is chock full of positive externalities, which will never be realized correctly. While "the economy" doesn't need underwater basket weaving - or art history, or literature - society still does. Even if people don't work in their field, the world is better for the increase in knowledge. Man does not live on…

>> society still does

That's just, like, your opinion, man. Society certainly does not need so many graduates in English Literature: there are only so many open positions at McDonalds, and they as a rule do not require a degree.

If there's market demand, society can pay real cash money for it. It used to be that most writers, painters, historians, etc, etc, had to also have an useful day job. _Albert Einstein_ had a day job up to a point. There's nothing wrong with that if the market can't support full-time work in a certain profession.

The second part of your argument I do agree with: there are a lot of details to flesh out. Maybe it will compel the colleges to teach broader sets of skills, since if they teach a narrow profession that's not useful they don't get paid.

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