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

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

#241

Post by p_j_w » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 11:20 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'…

>They're private, let them do what they want.

Have you also bitched about private schools not being allowed to use affirmative action for admissions, or were you only too happy to read about the courts interfering with that as well?

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

#242

Post by monero-xmr » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 11:46 PM UTC

RajT88 wrote: post #237

monero-xmr wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we have hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants streaming across the border with no plan, so they sleep in shelters and on the street in NYC. We can’t kick them out because they have the right to see a judge which often takes over 6 months. Who will feed and clothe and shelter and care for them? Taxpayers, which is why NYC is begging for a federal bailout. The legal immigration system should be ref…

What you are wanting will not fix that.

Having a more organized system, where people can apply and receive residency and the chance for citizenship if they prove various skills and income and housing abilities, seems very reasonable to me. And then the illegal immigrants get deported immediately. This sounds very possible to me, and far more fair to legal immigrants.

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

#243

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 11:59 PM UTC

jncfhnb wrote: post #233

whatshisface wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me that rent of any sort of metaphorical capacity involves a larger number of transactions per dollar than anything else. All I can see it accomplishing is getting rid of high frequency trading and to a lesser extent day trading... Neither of which are pastimes of rich people but rather are middle class jobs of questionable yet arguable value.

Metaphorical? You’re asserting the volume is key here but it’s not really.

[deleted]

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

#244

Post by _8j50 » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 12:09 AM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #212

_8j50 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very level headed approach. But I wonder if the US would be more like India where kids kill themselves over college admission scores because since college is free, everything you can do in life depends on it. Personally, I like free college but only for very specific degrees where is demand and having a degree makes sense. Like IT shouldn't be free but medicine or law should, because you can learn IT on the…

i'd like to refer to this discussion why learning on the job can be a problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37718230 especially for IT which can easily be learned in a school setting unlike some other professions where learning on the job is necessary. learning on the job in IT would work if it is a formalized apprenticeship so that trainees are motivated to stay for the full three years that this usually tak…

If you mean being trapped in a job, that's not an issue often because the pay is bad. The company training you risks your leaving too soon but they also pay you like $30k at most where a college grad would be 3x that.

In my experience, college educated IT people pretty much have the same if not harsher time to productivity, mostly because you simply can't teach very specific products and most of IT is experiential, what you learn in college is googleable, it's the rest that you can't that has value. The only advantage of a degree in IT is it makes the employee a better long term bet because it would be easier to promote them up the ladder and have them stay longer.

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

#245

Post by danielmarkbruce » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 12:18 AM UTC

DrThunder wrote: post #226

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing the article talks about is: not charging for tuition, ever. It's not some kind of loan program or pay later program. Those programs have been discussed, are in place in certain places (australia for example), but is not what people are talking about here. Unless you are saying "if everyone goes, and everyone pays taxes, it's a wash"? In which case, that's not close to the reality of the situation. As a perc…

I'm not talking about the article. I'm referring directly to the comment chain about "free" healthcare. Regardless, taxes are NOT FREE. College will never be free, you can only pass the cost on to someone else. Somewhere, someone in the chain has to pay for it. If someone provides you a service then it gets paid for by someone. If no one pays for it then it's slavery and the people providing the service pay with thei…

Oh, i missed that re healthcare.

You are arguing a semantic issue that practically everyone is aware of. "free" in this context refers to the person receiving the service without paying for it, irrespective of who else is paying for it. Everyone knows it's not great wording.

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

#246

Post by em-bee » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 12:30 AM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #244

em-bee wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'd like to refer to this discussion why learning on the job can be a problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37718230 especially for IT which can easily be learned in a school setting unlike some other professions where learning on the job is necessary. learning on the job in IT would work if it is a formalized apprenticeship so that trainees are motivated to stay for the full three years that this usually tak…

If you mean being trapped in a job, that's not an issue often because the pay is bad. The company training you risks your leaving too soon but they also pay you like $30k at most where a college grad would be 3x that. In my experience, college educated IT people pretty much have the same if not harsher time to productivity, mostly because you simply can't teach very specific products and most of IT is experiential, w…

If you mean being trapped in a job, that's not an issue often because the pay is bad

no i mean the risk for the employer spending money on training and then loosing the employee before they can recoup the investment.

