Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by jauntywundrkind » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #178

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair or reasonable for only those from well off families to have the chance at college though. College access shouldn't be tied to ones socioeconomic background.

I commented elsewhere, but I came from a not-well-off single parent house. I paid for college with loans. Then I paid off the loans. If someone has done well in school and wants to go into a stable, well-paying profession, it's probably the only area (besides a mortgage) that I'd recommend taking a loan. I paid zero dollars for four years to go to school and live and eat on campus. Going into an engineering program,…

If you think the cost of the degree 20 years ago was high, you should see what the cost is today!

It just seems like there's endless excuses to write off empathy & countless "I did it and so can others" anec-data, that doesn't reflect on what has become of a social opportunity both for the student, and for society to invest in & improve itself, in the long term.

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

#192

Post by Gud » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #138

starkparker wrote: post #60

I was in the second high school class to get Louisiana's TOPS program, which at the time gave four years' full-ride tuition plus fees to any public state university with a nominal ACT score and generous GPA requirements (18 ACT and 2.5 GPA IIRC). Wouldn't be here today without it. My parents couldn't afford anything but the closest and shittiest university, with no compsci program (they only had a business computing…

> My parents couldn't afford anything… Not saying its the right way, but grew up without a lot of financial resources, no money specifically to pay for college, and I went to a private 4 year engineering program starting in 1999 by taking out boat-loads of loans. Going into school I had nothing and needed 100% of my tuition covered by loans, grants, or scholarships. I was reasonably confident that having an engineeri…

> starting in 1999

That was almost 25 years ago. A lot of things have changed since then, mostly for the worse. Being young today is intense. Massive student loans(unless your parents are wealthy), extremely expensive rents(unless your parents are wealthy), 10% inflation, etc, etc, etc.

Why you should subsidize their education? Because it makes your civilization stronger. You want an educated citizenship for every possible reason there is.

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

#193

Post by em-bee » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:02 PM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #124

MarkMarine wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you answer those questions I asked you?

On this thread I prefer to debate in the abstract rather than let emotions into it. Emotionally speaking my friend’s kid has muscular dystrophy and it’s extremely sad and heart wrenching to watch what was formerly an active toddler degrade into wheel chair bound pain and suffering, leading to a death around 30 years old. I wish society would put unlimited funds into solving this disease because I personally see how d…

but that education would allow more people to do research on muscular dystrophy and other problems.

if we want to solve the worlds problems we need more people with the capacity to work on them. only education is capable of doing that.

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

#194

Post by econonut » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

dinkleberg wrote: post #103

mseidl wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's also wrong. His numbers are exaggerated and provided without any source. In 1970, it was closer to 250 hours of minimum wage for tuition alone (no living expenses) as minimum wage was $1.60 and the cost of tuition for a public university (near me) was $420 for 30 credit hours. Today, that same university is $6,270 for 30 credit hours of tuition, which is around 520 hours of work at $12/hour (which is $1.60 expressed in nominal 2023 dollars and is also the minimum wage in the state).

While I realize that's still a little more than 2x the amount of working hours, it's definitely not as depressing as 20x the amount of working hours as the poster stated.

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

#195

Post by hinkley » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

brewdad wrote: post #111

kogus wrote: post #74

Making public colleges free isn't... free. The perception is often that public universities are already getting most of their money from the state or federal government, so why not just close the gap. But the typical funding level is between 40-50%. The remaining 50-60% is currently covered by tuition and philanthropic giving. So closing the gap to make universities free to the public would involve (in most cases) mo…

Those funding levels you are talking about used to be the norm until "trickle down" become the holy grail of fiscal policy. There's no reason we couldn't return to those funding levels.

Reagan slashed university funding and funded the GI bill instead. No need to draft people, we can just send the poor. It’s a win-win /s

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

#196

Post by saghm » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

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…

> It feels like taking money away from people who don't vote for you, and giving it to people who do. That's a bad direction to go down, and I'm generally skeptical about politicians who do this (which is a lot of them)

I'm trying to follow this logic, but I'm struggling. Do you think that people should be able to opt out of taxes by just not voting, or voting for a third party that never wins, or strategically trying to vote for the minority party in an area that heavily leans in a certain direction? I think your interpretation of this also assumes causation in a direction that isn't at all obvious; does he want to tax Wall Street because they won't vote for him, or does Wall Street not vote for him _because_ he wants to tax them? I'd argue that Wall Street isn't likely to vote for anyone who proposes a policy to tax financial transactions, but that's far from sufficient to conclude that such a tax is unreasonable.

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

#197

Post by em-bee » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #165

s17n wrote: post #105

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…

As someone who is likely funding what is ultimately a money/power grab, if I'm paying for education, I want it to be for degrees that have direct, immediate impact: educators, doctors, hard sciences. While there is a possibility of funding the education of the next great novelist, sociologist, artist, or historian, there will never be a return on that investment for the vast number of students in those fields. I don'…

i think the solution here is to limit the number of students per field as needed. funding should absolutely be used to direct education towards the needs of society. we do need artists, sociologists and historians as well, but not as much as educators, doctors, etc. funding should reflect that.

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

#198

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

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…

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely in favor of free colleges, even if it means a slight lowering of entry-level jobs that require a degree. It would lower wealth inequality by allowing upward mobility by the poor.

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

#199

Post by em-bee » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #104

Or, just stop making a college degree a requirement for the jobs which don't require specialized training...

i think the problem here is the low quality of education before college and the lack of alternative forms of education. (on the job training, apprenticeships). improving that should reduce the demand for college degrees.

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

#200

Post by kevinsync » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 7:20 PM UTC

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…

This sounds pretty dumb and naive as I'm typing it, but we live in a world of massive computational models and technological progress -- instead of relying on academic pundits, think tanks and goofballs on social platforms floating economic ideas and theories on how to pay for things, why hasn't anybody modeled thousands of possible scenarios to figure out the top 10 over-optimized plans showing how to tax fairly + effectively, how to spend / divert / incentivize business effectively, and present many options on "where the money is going to come from" for many beneficial things for the greater good?

"A rising tide lifts all boats", and that sort of thing.

Is it due to lack of data? Politics? Greed? Pressures from business / "the rich" / orthodox academia to maintain the status quo? All of the above?

I just get the feeling that the world isn't necessarily a zero-sum game anymore, but nobody whose sum is currently far greater than zero wants to admit it.