Chile is introducing free higher education • Hacker News Board

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#111

Post by adventured » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:31 AM UTC

jasonmp85 wrote: post #56

My first thought was "only 27%? The US has a 35% corporate rate and can't afford this". My second thought was "oh, right, the US effective rate is around 12%". How will they actually guarantee they collect this rate, as opposed to just scaring off corporations or having them offshore/tax-haven their way to maintaining profits?

The US effective corporate tax rate is over 25%, and it's also worth focusing on the median corporate tax rates.

That famous 12% rate leaves out a lot of things and is not valid. For example it only included profitable corporations with at least $10 million in assets, and it ignores state and local taxes.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/09/...

http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/15/analysis-are-us-corporate-...

"Tannenbaum cites a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report showing that, “the effective U.S. corporate tax rate is 27.7 percent, versus 22.6 percent for OECD countries excluding the United States.” However, he fails to note that those numbers were compiled for the period from 2006 to 2009."

"A more recent PwC report, conducted in conjunction with the World Bank, listed the effective U.S. corporate tax rate at 27.9 percent for 2014, while the OECD average was only 15.9 percent."

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#112

Post by germanier » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:45 AM UTC

simpleblend wrote: post #104

No matter what Governments try to tell you, nothing is this world is free -- especially education. There's a general rule in Economics that says whatever the government touches turns to shit. Even if you think that the higher education will be "free", it'll be completely inferior compared to free-market education. In addition, you now have to combat against Socialist propaganda on a daily basis. It's time for humanit…

> No matter what Governments try to tell you, nothing is this world is free -- especially education.

Education is a net-positive investment. That's the reason many people go to university at all. That means that you also will pay more taxes and effectively finance your education in the future. Note that this is no different to government-sponsered student loans, just without the indirection of loans.

> There's a general rule in Economics that says whatever the government touches turns to shit.

No there isn't. That's a political view of some people (more in the US than probably anywhere else in the world) but that's not a hard scientific fact that you make it seem.

> In addition, you now have to combat against Socialist propaganda on a daily basis.

What if I tell you that even in "socialist" Germany there are libertarian professors teaching in universities.

> Even if you think that the higher education will be "free", it'll be completely inferior compared to free-market education

Says who? Also, even universities that are completely paid for by the tax-payer can compete against each other. In fact they do in many countries.

> It's time for humanity to learn how to solve social problems without a gun to the head.

You certainly mean the gun of decade long student loan repayments.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#113

Post by hackuser » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:46 AM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #15

hackuser wrote: post #2

If many in the U.S. continue to obstruct education (by defunding or by arguing against the value of college) and other countries continue to increase college education, it's not hard to see which countries will have the most educated populations with all the benefits that entails, including attracting and creating the highest skilled jobs.

There is the community college followed by state university combo. This can be quite affordable and help students adjust up to the university system if they were ill prepared in high school.

> There is the community college followed by state university combo. This can be quite affordable and help students adjust up to the university system if they were ill prepared in high school.

I had thought the same, but read recently that it doesn't work out well in reality: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/upshot/college-for-the-mas...

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#114

Post by hackuser » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:47 AM UTC

cjensen wrote: post #3

hackuser wrote: post #2

If many in the U.S. continue to obstruct education (by defunding or by arguing against the value of college) and other countries continue to increase college education, it's not hard to see which countries will have the most educated populations with all the benefits that entails, including attracting and creating the highest skilled jobs.

This has the same problem as most seemingly-good ideas: unintended consequences. If you give every US citizen who attends a US college $20K/year, think about what happens to popular universities with fixed numbers of slots like Stanford or UC Berkeley. They have every incentive to raise their fees by $20K/year. It would still improve the financial situation of students: the universities would probably use some of the…

> Free community college is the way to go. Give everyone an opportunity to see if they can make it in college

I might have agreed, but it turns out that such a path doesn't work well: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/upshot/college-for-the-mas...

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#115

Post by vpeters25 » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:47 AM UTC

rpalmaotero wrote: post #33

I'd like to add that right now an even more important discussion in Chile is about the quality of higher education. After the educational laws were modified in the 1980s in order to allow the existence of private universities and technical institutes, many for-profit institutions appeared, even though educational profit is forbidden (institutes found obscure ways to achieve this). A direct consequence of those for-pr…

Private universities in Chile devised tactics inspired on Hollywood accounting to extract profits: for example they don't own the buildings and pay hefty rents to landlords who are shell corporations of the owners.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#116

Post by mason240 » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:50 AM UTC

the_af wrote: post #52

xname wrote: post #38

Is it fair to people who do not go to college?

