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Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

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Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#71

Post by Kalium »

flashgordon wrote: post #30
itg wrote: post #7

I don't follow the logic the author is using. Let's say we make all public colleges free for students. "Elite" schools will still exist, and top students will still target schools such as Ivy/MIT/Stanford/etc. One look at the people in executive offices or top political offices and you'll find a substantial portion are graduates from elite schools.

As an Australian who benefited from a great public college (or as we call it uni) if public schools were free and high quality what would motivate the demand for elite schools? Yes elite schools are still networking grounds. But wouldnt the hope be that if people who already came out of public schools weren't saddled with crippling debt, enough of them could pay it forward to the broader group than their own elite sc…

People want to have status markers to point to. Attending an elite school or sending your kids to one are great status markers, plus the value of elite networking and all the elite opportunities. The argument is often framed in terms of race-conscious admissions to elite schools, but in reality it's over who gets to gatekeep the ranks of the elite. These are fundamentally contentious and limited.

This author wants to talk about broad access to education instead. They note correctly that there are really not that many people who are affected by these policy squabbles and far more who benefit from getting access to higher education of any non-elite quality.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#72

Post by sokoloff »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #57
piotrkaminski wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> devalue the diploma from the public college Huh? How so? If the only change is that you no longer need to pay for college, but otherwise admission standards and education quality remain the same, then why would the value of a diploma change? Unless the diploma was implicitly a signal for wealth, of course...

Wages are based on how easy you are to replace. If a job has a high wage because they require a specific college degree, then making the degree easier to get since you don't have to pay for it, then there will be more people with that degree, so the supply of workers is higher, making them easier to replace, so the wages of those workers goes down.

To whatever extent your concern is backed up by data, that's an argument for making public colleges free rather than an argument against it, IMO.

"Today, children of upper middle class families have a path to getting good paying jobs that the poor are largely shut out from. We don't wish for that change by making public universities free, thereby preventing competition for these desirable jobs by the children of the poor."

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#73

Post by coryrc »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #32
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, and if anything what the author proposes would intensify the competition to get into those elite schools, for it would simultaneously increase the worth of a diploma from an elite school and devalue the diploma from the public college.

You could always make public colleges free, and also make the exams to get in actually hard. That comes with its own suite of issues, of course.

We've done the opposite for decades. We've lowered the bar every year and the quality of k-12 education has dropped significantly. Perhaps now that Lucy Calkins is fully exposed as a fraud, reading can get better? https://www.timesunion.com/education/article/phonics-f-sound...

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#74

Post by kogus »

Making public colleges free isn't... free. The perception is often that public universities are already getting most of their money from the state or federal government, so why not just close the gap. But the typical funding level is between 40-50%. The remaining 50-60% is currently covered by tuition and philanthropic giving. So closing the gap to make universities free to the public would involve (in most cases) more than doubling the current level of state/federal funding.

That doesn't mean it should not be done - but the magnitude of the investment should be made clear.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#75

Post by [deleted] »

starkparker wrote: post #60

I was in the second high school class to get Louisiana's TOPS program, which at the time gave four years' full-ride tuition plus fees to any public state university with a nominal ACT score and generous GPA requirements (18 ACT and 2.5 GPA IIRC). Wouldn't be here today without it. My parents couldn't afford anything but the closest and shittiest university, with no compsci program (they only had a business computing…

[deleted]

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#76

Post by nradov »

flashgordon wrote: post #30
itg wrote: post #7

I don't follow the logic the author is using. Let's say we make all public colleges free for students. "Elite" schools will still exist, and top students will still target schools such as Ivy/MIT/Stanford/etc. One look at the people in executive offices or top political offices and you'll find a substantial portion are graduates from elite schools.

As an Australian who benefited from a great public college (or as we call it uni) if public schools were free and high quality what would motivate the demand for elite schools? Yes elite schools are still networking grounds. But wouldnt the hope be that if people who already came out of public schools weren't saddled with crippling debt, enough of them could pay it forward to the broader group than their own elite sc…

Very few students pay full tuition for the elite (first tier) private schools. They have large enough endowments to offer generous financial aid. Plus the students who can gain admission based on merit often qualify for additional scholarships from other organizations.

The students who accumulate crippling debt usually attended second and third tier private colleges. Those are generally a terrible value.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#77

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

ulrashida wrote: post #38
jandrewrogers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US spends more on education than the military, it is difficult to defend the idea that spending on education has not been prioritized. Per the OECD, US spending per student is among the highest in the world by a large margin, which raises the question of value for the money already being spent -- any deficiencies compared to other countries aren't for lack of money. The US also spends a lot of money on the milita…

Could you please support this statement: "The US spends more on education than the military"? This view ( https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/agency ) suggests Defense spending is $1.1 trillion in 2023 while Department of Education funding is $208 billion.

"Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States were $870 billion in 2019–20 (in constant 2021–22 dollars)"

That does not include college funding.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#78

Post by AmVess »

karaterobot wrote: post #46

> There’s the age-old question of how we pay for this. Sanders proposed a Wall Street financial transactions tax. A 0.1 percent tax, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, could raise $777 billion over 10 years. Or we could hike taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans. I have no problem taxing wall street or "the wealthiest Americans", but I don't see the connection between this proposal and…

I have a problem with taxes in general, and this is yet another stupid idea. Increased tax loads always get passed on to the consumer.

What we will end up with is higher cost of doing business and 100% for certain federally run universities will still need taxpayer bailouts every single year.

Lose lose all the way around.

I have an even better idea: get rid of all freebies. If someone wants something, they can get off their asses and work for it for a change.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#79

Post by toast0 »

lusus_naturae wrote: post #16
monero-xmr wrote: post #4

Nothing is “free”. Sometimes the costs are hidden from most people. It’s like immigration. If you say, “anyone who comes here can’t be kicked out and you instantly get access to healthcare, food stamps, and free housing” then your maximum payout is the entire planet and you are bankrupt once people realize this. For public college to be free, I want to limit access, like happens in Europe. Sure college can be free… t…

> to the top N people in the state, with N being decided by the payers (i.e. democratic electorate). I don't know how it works in the EU, but one issue I see with that it has the danger of permanently locking people who grow up with worse early/middle/high school education into their socioeconomic status, i.e. it would prevent social mobility for those with less resources. Unless public schooling standards prior to c…

You could do top N% (round up) of each high school in the state as a first approximation and capture a lot of socioeconomic diversity, since there's (at least currently) a lot of clustering of poor kids at some schools rich kids at others.

You've also got to have a second option. If you don't qualify for the state school scholarship based on high school grades or maybe alternate qualifiers like test scores, then community college is still an option, and when you graduate from that with an approved program, it should qualify you for state school. Maybe something something GI bill, although dangling college as a hook to get people into the military feels icky to me somehow.

Re: Stop Arguing over Elite Schools. Just Make Public Colleges Free

#80

Post by BizarroLand »

It doesn't even have to be free.

Just create a subsidy and regulate the colleges that agree to be subsidized. Make it fully voluntary but also give the participant colleges a special badge to let people know that the college is federally funded and therefore has to provide various information to the students or possible put a maximum loan cap on the student, and if the student is making progress and reaches that cap then the remainder of their education is free of charge to the Bachelors level.

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