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All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

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Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#461

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

xmddmx wrote: post #381
johnnyanmac wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand and empathize, but you also realize that college in the 60's and in the 2020's are completely different beasts no, right? The genie is out of the lamp, but we literally don't have the room to stuff it back in. CA's population has tripled in 60 years, and high school graduation rates have risen signifigantly (which is of course good). There are more students competing for university today than there were…

> CA's population has tripled in 60 years and so has the tax base and # of teachers. This is a non-issue. Society scales. > and high school graduation rates have risen signifigantly (which is of course good). Not necessarily : see my comment below.

> and so has the tax base and # of teachers. This is a non-issue. Society scales.

The tax base and the number of higher education instructors may indeed have tripled. I'd have to check. But that would only be enough if you were going to teach the same fraction as went to college in 1960. What was that, 10 or 15%?

So we'd need something like a x30 increase in teachers. And even more in tax base (since we're building more campuses or enlarging the existing, not merely funding the existing ones).

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#462

Post by conception »

umeshunni wrote: post #436
slavboj wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this meme that Prop 13 is responsible for everything bad in California because of course we could pay for anything if we had more money. In reality the CA budget has grown faster than inflation for decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/313176/california-state-...

Not to forget that CA had a $100B budget surplus as recently as 2021. What did they do with all that money? Nothing.

I’m gonna say you haven’t looked into how that money can be spent. About half goes into the school and rainy day fund, the stimulus checks were required by law for I think 16? So your question is “what did they do with 34B” which again… pretty easy to figure out. There’s a budget.

Looks like it was about 38b https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4432

That link also has the allocations for that 38b. You can get 5Gb fiber in my neighborhood now. Some of that is probably due to this budget for instance.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#463

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

nxx788 wrote: post #455
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is "we"? I've seen a lot of terms used for social services: subsidized, covered, available by grant, available to those who qualify. But I don't always see those social services tossing around the word "free". Sure, sometimes there are "free haircuts for the homeless" or "free medical services for the needy", or "free help to apply for benefits", but generally in the context of entitlements, we're not freely band…

Free public schools, free health care, toll free roads, free housing. It's not the only way we refer to these things, but it's an accepted one.

Well of course voters accept this vernacular, slang usage! It works great! March into the principal's office, slam your fist down on the desk, and demand your free public schools for your kid. Stagger into the E.R., slam your fist down on the triage nurse's desk, and demand your free health care!

It works great at the ballot box too! "Vote now for your free stuff! Everybody gets more free stuff when they vote for me! Support the bill for free stuff!" Because if you called it "using other people's money", then the Ghost of Margaret Thatcher would arise and invade Puerto Rico.

While you're voting, consider whether you're in that hacker demographic that gets a chuckle out of the meme that says "The Cloud Is Just Someone Else's Computer."

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#464

Post by Gibbon1 »

shuckles wrote: post #432
slavboj wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this meme that Prop 13 is responsible for everything bad in California because of course we could pay for anything if we had more money. In reality the CA budget has grown faster than inflation for decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/313176/california-state-...

That comparison makes no sense. At the very least you’d want to look at per capita figures. Prop 13’s impact on the political economy, empowering comfortable boomers, is probably as bad as its impacts on the budget.

Prop 13 drives real estate prices up and rents while they lag also follow. And that drives the price of labor up as well. Even more malign it discourages muni's from approving housing because the property taxes don't cover the services that muni's have to pay for.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#465

Post by dv_dt »

soared wrote: post #140
999900000999 wrote: post #81

Now in a better world we'd drop a word from this sentence and make it free for all state residents. That's closer to what it used to be. Realistically this doesn't change much since it's extremely unlikely a foster kid wouldn't qualify for a full ride prior to this. The only people who really get screwed are middle class families who make too much to qualify for aid, but can't really afford to pay for school.

Middle class families can pay for school: In 2019-20 in state tuition and fees in California averaged $9k. 100% of which you can take a federal loan and payback Rent/living cost is another matter, but tuition can be still be reasonable if you state in state and don’t attend expense universities. But I totally agree - there is a lower/lower middle class of people that attending college is vet challenging and free tuit…

That 9k number I bet is averaging community colages with California State and University of california, because 9k is far too low from my two kids recent tuitions.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#467

Post by krainboltgreene »

lisper wrote: post #359
xmddmx wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an educator, and a social democrat (approximately) so "yes"? What saddens me is that grand (and simple) plan "free education for all" gets watered down and chipped away to "free education for those who have money or connections" and later attempts to shore it up offten amount to "free education for $special_group". While I don't deny $special_group should get free education, what gets me is all the special-pleadi…

I'm approximately a social democrat too, but I'm also a pragmatist. Asking for "free education" is like a child asking for a pony. Education, like everything, costs money, and we can't just wave a magic wand and change that. The only question is who pays for it: the student, or someone else. "Free education" really means education paid for by society at large rather than students. I'm not saying that's a bad idea. It…

> Asking for "free education" is like a child asking for a pony

it's kinda crazy that poorer countries than ours seem to get the pony.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#468

Post by [deleted] »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #463
nxx788 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free public schools, free health care, toll free roads, free housing. It's not the only way we refer to these things, but it's an accepted one.

Well of course voters accept this vernacular, slang usage! It works great! March into the principal's office, slam your fist down on the desk, and demand your free public schools for your kid. Stagger into the E.R., slam your fist down on the triage nurse's desk, and demand your free health care! It works great at the ballot box too! "Vote now for your free stuff! Everybody gets more free stuff when they vote for me!…

[deleted]

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#469

Post by markdown »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #446
nxx788 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how the language works. We have long ago decided that "free", when used in the context of social services, is correct enough to be understood. Do you think that definition is bad? If so, maybe you'll catch more nibbles by trying to engage in a dialog?

Who is "we"? I've seen a lot of terms used for social services: subsidized, covered, available by grant, available to those who qualify. But I don't always see those social services tossing around the word "free". Sure, sometimes there are "free haircuts for the homeless" or "free medical services for the needy", or "free help to apply for benefits", but generally in the context of entitlements, we're not freely band…

Free police, free firefighters, free roads, etc. It's all free as far as your average layman is concerned.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#470

Post by nxx788 »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #463
nxx788 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free public schools, free health care, toll free roads, free housing. It's not the only way we refer to these things, but it's an accepted one.

Well of course voters accept this vernacular, slang usage! It works great! March into the principal's office, slam your fist down on the desk, and demand your free public schools for your kid. Stagger into the E.R., slam your fist down on the triage nurse's desk, and demand your free health care! It works great at the ballot box too! "Vote now for your free stuff! Everybody gets more free stuff when they vote for me!…

The original point was that language is descriptive - if words are understood by people, then that's what they mean.

I disagree with you, but I'm not discussing your value judgement, I'm discussing whether "free" is widely understood to mean taxpayer funded.

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