431–440 of 531 posts
Upon graduation, these free tuition doctors will be taking jobs in a competitive market. Some doctors they compete against will have debt, some won't. But it really isn't like the amount they charge for services will decline. This just means that some doctors will get a little bit richer...
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.
It’s commonly understood that “free” in the context of public services means paid for collectively by government. We totally get that and are still cool with it.
Will students be obligated to pay anything to the school in the future after they start earning?
Who is funding this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're right, at the same time if allowed to walk from student loans... wouldn't we see a similar incentive on the student side? I would find it pretty tempting when graduating to ... default. You've got plenty of time to fish your way out of bankruptcy as you're young, you don't have much for assets or anything...
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…
Banks [...] can work out under what conditions they're
willing to loan money to students [...] If they
basically shut down all student funding, that doesn't
seem like a huge problem either
Europe can educate their best and brightest without the insane prices US colleges have, so why should US student suffer undue (ridiculous) burden?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am the first person in my family to attend university. Stanford gave me a full ride to study CS and it has made a world of difference in my ability to access opportunities. I am an anecdote obviously. However, I want it to be known that at Stanford, people at the bottom of the economic ladder receive aid, but people in the middle still get squeezed. Making tuition free for all would actually be a net positive. Sure…
Yea but historically Stanford was tuition free for everyone. (Like the founders wished it to be.) So that's why they have such an extensive student aid program, properly not the same anywhere else. Edit: Actually more of a comment for the post before.
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.
Your return on investment comes later when they’re paying taxes, which are on average higher than they would have been without assistance.
At scale, this kind of investment will pay for itself. There will undoubtedly be outliers on the down side you’d be able to point to, but did you know that philosophy degrees are disproportionately represented among CEO’s?
Don’t pick the subjects, just invest in it all and reap the rewards.
It will help offset your "social assistance" costs as well. Food stamps, housing supplement, welfare... education gets people out of that.
Spend money to make money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> 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…
> 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. This strikes me as a deeply sad view of the world. As an individual, a well-rounded education is a life-enriching thing, even if it doesn't directly tie into your professional career. As an overall society, havi…
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…
"Free" means someone else should be paying for it. Now, as an average income guy I will never earn as much as a Doctor and will vehemently oppose any move to pay for these would be rich people's education. If the degree is worth something, please pay it yourself. >Countries like Germany show All these kids are more than welcome to go to Germany and save $500K in tuition fees.
Yet... that would cease to be the case. You wouldn't be paying for rich people's education. You'd be paying for education for whatever person put in the study time to be a doctor, based on actual merit instead of merit + money. It means that you would have that same chance at schooling. It would mean that doctors could make less money and it probably more likely to live in areas with fewer doctors. And hey, if they become rich, they'll be paying it back into the system and paying for more education that you, as an average-income worker, ever would.
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…
The problem with every economic system is information -- though that is far less of a problem in a capitalistic society with constitutional freedom of speech (capitalism helping to prevent the black box that forms around centralized economies like socialism, communism, or crony capitalism/fascism). This problem is on full display with those liberal arts degrees. Students leave high school knowing practically nothing about society or how money works (the fault of our education system removing most practical courses from the curriculum). What they have been taught from an early age though, is that getting a degree is the path to success. They hear about making X thousands of dollars more per year if they get one (without the nuance that a select few degrees making a lot more than average offset the entire liberal arts division) and they want to be successful so the go without any real-world knowledge to provide balance.
Instead of getting directed to a degree that will ensure their livelihood, they are told to "follow their heart" and "do what makes you happy". Unfortunately, the definition of a job is "something you wouldn't do for free" and people work jobs to get money to do the things they want so much they'll pay for them.
The simple fact is that most kids aren't cut out for college. They are much more suited for technical schools where they can learn the trades that keep the world turning (and they could leave making far more than a liberal arts degree with practically no debt). But they aren't told about that and instead wash out of the hardest degrees into meaningless degrees that offer a kind of debt slavery without any reward whatsoever. If they had gone to technical school, they could work less, make more, and spend that excess to culture themselves however they like.