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All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

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Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#441

Post by sudosysgen »

lisper wrote: post #395
okaram wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course! Basically everything is paid by somebody (TANSTAAFL). Nobody thinks that free education is magically free, everybody understands that it's paid by taxes/government/society. OTOH, it is a much cooler slogan than 'education paid by society at large :)

> Nobody thinks that free education is magically free, everybody understands that it's paid by taxes/government/society. That is far from clear. There are crazy people on the left just like there are crazy people on the right, and I think some of them really don't understand how the world actually works, and that you really can somehow magically make education "free for everyone". Even if it's not true, it provides a…

Oh come on. Literally no one believes that teacher salaries are going to pay for themselves.

When leftists say that something like public healthcare would be literally free what they mean is that the net cost compared to the alternative is null or negative, not literally that nothing is being spent.

If you want to give me a link of someone who literally thinks that free college means that no one has to pay anything for the college itself or it's staff, I'm willing to take a look. Otherwise, it's just an argument that the net cost to society is negligible or negative, which is a valid use of the word too.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#442

Post by throwawaycities »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #198
throwawaycities wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devils advocate… Foster children are not a protected class under the law. Perhaps foster kids could or even should be a protected class, however unlike most protected classes that have faced historical systematic discrimination codified in law, the general hardships of foster children are not based in unjust laws. I have worked in Dependency law (ie with children that have been abused, abandoned and negl…

There's another unique aspect to this particular case--if the children "aged out" without being adopted, then they don't have functioning parents to pay for the massive costs of college, which is what the current financial aid and pricing model relies on. Even if the kids had a good childhood, they aren't going to have the financial resources to pay for college themselves. And even if they have an almost adopted type…

That’s just it, some foster parents might actually be very wealthy, some might have had the children all their lives, some nearly destitute and use foster care as a paycheck, and some kids might have gone into foster care a few months before graduating high school and aging out. This was my entire point in response to the parent comment, I like the program, just want to highlight that foster care isn’t as much of a individualize circumstance as they may believe, it’s just as diverse a experience as growing up a minority.

I mentioned in another reply, in Florida we have programs that offer financial assistance to kids that age out and continue their education. I support the programs, but there are things that should be acknowledged like it resulting in foster kids not getting adopted that otherwise would as financial strategy, or kids going into foster care right before aging out to qualify for the program.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#443

Post by andersa »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #434
xmddmx wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CA's population has tripled in 60 years and so has the tax base and # of teachers. This is a non-issue. Society scales. > and high school graduation rates have risen signifigantly (which is of course good). Not necessarily : see my comment below.

None of these stats grew at the rate of tuition prices. Which happens to be the metric that really matters.

From the outside, that seems to have primarily two reasons:

- universities wasting massive amounts of money on things that have nothing to do with academics, such as sports programs, stadiums, etc.

- because they can, due to people getting ridiculous loans to pay the ridiculous tuition cost.

So all that would have to be done there is ban them from charging these ridiculous fees. Is that not it?

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#444

Post by Sparkyte »

leafmeal wrote: post #405
Sparkyte wrote: post #402

What people are failing to understand with this is that this is target people who are foster and don't have a financial supporter. I see people talk bad and stuff about how this shouldn't be. However those with parents usually have some sort of financial support. It does suck it is free-free, because it doesn't teach the foster kid important life lessons, but there is more merit to this. I still think the kid has to…

>It does suck it is free-free, because it doesn't teach the foster kid important life lessons, but there is more merit to this. What about the many countries with free university for everyone? Are those students missing out on important life lessons as well?

Colleges are not Universities and often are for profit. Universities are also for profit in the United States, and I would love it if US had a free tier University for all. That won't happen because of US government.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#445

Post by Clubber »

lisper wrote: post #395
okaram wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course! Basically everything is paid by somebody (TANSTAAFL). Nobody thinks that free education is magically free, everybody understands that it's paid by taxes/government/society. OTOH, it is a much cooler slogan than 'education paid by society at large :)

> Nobody thinks that free education is magically free, everybody understands that it's paid by taxes/government/society. That is far from clear. There are crazy people on the left just like there are crazy people on the right, and I think some of them really don't understand how the world actually works, and that you really can somehow magically make education "free for everyone". Even if it's not true, it provides a…

Many young people have no concept of money. It's not their fault, their parents paid for everything and it's not really taught. My first car loan out of college floored me at how much the monthly payment was at 60 months and it was a reasonably priced demo (cheaper than new).

