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Should “equal opportunity” mean free college?

Should “equal opportunity” = free (gov funded) college to those who can complete it?

  • Yes

    Votes: 13 29.5%

  • No

    Votes: 31 70.5%
  • Total voters
    44
Some societal needs, yes. All of them? No.

This creates the nanny state we currently live in and would love to see abolished.
 
Gipper said:
Some societal needs, yes. All of them? No.

This creates the nanny state we currently live in and would love to see abolished.
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Then we partially agree. I think it's impossible to maintain a well working society without a government that takes an active interest in maintaining it. This is what I think fredmetz is arguing for. I doubt anybody wants a "nanny state" or even knows what a nanny state looks like. Even Scandinavian countries would have a hard time believing that they are "nanny states" simply because their concept of social contracts are radically different than ours. They see it as important that they pay taxes in order for their way of life to survive. The American right sees most taxes as some form of theft regardless of the purpose it serves. This is illogical and a dangerous state of mind to live in.
 
fredmertz said:
We're moving pretty far into the abstract at this point; what is a 'societal' need? I assume you would consider college to be one of them, with all of the assumptions made about cost-effectiveness.

But the balance is naturally occurring, assuming that the few individual rights are being fully protected. The job of the government should not be to define societal needs. Government represents and protects individuals, not societies. Those individuals create and define society. That is how they are linked. Not through government.
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The societal need would be progress through invention of better things, systems, processes, efficiencies, and all the stuff that education allows us to do that improves our quality of life.

I disagree, the government has a pivotal role in promoting and building things deemed as the commons, such as infrastructure.
 
I chose "NO". I do not believe that the Federal Government should be involved in Education at any level; nor should there be State owned/run colleges. I am totally against the idea that "everyone should go to college". In fact, I believe that idea is seriously hurting our society these days. If I had any male children I'd be suggesting trade school to them. Much less expensive, and most of those fields will never go out of demand (plumbing, HVAC, auto repair, Drafting, construction, etc...).
 
Tigger said:
I chose "NO". I do not believe that the Federal Government should be involved in Education at any level; nor should there be State owned/run colleges. I am totally against the idea that "everyone should go to college". In fact, I believe that idea is seriously hurting our society these days. If I had any male children I'd be suggesting trade school to them. Much less expensive, and most of those fields will never go out of demand (plumbing, HVAC, auto repair, Drafting, construction, etc...).
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... You must have really low hopes for your children. Most parents encourage their kids to go out there and become architects, engineers, doctors etc. You tell yours to become plumbers? Seriously?
 
MusicAdventurer said:
Should everyone have access to all types of college education and degrees regardless of their financial status and should the only factor that should be considered when allowing access to college education and degrees be their ability to complete such academic curriculum?

Or should only those who can afford a college education or those select few who receive scholarships be allowed access to college education and thus, one’s financial status should be considered in addition to one’s ability to complete academic curriculum?

What option did you pick or which one best reflects your beliefs and why?
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No thanks. I have seen how a given education can impact a person once they think they are entitled to one. Meanwhile those of us who have had to work at financing our education and take out loans can be better driven and more appreciative of the opportunity afforded to us.
 
Hatuey said:
The job of the government is to provide for societal need as a well working society is essential to a government's survival. What you're saying is that it's your job to defend your house, but not to make sure the people living in it have food to eat. It's nonsensical to say the least.
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That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that it's the government's job to defend the house and protect the resident's rights to gather food for themselves. It is not the job of the government to provide the food.

Back to the topic: If society wants to help, they can make scholarships. If society does not create sufficient scholarships to fund all college tuitions, the reason would be that individuals in that society did not believe that the importance of equal education was worth their dollar. So why force it upon them and take away their freedom and right to property?
 
