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I Owe It All to Community College

nytimes.com

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Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#201

Post by marknutter »

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.

I'm sure the estimated cost for the Iraq War was significantly less than what it ended up costing. I'm thinking the estimated cost for Obama's community college initiative will far too low as well. In fact, I'm willing to bet community college costs skyrocket over the next few years in response.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#202

Post by refurb »

copperx wrote: post #129
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…

OP is an idiot/troll. I don't understand why so many take the trouble to respond.

Because people like to debate on HN? Your "idiot" comment adds less value than the OPs.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#203

Post by refurb »

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.

And when you can't afford the insurance for the fire department?

I would assume it would be the same if you couldn't afford your property taxes in today's system. You don't own a house?

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#204

Post by nearengine »

alexisnorman wrote: post #164
jdhawk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all community colleges are the same. If you live in close proximity to universities with high academic standards, most of the professors are going to be recent graduates of those programs, or educators picking up extra cash and some experience teaching at CC. BFE Community College will not have the same level of academic excellence.

Yeah, while I think community college is great, the one I attended (GCC, in AZ) basically felt like high school all over again. Horrible professors, worse students, boring (and ridiculously easy) material; I hated it so much that I ditched college for two years before deciding to go back to school at a university. As soon as I was taking university classes I started to wonder why I hadn't just started at a university…

I took a couple math courses (discrete math and differential equations, I think) at GCC and MCC while attending ASU for Computer Engineering, and I thought the CC professors were more helpful and more passionate about teaching undergrads than the profs at ASU. In my experience the university professors were more worried about their own projects and acted like teaching 20 year olds was above them.

As far as the material goes, the curriculum of the classes I took was nearly identical to the ones at ASU. The diffeq course actually had a higher workload than the ASU version. It's interesting that CC/university experiences differ so much even among students of the same school.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#205

Post by mtVessel »

markdown wrote: post #172
benihana wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so is irregardless. Can I ask why you take the time to correct someone when it was perfectly clear what the intent of the sentence was?

I live in a post-colonial country where English is the official language but 90% of the population have another language as their mother-tongue. There is therefore a lot of "broken" english spoken, and I guess I'm just used to correcting people (and being corrected myself). Irregardless is one of those words that is becoming OK to say just because so many people use it. Language adapts and therefore English is descri…

Biweekly means every two weeks. Semiweekly means twice a week. (Fortnightly doesn't mean anything outside of the Commonwealth.)

Please keep (politely) correcting people. It's only us against the hordes!

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#206

Post by keypusher »

SEJeff wrote: post #63
mindcrime wrote: post #9

I have issues with the Obama plan, not because I'm against community colleges, but because I have issues with how this will (probably) be funded (read: taxes). 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 said, I'm a community college grad myself, three times over. I have an A.G.E. (General Education) from Brunswick…

Serious question. What funds Policemen, Fire departments, Emergency Medical people like EMTs and Paramedics? If we didn't pay taxes, and we didn't have any of those, it would be pretty lousy.

As far as I understand, most libertarians who believe in abolishing taxes also believe that these types of services should be provided by the free market. You pay some kind of subscription fee to a fire company, security company, etc, and you call them up when trouble hits. If you don't subscribe to such a service, your house burns down or get shot, too bad.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#207

Post by tacotime »

markdown wrote: post #172
benihana wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so is irregardless. Can I ask why you take the time to correct someone when it was perfectly clear what the intent of the sentence was?

I live in a post-colonial country where English is the official language but 90% of the population have another language as their mother-tongue. There is therefore a lot of "broken" english spoken, and I guess I'm just used to correcting people (and being corrected myself). Irregardless is one of those words that is becoming OK to say just because so many people use it. Language adapts and therefore English is descri…

"Irregardless is one of those words that is becoming OK to say just because so many people use it."

...literally describes our ENTIRE language. It's kinda what language is... I know "kinda" isn't officially a word yet but I like it and I'm guessing you know my intended meaning.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#208

Post by tacotime »

maximuscoolimus wrote: post #186
markdown wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a post-colonial country where English is the official language but 90% of the population have another language as their mother-tongue. There is therefore a lot of "broken" english spoken, and I guess I'm just used to correcting people (and being corrected myself). Irregardless is one of those words that is becoming OK to say just because so many people use it. Language adapts and therefore English is descri…

Brush him off. As a foreigner I feel the same about English and its declining quality of grammar on the web

I think it's just an evolution. Not every experiment is successful.

Re: I Owe It All to Community College

#209

Post by winter_blue »

steauengeglase wrote: post #92
es09 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 95$ per semester figure is for the State University at Sacramento - not for the community college. The current fees work out to ~5500$ per semester[1] for the same university. [1] http://www.calstate.edu/budget/student-fees/fee-rates/sacram...

Wait, so between $327 and $587 (wonky 70s inflation) a semester in today's dollars? I'd have killed for that.

Between $327 and $587 per unit or credit, is extremely common for state universities. You generally have to be resident in the state for at least a year, to qualify.

For example, tuition at Stony Brook[1] costs $6,170 annually. At 30 credits a year (15 per semester), that's $205 per unit/credit.

You'll find that tuition in most state universities are around that range, across the country.

[1] http://www.stonybrook.edu/undergraduate-admissions/cost-and-...

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