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

#247

Post by oh_sigh » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 12:34 AM UTC

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…

Who is the consumer in the context of a tax on financial transactions?

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

#248

Post by semiquaver » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 1:15 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #188

pohuing wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could means test repayment. That's how it's done here in Germany, only once I earn a good deal I'll have to pay back a small percentage each month. If I never get a steady income I just won't have to repay it if I understand it correctly.

We already means-test repayment in the US, we just make the means-testing opt-in, and have loan servicers who have a financial incentive to steer people who would benefit away from the means-tested option.

Honest question: in what way are student loan servicers in the US financially incentivized to steer borrowers away from income based repayment plans? I think that the opposite is true.

Servicers are paid a flat fee per outstanding loan, without regard to balance or monthly payment, _as long as payments are current_. Delinquent accounts are worth less. Being put on an IBR reduces your monthly payment, making it more likely it can remain in the state that is most profitable for the servicer.

https://thecollegeinvestor.com/36556/how-much-do-federal-stu...

From that perspective, the servicer is strongly incentivized to use IBR plans for accounts at risk, with no downside to them for erring on the side of lower payments.

Furthermore, income based repayment plans aren’t a forgiveness of debt or reduction in interest rate. They simply reduce the monthly payment by extending the term as needed. In practice this can mean adding decades to the term, sometimes creating a situation where the principal grows every month. The longer the extension, the more fees paid to the servicer, since they make a flat monthly fee per loan. Again, one would think that the servicers would have every incentive to promote such a system.

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

#249

Post by Jensson » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 1:28 AM UTC

jncfhnb wrote: post #232

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be either assuming that the rich are making large numbers of transactions. Consider Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as counterexamples. They're mainly holding stock and watching it go up. I mean, a 0.1% tax on financial transactions would kill day trading, and I'm not sure anything would be lost. But if your goal is to tax the rich, then tax the rich , not financial transactions.

It doesn’t really matter if someone becomes passively wealthy in a liquid form they don’t access. So long as you catch edge cases like collateralizing those shares for debt it’s still fine. They don’t need to make a lot of trades either. Taxing the rich is incredibly hard because first you need to quantify how rich everyone is.

> collateralizing those shares for debt

If you take a loan (collateralizing future income for money) should you pay taxes on that loan today? It isn't a tax loophole, it is insane to think that taking a loan should make you pay taxes on future income, it would cause so many issues for everyone. The taxes will be paid some day, you don't get richer or pay less by taking a loan. The reason these people take loans on their shares is to keep control of the company, but doing that costs them more not less.

And finally, the government already takes out loans on future taxes to pay for things today, so not having taxes today isn't an issue for them either. So rich people taking out loans on shares is a total non issue that people for some reason talks about a lot, it doesn't make a difference at all.

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

#250

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 1:33 AM UTC

itg wrote: post #7

I don't follow the logic the author is using. Let's say we make all public colleges free for students. "Elite" schools will still exist, and top students will still target schools such as Ivy/MIT/Stanford/etc. One look at the people in executive offices or top political offices and you'll find a substantial portion are graduates from elite schools.

I tune out as soon as someone says “make it free”.

First off, make it tax payer funded is what they mean. And no thank you.

Second, we already pay for 13 years of school, why would I believe 4 more years would help? Who is out there championing public school is the excellent model of education?

13th grade is not a solution to anything.

It’s clear to me we are facing a complexity crisis and almost no one sees it.

People that don’t belong in college aren’t going to be better off when everything is too complex for them as is, and getting worse.

A tech at Jiffy Lube needs to know so much more than 20 years ago, but the kid isn’t any smarter at all.

The guy pouring concrete needs to know a lot more, paying for his degree won’t help, but it will take 4 years of experience away.

IDGAF about “elite schools” if you someone took those away, the rich would self-sort another using another method.

The issue here is we aren’t ready to say “we’ve made most of the world too complex for most people in it”. And so have no remedy for that.