Hatuey said:
... You must have really low hopes for your children. Most parents encourage their kids to go out there and become architects, engineers, doctors etc. You tell yours to become plumbers? Seriously?
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I have an Associate of Science Degree (AS) in Computer Aided Design and Drafting. It cost roughly $34K, of which I ended up personally paying about $2500. That same degree, from that same college would now cost closer to $75K, and would not even come close to guaranteeing the graduates a job. It is becoming increasingly obvious that a college degree no longer GUARANTEES one a stable income anymore. Especially when you factor in the expense of the degree itself. These "service" industry jobs pay well (most are Unionized), and are only going to INCREASE in demand as people who grew up in my generation and younger who don't know the difference between a wrench and a pair of pliers need their homes, cars, etc... worked on.
 
fredmertz said:
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that it's the government's job to defend the house and protect the resident's rights to gather food for themselves. It is not the job of the government to provide the food.
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More nonsense. People do not live in a vacuum where availability is always there if they just grasp for it. Things like generational poverty, economic conditions, education etc must be taken into consideration. Take a look at governments in Asia/Africa/Latin America where governments barely exist in the lives of citizen and what do you have? High unemployment, underdevelopment, starving children in the millions, etc. Your argument that governments should be there only to defend "the resident's right to gather food" goes against every social indicator of what it takes to have a well working society.
 
Tigger said:
I have an Associate of Science Degree (AS) in Computer Aided Design and Drafting. It cost roughly $34K, of which I ended up personally paying about $2500. That same degree, from that same college would now cost closer to $75K, and would not even come close to guaranteeing the graduates a job. It is becoming increasingly obvious that a college degree no longer GUARANTEES one a stable income anymore. Especially when you factor in the expense of the degree itself. These "service" industry jobs pay well (most are Unionized), and are only going to INCREASE in demand as people who grew up in my generation and younger who don't know the difference between a wrench and a pair of pliers need their homes, cars, etc... worked on.
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That's not what I asked you about. I asked you why it was you didn't ask your children to aim higher than plumbers. It's not as if doctors and engineers will become obsolete within the next 40 years.
 
Our public school system k-12 needs to be fixed first. Big dreams of university changes are meaningless when our elem/middle/high schools graduate so few, and with such statistically poor chances of succeeding at the university level.

I'll say that improvements in K-12 take care of *much* of the perceived issue with universities, tuition, etc. that you may be raising. We already pay for them, we just need to get out of them what we put into them by reforming and busting government and union blockades to a working system.

Hatuey said:
That's not what I asked you about. I asked you why it was you didn't ask your children to aim higher than plumbers. It's not as if doctors and engineers will become obsolete within the next 40 years.
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So plumbers are where people end up if they aim low? Tell those working joes how you really feel....

Besides, isn't what parents guide their childrens towards a personal decision, and not your business? Do you want liberals to dictate the goals of parent? What if they tell them " do what makes you happy", and what makes them happy you consider "setting your sights too low"?
 
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Hatuey said:
That's not what I asked you about. I asked you why it was you didn't ask your children to aim higher than plumbers. It's not as if doctors and engineers will become obsolete within the next 40 years.
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what's wrong with being a plumber?
 
Hatuey said:
That's not what I asked you about. I asked you why it was you didn't ask your children to aim higher than plumbers. It's not as if doctors and engineers will become obsolete within the next 40 years.
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The cost of those educations is prohibitave compared to the amount of opportunities readily available right out of school. Most of the engineers I work with came out of college with $100K+ in debt and got jobs paying less than $60K a year. That doesn't make for a real great financial future right off the bat.
 
Society benefits from an educated population. It follows that the best societies have the best-educated peoples. Everyone should have the opportunity to extend their education as far as they are able. A society must invest in its members.
 
I hate when the term free is used in anything when applied to situations like these. You name it health care, education, housing. It will be paid for by me, you, and the tax payers period.
 
Hatuey said:
More nonsense. People do not live in a vacuum where availability is always there if they just grasp for it. Things like generational poverty, economic conditions, education etc must be taken into consideration. Take a look at governments in Asia/Africa/Latin America where governments barely exist in the lives of citizen and what do you have? High unemployment, underdevelopment, starving children in the millions, etc. Your argument that governments should be there only to defend "the resident's right to gather food" goes against every social indicator of what it takes to have a well working society.
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I don't deny the things that you believe must be taken into consideration, I just don't believe it's the job of the government to do the considering. On a individual basis I believe we are morally obligated to compensate these considerations where we each feel it is appropriate. There are so many other factors in Asia/Africa/Latin America (including corrupt governments) that is irrelevant philosophically to the government's ideal role which is the current debate. And so I'm not going to be touching that point.

