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Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

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Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#101

Post by em-bee »

AmVess wrote: post #78
karaterobot wrote: post #46

> There’s the age-old question of how we pay for this. Sanders proposed a Wall Street financial transactions tax. A 0.1 percent tax, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, could raise $777 billion over 10 years. Or we could hike taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans. I have no problem taxing wall street or "the wealthiest Americans", but I don't see the connection between this proposal and…

I have a problem with taxes in general, and this is yet another stupid idea. Increased tax loads always get passed on to the consumer. What we will end up with is higher cost of doing business and 100% for certain federally run universities will still need taxpayer bailouts every single year. Lose lose all the way around. I have an even better idea: get rid of all freebies. If someone wants something, they can get of…

nothwithstanding all the things that taxes get used for, education is the last thing that you want to force people to pay for by themselves, because the result will be that much less people will send their kids to school because they can't afford it, and so you will end up with a large portion of uneducated and unemployable people.

you really do not want to live in a country where that is the case.

only education can lead to prosperity of the whole population. and the more educated people you have, the better off everyone is.

i am gladly paying taxes for education, because i know in the future i and my kids will benefit from everyone around us being smarter.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#102

Post by danielmarkbruce »

dragonwriter wrote: post #85
EA-3167 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire US military budget is federal, but most of the education budget comes from the states. You're comparing apples to oranges.

> The entire US military budget is federal, False. For instance, California’s military spending in FY 2023-2024 is budgeted at $293.6 million (putting it between Paraguay and Niger in military spending), of which the majority is state funds, not federal support (by state funds alone, its somewhere around Monogolia’s military spending.) It is true that the vast majority of the US’s defense spending is federal, though.…

When rounding in any reasonable way, it's true.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#103

Post by dinkleberg »

mseidl wrote: post #99
AmVess wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a problem with taxes in general, and this is yet another stupid idea. Increased tax loads always get passed on to the consumer. What we will end up with is higher cost of doing business and 100% for certain federally run universities will still need taxpayer bailouts every single year. Lose lose all the way around. I have an even better idea: get rid of all freebies. If someone wants something, they can get of…

In the 50s/60s/70s at minimum wage you used to be able to pay for a whole school year with 109 hours. Now, at minimum wage, just for 1 year is around 2250 hours. That's 13 months just to pay off 1 year of school, not including any living costs.

That is remarkably depressing to see.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#105

Post by s17n »

As others in the thread have noted, there are two separeate issues here:

1. Young people should be able to get a quality education regardless of their families' financial situation.

2. Everyone should have an equal shot at attaining positions of power in society (not so much for their own good, since almost nobody is going to attain these positions anyway it's a small benefit relative to the total population, as for everyone else's good - we don't want to be governed by a hereditary caste).

For (1), you want high quality free public colleges (elite institutions are simply too small regardless of what you do with their admissions process).

For (2), you need to make sure admissions at elite institutions is equitable (most important priority: ban legacy admissions).

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#106

Post by _8j50 »

I couldn't bring myself to be indebted at such a young age so I skipped college then. But this is america, not europe things are different.

For better or worse, indebting people at a young age is how the "college educated worker" pipeline works and the class system functions and controls upward mobility. Not to mention military service.

If you are ok with mandatory military service and more stringent and competitive college entry exams as well as the government telling you based on your score what degrees you can pursue for free, now all you have to do is convince this union of 50 different states to agree with you and it is doable.

Even though college is paid, you can still get plenty of well paying jobs without college or work your way up by gaining experience to compensate for lack of college. This is only possible in America. It doesn't matter how much skills or experience I have, no one will hire me in the EU or Asia based on lack of degree alone for example, but even if it is 10+ years, I can make up for it in America.

I am just saying it isn't as simple as they're making it sound.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#107

Post by kube-system »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #13

Who would oversea the spending of our taxes? There's no responsibility to provide a viable product currently because people are forced to pay and can't default on the loan if the product the college sold them wasn't variable to earning money to pay back the loan for payment college requested. Think a world where colleges have to take more responsibility in making sure the loans they demand can by paid back would resu…

I do not think it is a good idea to treat public universities like a big vocational school. Academics at liberal arts institutions provides value to society that is unrelated to those discipline's vocational utility.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#108

Post by chalsprhebaodu »

sokoloff wrote: post #65
chalsprhebaodu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this hypothetical, elite schools would be incentivized to provide something the public schools either do not or cannot provide. Quality of education alone is hard enough to control for. What’s stopping the for-profit elite schools from just raising the bar until public schools simply can’t keep up?

What type of "raising the bar" do you have in mind that would be detrimental if done? If MIT and Stanford raise the bar on education, isn't that a good thing? Don't we want them to be giving the very best education that they possibly can?

I almost put this in there, I don’t think it would inherently be a bad thing at all, it just keeps the imbalance there.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#109

Post by em-bee »

sokoloff wrote: post #72
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages are based on how easy you are to replace. If a job has a high wage because they require a specific college degree, then making the degree easier to get since you don't have to pay for it, then there will be more people with that degree, so the supply of workers is higher, making them easier to replace, so the wages of those workers goes down.

To whatever extent your concern is backed up by data, that's an argument for making public colleges free rather than an argument against it, IMO. "Today, children of upper middle class families have a path to getting good paying jobs that the poor are largely shut out from. We don't wish for that change by making public universities free, thereby preventing competition for these desirable jobs by the children of the…

exactly this, the quality of education needs to be improved. not every job today needs a college degree (but that may change in the future with manual jobs being automated away) but the access to a degree should not depend on the income of the parents.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#110

Post by xkcd-sucks »

latchkey wrote: post #5

We've been prioritizing military spending over education for decades. I'd love to see even a bit of that swing the other way. I don't think taking a small amount from the military, by requiring them to optimize a few budgets, would be impactful on our nations security.

I also think military spending is generally a horrible waste, but it is important to remember that it is a huge jobs program, not just for "people that can't be educated" but also for the defense industry. For example the growth of the Boston "Metro West" region was driven largely by engineers employed by Lincoln Labs, Raytheon, etc.

Also the military runs training programs which are probably more practically results oriented and efficient than most college programs, so maybe the Army could take over the function of general public education :)

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