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I Owe It All to Community College

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Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#141

Post by stolio »

danielweber wrote: post #134
methehack wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wars in the middle east are not likely to make us more money than the cost. This is. It's an investment, like roads. It grows the economy. This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics. There are two very comparable super-relevant historical precedents: public high school education (yes that was someone's idea too) and the GI Bill. Both of these social programs (as they would be called today) have made…

This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics Oh, good. What does economics say about who captures the benefit of education? What's the rate of return on successful graduation from community college? (Hint: check Schenk Matsuyama 2010.) What is the graduation rate from community college? (And isn't that number a lot lower than you expected?) Now, given the fraction of benefits that is privately captured, a…

Those numbers are dollars per student, if we start sending a lot of new people to community colleges our rank on that list might drop since community college is much cheaper than univeristy where many costs go towards things not directly tied to education: dorms, meal plans, sports equipment, stadiums, etc.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#142

Post by jimmaswell »

atom-morgan wrote: post #43
thoth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a libertarian / ancap who believes taxation is theft, I don't support anything involving spending tax dollars, no matter how noble the end. That's pretty hard core. How would you fund services like police/fire departments or infrastructure improvements (roads, electricity), basically anything where its existence benefits many (as opposed to say redoing education to require parents to pay for individual tutoring o…

> How would you fund services like police/fire departments or infrastructure improvements (roads, electricity), basically anything where its existence benefits many Wouldn't food also fall into this category? Its existence benefits many. Would you want to nationalize food production?

Food meshes well with the market while some other servives are market failures.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#143

Post by drzaiusapelord »

snake_plissken wrote: post #56

The initial proposal from The President costs $60 billion over ten years or $6 billion per year. For some perspective, conservative estimates have put the cost of the war in Iraq at $500 million a day. This proposal would cost 72 days of war. It's difficult to comprehend how our politicians could have any issues supporting such an initiative.

That's still a non-trivial amount. 3 years of that is the entire SLS/Orion rocket system and NASA lives in fear of losing the budget to finish it. Comments like yours really show how insanely expensive modern war is.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#144

Post by pavel_lishin »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #67
pavel_lishin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that fire services would work more like insurance companies, most (all?) streets would be come toll roads, etc.

And when you can't afford the insurance for the fire department? How are these people taken care of by such a system? I'm sure we all know people who've hit very hard times at some point in their life through no fault of their own. As much as I like the idea of Libertarianism it can't see how these people would make it through those times.

For the record, I'm not not a libertarian, and I'm not proposing or defending this system - but smacktoward's comment was just too silly to even be called a strawman argument.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#145

Post by rosstex »

jesseclay wrote: post #64

Another anecdote on the power of community college: Back in 2009 I enrolled at Community College of San Francisco. I was 19 and had no idea what I wanted to do career wise, so I took broad and rigorous curriculum focused on transferring to UC-Berkeley. The 2 years I spent there were some of the best of my life. I was frequently pushed and challenged by excellent professors who had true passion for their subjects (a f…

That's a wonderful story of choosing Stanford over Berkeley, but as a Berkeley student... congrats!

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#146

Post by mhurron »

danielweber wrote: post #65
mhurron wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead of taking it out of the federal govt. budget Why is education for the citizens of a country considered something that a countries government should have no part in in the US? If education really is something important for the country, would it not make more sense for the country to prioritize and fund it as opposed to leaving it to the whims of whomever feels like funding it that day?

If food really is something important for the country, would it not make more sense for the country to prioritize and fund it as opposed to leaving it to the whims of whomever feels like funding it that day? Most of the benefit of food is private: when I eat, I am no longer hungry. That means I take care of my food myself. Most of the benefit to education is, as well, private. If I become a lawyer, I capture most of…

Actually I support a guaranteed income so that (among other things) people can be sure to be able to feed themselves. It is in a nations best interest to not have a starving population.

It is also in a nations best interests to have an educated population.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#147

Post by seanflyon »

danielweber wrote: post #134
methehack wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wars in the middle east are not likely to make us more money than the cost. This is. It's an investment, like roads. It grows the economy. This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics. There are two very comparable super-relevant historical precedents: public high school education (yes that was someone's idea too) and the GI Bill. Both of these social programs (as they would be called today) have made…

This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics Oh, good. What does economics say about who captures the benefit of education? What's the rate of return on successful graduation from community college? (Hint: check Schenk Matsuyama 2010.) What is the graduation rate from community college? (And isn't that number a lot lower than you expected?) Now, given the fraction of benefits that is privately captured, a…

> the US is almost 50% ahead of its next closest competitor in terms of spending per student

Are we talking about increasing our annual spending per student? I though we were talking about increasing the number of students by funding the cheapest post-secondary education programs we have. Certainly this would reduce our annual spending per student.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#148

Post by danielweber »

jacalata wrote: post #93
danielweber wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College requires time and jumping through hoops. If you can't keep track of the FAFSA application, how are you going to keep track of the class assignments? Is the goal to make "attended college" become completely useless as a job market signal? Why are we trying to cram people into college if it means nothing?

College requires time and money, yes. The FAFSA is supposed to provide them for people who don't have them already. So saying 'if you don't have time and money you shouldn't go to college anyway' is kind of missing the point.

There seems to be a communication failure here, because you accuse me of saying things I'm not saying. They might be things you wish I were saying, but I'm not.

I'm working off these two premises:

1. The FAFSA is free to fill out, but it takes time and attention, which you say some people do not have.

2. Even if we make community college completely free, it will still take time and attention.

So, if the FAFSA is a significant barrier to someone getting into college because it takes time and attention, why do we think this person will suddenly garner a mass of time and attention when it becomes necessary to do the classwork?

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#149

Post by danielweber »

stolio wrote: post #141
danielweber wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more or less considered a fact in macroeconomics Oh, good. What does economics say about who captures the benefit of education? What's the rate of return on successful graduation from community college? (Hint: check Schenk Matsuyama 2010.) What is the graduation rate from community college? (And isn't that number a lot lower than you expected?) Now, given the fraction of benefits that is privately captured, a…

Those numbers are dollars per student, if we start sending a lot of new people to community colleges our rank on that list might drop since community college is much cheaper than univeristy where many costs go towards things not directly tied to education: dorms, meal plans, sports equipment, stadiums, etc.

Isn't that bad? I just got told that spending money on education is magic: the more you do of it, the better your country.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#150

Post by seanmcdirmid »

542458 wrote: post #108
slayed0 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

debt =/= bankruptcy. Unrecoverable debt is bankruptcy. While the argument could be made that our debt is past a recoverable point, it is not a certainty.

"While the argument could be made that our debt is past a recoverable point..." I'm not sure it could, unless I'm misunderstanding. The US could print up 15 trillion dollar notes tomorrow, and pay off all of it's debt. Of course, this would cripple the economy in a matter of hours, but it would still pay off the debt.

Right. The usa can't go bankrupt because they have their own currency. Also, a majority of usa debt is held by Americans, the remainder held by foreign governments with no better options to park trade surpluses (the USA playing an imprortant role as the most reliable debtor of last resort).
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