Of course, not many people have the concept of money at the government scale either. What does $75B to Ukraine really mean?

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#446

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

nxx788 wrote: post #404
jonhohle wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something is not free if someone else is forced to pay for it. It’s really easy to be generous with other people’s resources.

That's not how the language works. We have long ago decided that "free", when used in the context of social services, is correct enough to be understood. Do you think that definition is bad? If so, maybe you'll catch more nibbles by trying to engage in a dialog?

Who is "we"?

I've seen a lot of terms used for social services: subsidized, covered, available by grant, available to those who qualify.

But I don't always see those social services tossing around the word "free".

Sure, sometimes there are "free haircuts for the homeless" or "free medical services for the needy", or "free help to apply for benefits", but generally in the context of entitlements, we're not freely bandying this word around.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#447

Post by wolverine876 »

pirate787 wrote: post #141
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #29

ALL kids in Tennessee can now attend any two year trade school upon graduation from a state high school. Adults can, as well, based on certain additional requirements (that really are easy after you've lived in-state).

And Tennessee has no state income tax.

The taxpayers must pay for it somehow. Income tax at least equalizes the sacrifice each taxpayer makes (to some degree). How do TN taxpayers pay for it?

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#448

Post by [deleted] »

titzer wrote: post #397
lisper wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm approximately a social democrat too, but I'm also a pragmatist. Asking for "free education" is like a child asking for a pony. Education, like everything, costs money, and we can't just wave a magic wand and change that. The only question is who pays for it: the student, or someone else. "Free education" really means education paid for by society at large rather than students. I'm not saying that's a bad idea. It…

We could call it what it really is, which is an investment in the future of the country.

[deleted]

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#449

Post by blululu »

slavboj wrote: post #426
xmddmx wrote: post #294

This idea is not really new - the California Master Plan for Education essentially promised a free higher education to everyone in California. In 1960. [1] As these things go, the plan was eroded over time, with the (in)famous Proposition 13 of 1978 dealing a big blow. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Hig...

There is this meme that Prop 13 is responsible for everything bad in California because of course we could pay for anything if we had more money. In reality the CA budget has grown faster than inflation for decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/313176/california-state-...

I’ve seen people point to prop 13 as a cause of the budget deficits. Not sure how much any of this goes beyond hearsay, but it is much harder to run a deficit when your tax base is decentralized and fixed. The core idea of prop 13 was to cut income and let spending figure itself out separately. The widening budget deficits in CA happen in the aftermath but maybe that was just the consequence of the same fiscal irresponsibility that motivated the tax cut.

Re: All foster kids in California can now attend any state college for free

#450

Post by mcny »

slavboj wrote: post #426
xmddmx wrote: post #294

This idea is not really new - the California Master Plan for Education essentially promised a free higher education to everyone in California. In 1960. [1] As these things go, the plan was eroded over time, with the (in)famous Proposition 13 of 1978 dealing a big blow. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Hig...

There is this meme that Prop 13 is responsible for everything bad in California because of course we could pay for anything if we had more money. In reality the CA budget has grown faster than inflation for decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/313176/california-state-...

My personal opinion, the first thing we should do is a complete ban on all “professional” and/or spectator sport in any and all educational institution. You can still have classes teaching sports but no spectators and definitely no “college spirit” nonsense.

It doesn’t matter to me if these sports generate more revenue than it costs. It is a distraction that we don’t need. If people want to participate in spectator sport, there are other places for it.

My justification is the same as that Google uses to kill projects. There might be a project at Google that makes a hundred million dollars of “pure profit”. However, if it takes even equivalent of a month of time and attention of the executive leadership team and the board every year, it is decidedly not worth doing and must be scrapped.

Similarly, it doesn’t matter to me how much money sports and other such distractions make. If it takes time and attention of the management and or the board of regents, it must be scrapped. Educational institutions exist for education. Cut it all out!

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