I believe that the people obviously are choosing: "NO, society should not provide further education for the general population" given the general lack of contributions to scholarship funds. If the people wanted to provide educations, they have the opportunity everyday to make these contributions. The government makes sure we are free to make these choices. If we are not making these choices, it's obvious that we do not WANT it to be so. So why would our government force it upon us? Because we are too limited to see the big picture and the advancement of our society and how it benefits us individually? Is that the underlying argument in favor of big government?
 
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Viktyr Korimir said:
The government should pay for college when it is statistically likely to lead to a greater increase in tax revenues than the expense of the program. Since we can't judge that on a case-by-case basis, we need a rules-based policy that ensure that it applies in the majority of cases; a "close enough" rule that allows us to eat the occasional loss while still benefiting overall.

Of course, we can't have programs like that because people would insist on "equal rights" for English and PE majors.
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So English and PE majors contribute nothing? They sure do a good job of teaching our kids how to speak and write and stay healthy.

This is why measuring education in nothing more than monetary terms, as you want to do, is flawed. Education is more than just a way to get new workers to produce more revenue for the government.
 
misterman said:
So English and PE majors contribute nothing? They sure do a good job of teaching our kids how to speak and write and stay healthy.

This is why measuring education in nothing more than monetary terms, as you want to do, is flawed. Education is more than just a way to get new workers to produce more revenue for the government.
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You've hit on a great problem in our society. People seem to measure the value of a another person based on how much money they make. People don't seem to realize that those English majors they attack have contributed a lot to society.
 
U.S. Socialist. said:
You've hit on a great problem in our society. People seem to measure the value of a another person based on how much money they make. People don't seem to realize that those English majors they attack have contributed a lot to society.
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I measure the value of a person based on how much they have contributed to a society. A free society will on average pay that person exactly what they are worth to the society for their level of production. In a free society, measuring the value of a person by the wealth they earn is an accurate measurement.
 
1. We already have equal opportunity.

2. The government has no business funding anyone's secondary education.

3. "Free" college??? See my sig.
 
U.S. Socialist. said:
You've hit on a great problem in our society. People seem to measure the value of a another person based on how much money they make. People don't seem to realize that those English majors they attack have contributed a lot to society.
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Certain ones of them may contribute a lot to society, but right now most of them are unemployed since OWS has shut down for the winter.

My parents had informed my two brothers and myself that we would ONLY get assistance paying for college IF we selected majors that had CAREER PATHS at the end of them. No General Ed. No Communications. No Liberal Arts. Either we knew what we wanted to do, or we were going to be paying for it ourselves. Sounds like a hell of an idea to me.
 
fredmertz said:
I measure the value of a person based on how much they have contributed to a society. A free society will on average pay that person exactly what they are worth to the society for their level of production. In a free society, measuring the value of a person by the wealth they earn is an accurate measurement.
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That's highly debatable, especially when you're talking about public employees.

But what I was responding to originally was the idea that education should only be paid for for degrees that would pay it back directly in tax revenue.
 
fredmertz said:
I measure the value of a person based on how much they have contributed to a society. A free society will on average pay that person exactly what they are worth to the society for their level of production. In a free society, measuring the value of a person by the wealth they earn is an accurate measurement.
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That's highly debatable, especially when you're talking about public employees.

But what I was responding to originally was the idea that education should only be paid for for degrees that would pay it back directly in tax revenue.
 
No. I don't support public education either, but at this point it is a necessary evil. Let's not make the same mistake with colleges. I would be for somehow making it more affordable though.
 
No. People don't appreciate what they can get for free and a college education would be no different. It would be a waste of taxpayer money with the side effect of crowding colleges with kids who don't want to be there or people who aren't serious about getting a degree.
 
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