Yes, it's fair. Just like a lot of public works and services are funded by taxes even if you in particular don't use them. More importantly, fairness is a trade-off. Granting free universal access to certain things benefits the poor and those with lower incomes, even if it's not particularly beneficial for people with higher incomes. That's a good trade-off in my opinion, and in the opinion of progressive governments…

So no, it's not fair at then.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#117

Post by FireBeyond » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:50 AM UTC

nico wrote: post #36

Many problems with the article: 1) There's no way Chilean education is the most expensive in the world. Tuition for an engineering degree at the best universities in Chile is around USD 5k/year, which is way cheaper than pretty much any university in the US. (edit: in fact here's a ranking, and Chile is not even mentioned on it http://www.businessinsider.com/hsbc-australia-is-the-most-ex... ) 2) The tax hike was a bu…

Re Point 1: Australia is very cheap to get an education - IF you're Australian or a resident. There is a large desirability (especially in conjunction with proximity to Asia and many Asians desire for a 'Western' education) that allows international student fees (which is what the article you quote refers to, NOT the cost of education for your average local student) to provide large subsidies to the cost of education.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#118

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:50 AM UTC

nmrm wrote: post #95

MCRed wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I'd never say there aren't lots of factors. As another person pointed out, culture is a factor too. The US seems to have been in a cultural decline for much of the last 100 years. You can't make direct comparisons, absolutely. But, you can make an argument about incentives and that's what I'm doing. When government is in control you have no choice. You are forced to pay for it and you get what they decide you get…

> The US seems to have been in a cultural decline for much of the last 100 years. Can you explain what, exactly, you mean by this? Looking back 100 years, I can't help but see an enormous amount of improvement in culture, at least in terms of the tangible impact of culture on the lives of people living in the USA.

I he think the regards the creation of a federal income tax as the beginning of the end of the American experiment, going by comments in some other threads.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#119

Post by nmrm2 » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:51 AM UTC

oldmanjay wrote: post #72

the_af wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's fair. Just like a lot of public works and services are funded by taxes even if you in particular don't use them. More importantly, fairness is a trade-off. Granting free universal access to certain things benefits the poor and those with lower incomes, even if it's not particularly beneficial for people with higher incomes. That's a good trade-off in my opinion, and in the opinion of progressive governments…

My main gripe with the language of progressive politics is the redefinition of words like "fair." Intellectual honesty demands that you call things what they are. Marketing demands you redefine things to make people feel the right warm-and-fuzzies. What you did is the latter.

"What is justice/fairness?" is one of those philosophical questions that will never be closed. Claiming that there exists some ground truth definition of fair is, frankly, naive.

Terms like "just" and "fair" are over-loaded and refer to an ephemeral concept for which there are multiple, competing explanations and theories. No consensus or ground truth exists, so it's always fair game to introduce new explanations and theories. This has been the case for at least thousands of years.

Progressive politics didn't "redefine" fairness in any meaningful sense. Whose definition of "fair" isn't a "redefinition"? Rawls? Plato?

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#120

Post by adventured » Sat, May 09, 2015, 1:52 AM UTC

galfarragem wrote: post #108

MCRed wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I'd never say there aren't lots of factors. As another person pointed out, culture is a factor too. The US seems to have been in a cultural decline for much of the last 100 years. You can't make direct comparisons, absolutely. But, you can make an argument about incentives and that's what I'm doing. When government is in control you have no choice. You are forced to pay for it and you get what they decide you get…

Socialism is the root of some evils. By the other hand, education is probably the best thing in socialism. I'm from Southwest Europe and I know some russians living here that sent their kids to study in their home country, Russia. They say that subjects for 9th grade here, are learned during 6th in Russia. Is very common in my country that kids from Eastern Europe that still made some schooling there are the best stu…

If that's true, why has it produced such incredibly mediocre end results across the world?

Outside of an extremely small number of countries, socialism-tilted education systems have been complete failures at leading to superior results for people, economy, innovation, and so on.