All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by gilbertbw » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #526

Gibbon1 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And that drives the price of labor up as well. This is the real reason manufacturing is leaving the West, not regulation and not evil plan by China. This is also the real reason for culture of thowing away things and not repairing -> a new dishwasher costs £300, but a mechanic needs to charge £100 an hour to pay rent. If you rent is 50% of your income, the rent is actuslly 75% of your income -> because when you pay…

But not 100% of your income goes to paying for labour in your local economy. You buy goods and services that are from elsewhere (food from France, entertainment from America) etc.

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

#542

Post by nxx788 » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #472

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?

That is incorrect. Social services are “free”, adhering to the legal and traditional definitions in that the entity offering the service is indeed not charging for the service. That is well understood. It is also understood that the source of funding for institutions which offer free services is taxes, fees, and levies from the general population. Regardless of what MMT proponents imagine, costs will eventually be re…

I think we agree. Your first two paragraphs are the point I was trying to make.

I disagree with your opinion in the third paragraph, but I think we can agree to disagree.

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

#543

Post by phpisthebest » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

jncfhnb wrote: post #538

phpisthebest wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well good news, The local elections in San Fran I believe are already your dream.. How is that working out? I really like our electoral college system, believe we need stronger ID requirements to vote, and believe we need to repeal the 17th amendment returning more power to the states, removing it from the federal government. I will agree with one of your reforms, that of a voting holiday, though i would prefer inste…

Would you like the electoral college if something silly happened like Texas splitting into a Dallas dominated half and a non Dallas dominated half?

My support for the Electoral College is not due to outcome.

My Support for it is because we are a Union of States, i.e the United States. Our founders rightly believed government is most responsive at the local level, as such they only engineer one 1/2 of 1 branch of the federal government to be popularly elected. I believe this is the correct measure.

Direct Democracy tends to devolve into dictatorship, and we have seen this in American History as we become more and more "democratic" in our processes, more and power power has shifted to the federal government, and as more and more power has shifted to the federal government that power is further concentrated not in congress but in the Executive Branch, and the Administrative State.

So much so today that agencies of the federal government on a whim or executive order can simply establish new regulations that make millions of people criminals, or completely change entire economic markets with no input from Congress or the people, and in fact it takes an act of congress (or worse the Supreme Court) to stop them.

This is a complete and utter bastardization of a republican form of governance.

Eliminating the electoral college further drives us towards a more direct democracy, something I oppose

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

#544

Post by ttfkam » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

commonlisp94 wrote: post #378

ttfkam wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow European countries pull it off without bankrupting themselves.

Indeed, but not without tradeoffs, including: - accepting fewer students (having strict requirements). - failing students out in early classes (fewer opportunities to retake classes). - more professionally focused and shorter curriculum. - less class and subject choices - the degree commanding significantly less earnings For whatever reason, the best students seem to end up at a few top European schools (like Oxford)…

Oxford (like Harvard) is often less about what you'll know and more about WHO you'll know.

At the undergrad level, the subject matter is generally very well-established. But when you want a job after graduation, being close friends with the CEO's child helps far more than a few tenths of a point on your GPA.

Legacy admissions and nepotism are still very much a thing.

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

#545

Post by SantalBlush » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #479

SantalBlush wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to argue that nothing is truly "free" since tradeoffs always exist--at least to some small degree--but that isn't illuminating or helpful. We all know what is meant by "free" in this context, and there's no point in acting obtuse about it except to argue in bad faith.

I’m really not trying to argue in bad faith. Many conversations about “free” social services ignore real capital and human cost of the proposal as if it doesn’t exist. Why stop at education when basic needs like food, water, and shelter could all be “free”? The cost of residential water in CA, for example, is about an ⅛th of the education budget. In the case of covered education for foster kids, I’m conflicted. I’m i…

Education is a prime target for government subsidies because, as a market, it yields positive externalities. This means when a person receives an education, the net benefit is felt by society at large. It's a well-established economic principle.

So if we're going to discuss the economic realities of government subsidies, we should go a bit further than "things cost money," because that's obvious and simplistic.

*Edit: Just want to add that the tax debate is indeed worth having. My point is only that the justification for subsidies is grounded in econ principles, not just the whims of the public.

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

#546

Post by TheBigSalad » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #528

TheBigSalad wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up on welfare in a shit neighborhood, but now I'm an upper middle class engineer. Trust me, poor people need the help. We are all indirectly benefitting from people getting out of poverty.

Unsympathetic take. Lots of people can use help. Just because you're on welfare doesn't necessarily mean your financial position is any worse (especially as a dependant). I'm not from the US, but here in the UK when I when went to college and university the state would give students several thousand pounds a year for their parents being unemployed. My dad was a postman who used to do delivery driving on the weekend f…

Once at college I did feel the playing field was even, but you may be missing a lot of context before that. I grew up on welfare with a single mother, in a neighborhood where all of my friends were on welfare with single mothers. Only a handful of my neighborhood friends went to college. NONE of my hometown friends are STEM people. That stuff isn't even close to their radars. It took me years in college to get out of a petty criminal mindset and just be a regular person. I still don't feel like I belong amongst "rich" people (aka middle class).

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

#547

Post by themitigating » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #458

themitigating wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I mean the average African-American is easily over 10x wealthier, and has far better opportunities than the average citizen of the countries that now inhabit the lands they originally came from. Because those countries were devastated by Europeans

Those countries were created by Europeans, they didn’t exist before that. The tribes that were there before were not much of a civilization. They weren’t behind the rest of the world because of colonialism, they were colonized because they were behind the rest of the world.

Behind the rest of the world how? Technology?

Would you say Native Americans were behind? They had a thriving society.

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

#548

Post by jstarfish » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 5:01 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #512

andymcsherry wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, disagree. College sports generate a significant amount of revenue for the university, which funds scholarships for a huge number of students that otherwise couldn't afford to go there. They have the added benefit of being fun and add entertainment to the college experience.

> Yeah, disagree. College sports generate a significant amount of revenue for the university, which funds scholarships for a huge number of students that otherwise couldn't afford to go there. This is objectively false for the small college I went to… in any case, you ignored my whole comment, even if it does make money, I don’t want it because this money corrupts beyond just the one university. It changes expectatio…

> Now my NCAA division 3 college has to go to donors and beg for flood lights for the football stadium.

You got lucky. My alma mater needed to pay for similar, so they added new line items to every student's tuition.

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

#549

Post by sosodev » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

xmddmx wrote: post #294

This idea is not really new - the California Master Plan for Education essentially promised a free higher education to everyone in California. In 1960. [1] As these things go, the plan was eroded over time, with the (in)famous Proposition 13 of 1978 dealing a big blow. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Hig...

To be fair a lot of California students get a free education. I moved to California as a poor teenager. I became a resident and then had all of my costs (minus housing) covered during both community and state college.

I never thought something like that would be possible for me. It ended up being fairly easy. Moving to California radically changed my life for the better.

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

#550

Post by ROTMetro » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

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 13s original beneficiaries were pre-boomer. It was sold as a means to allow grandma to stay in her home as property values skyrocketed around her and rising property taxes were actually pushing (pre-boomer) people out of their longtime homes.