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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

#511
post #489
post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of the USA the point of university is education. Only in the USA have I seen the meme that the point of universities is something other than education. I’m still trying to work out how and why there is a difference. Can you help me understand what the point is if it isn’t education?

In the EU, universities rarely have sports leagues you’re right in that, but all universities have various kinds of organised clubs and events all the damn time — not a week goes past without a lot of extra-curricular activities, of course voluntary. I have no idea how they handle things in say China, but at least here it’s quite obvious that the point of university is more or less to prepare students for life in gen…

> Besides, the GP is talking total nonsense in general.

I know what I am saying. The whole point is spiraling costs and tragedy of the commons. Colleges and universities must keep spending on spectator sports because otherwise you can’t pull students away from other colleges and universities that do the same. The whole point of my comment is to make college accessible and affordable. You can’t just say “don’t look up”. Something has to change.

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

#512
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Yeah, disagree. College sports generate a significant amount of revenue for the university, which funds scholarships for a huge number of students that otherwise couldn't afford to go there. They have the added benefit of being fun and add entertainment to the college experience.

> Yeah, disagree. College sports generate a significant amount of revenue for the university, which funds scholarships for a huge number of students that otherwise couldn't afford to go there.

This is objectively false for the small college I went to… in any case, you ignored my whole comment, even if it does make money, I don’t want it because this money corrupts beyond just the one university. It changes expectation for all colleges and universities. Now my NCAA division 3 college has to go to donors and beg for flood lights for the football stadium. This is time the UA people could spend on begging for dorms or chemistry lab equipments.

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

#513
post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socializing, learning to live with others, providing opportunities to join social and professional clubs/organizations, navigation of longer-timeline projects and assignments, etc. You could call all of these 'education' but the usual and implicit image of education in people's minds is lectures and tutoring sessions so it's worth highlighting these other aspects. All of these are present in universities around the w…

> Socializing, learning to live with others, providing opportunities to join social and professional clubs/organizations, navigation of longer-timeline projects and assignments, etc. These are all things that happen in universities, but they are also all things that young people have the opportunity to do outside of university.

Technically, narrowly, yes, fine, but having environments that foster those things is much better than living in a desert and having to build those communities yourselves. Many will not have the "opportunity" in the latter case because there's a million other things that come up all the time. It's about reducing friction in accessing those benefits.

The old adage comes to mind: "you loved your college years because you lived in a socialized infrastructure with walkable neighborhoods and the opportunities for spontaneously meeting old friends and new people alike".

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

#514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do. There's probably a free public school in your neighborhood.

College my dear friend. I apologize, but I meant post secondary.

We have community college + low cost state colleges. CC is almost free, cheap state colleges probably will cause a little debt. Some part time job will probably offset most of this.

Completely free will be abused probably, let’s be honest

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

#515

Great. Now let's work on striking "foster" and "California" from that headline.

I mean, no. it should be state-by-state thing but if all states implement it then great. but it shouldn't be federally mandated. maximizing state autonomy is a good thing.

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

#516
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Yeah, disagree. College sports generate a significant amount of revenue for the university, which funds scholarships for a huge number of students that otherwise couldn't afford to go there. They have the added benefit of being fun and add entertainment to the college experience.

What if there is a separate Sports Org and it funds scholarships?

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

#517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Some US universities are for-profit (as in, can pay out dividends to owners). Most aren't.

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

#518
post #478

Why is California uniquely... nice and compassionate to it's people? It's not liberalism because new england is probably even more liberal? Is it the economy? The weather?

More than half of US states already do something like this, including 5/6 New England states (Vermont is the one that doesn't).

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

#519

It's odd that many of the same people cheering this decision are the same ones crying for meritocracy in the workplace. Handouts and free passes as long as you're characterized by $some_immutable_trait? Then don't be upset when you're passed over for a promotion to fulfill a company diversity promotion threshold.

They still have to qualify academically. This just removes the financial barriers.

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

#520
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Except the whole point of college is that it's more than just education.

> more than just education.

Definately, debating, fencing and politics of student councill all belong in university.

But is a highly-commercial sport appropriate.

My understanding is that these studenta do sport instead of studying. They basically get a degree instead of cash compensation. This seems both corrupting education and exploiting the students.

If you think that's okay, why is this approach not applied to Formula Student?

It has engineering students build racecars and compete. If a graduate in mechanical engineering buildz a winning racecar, thats a hood indicator of conpetence. A winner in football is an indicator of.. anything?

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