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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
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.

I don't. A janitor or trash collector working his rear off for 40 hours a week contributes just as much to our society as a brainsurgion. The difference in pay represents not a difference in actual contribution, but a difference in scarcity of a particular skillset. Now I am not arguing that everyone should make the same - people of scarcer skillsets should get paid more than people with more common skills (assuming that there is sufficent demand for the scarcer skillsets). But pay does not equate to a humans value value in society.

Now lets say that being a brain surgion was the highest paying skill in the world, and suddenly every bright young person decided that he/she went to med school and specialized in brain surgery. Well not just everyone needs a brain surgion every day, so the pay rates for brain surgions would become very low. The brain surgery qualification may become less neccesary in our society that some skill at mopping floors. So would that mean that brain surgions somehow stopped contributing to society as much as they used to? Of course not. Compensation simply has little to do with human value.
 
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.

There are most definately career paths for people with communications and liberal arts degrees. If a student isn't technically minded, it would be a waste to go into a technical field. Communicatons or some other liberal arts would be much more valuable.
 
So there's plenty of money and it's just that people are lazy? It's that again?

No, it's that some people are willing to do what it takes, and others aren't. When I went to school, I was young, married, and had two children. I went to a community college for as long as I could to save money. I was poor by today's standards, but somehow I managed to do what I really wanted to do. Attitude will get you far if it's a good and positive one, or it will keep you in poverty if you let it.
 
If a capable child/young person who has the capabilities to make a college degree is kept from doing so, because of his/her financial situation, that would not just be unworthy of a humane society and degrading for the individual, but also a massive waste of resources for society as a whole. Imagine if an Einstein had ended as burger cook, just because his family could not afford college -- and even if it's just a decent engineer among many, that's bad enough. I don't think we (in the West) can afford to waste this intellectual potential.

But that's not the case here. A capable young person who works and achieves scholastic excellence (or even in sports) can get a free education.
 
No, it's that some people are willing to do what it takes, and others aren't.

How is that different?

When I went to school, I was young, married, and had two children. I went to a community college for as long as I could to save money. I was poor by today's standards, but somehow I managed to do what I really wanted to do. Attitude will get you far if it's a good and positive one, or it will keep you in poverty if you let it.

So you were too lazy to go get a degree at a real college, and a master's and doctorate?

See how that works?
 
But that's not the case here. A capable young person who works and achieves scholastic excellence (or even in sports) can get a free education.

That's overstating the case a great deal, but yeah, we have scholarships and student aid.
 
If it were an unneeded profession, it wouldn't be a profession.

You talk as if it's easy to predict the job market, or what others will do. But if everyone is expected to get trained in the most in-demand professions, lots will cluster to them, and then there will be too many candidates for too few jobs, and vice versa. So your idea is self-defeating. And then there's external forces that change the job market, and your own skills and opportunities.

Still standing is the point that it makes no sense to have redistributive government programs "incentivizing" something where natural incentive already exists.
 
How is that different?



So you were too lazy to go get a degree at a real college, and a master's and doctorate?

See how that works?

Did I say the bolded? No I didn't. I said I went to a community college for as long as I could, which means, for those who seem intent on just being snide, that I took as many hours as I could at lower cost, then went to a state university to do the rest. It's really not that difficult to understand, and there's really no need for you to be an asshole about it.
 
There is no DIRECT career path from that degree to a job opportunity. I can't say that I've ever seen a job advertisement for a LIBERAL ARTS MAJOR or COMMUNICATIONS MAJOR. Yes, there are associated career fields that one may be able to get into, but for the most part there is no DIRECT career path linked to those degrees. My parents were (rightfully so) not interested in investing wads of cash into a degree that had no DIRECT CAREER PATH assocaited with it.

I've never seen an advertisment for a CEO or a congressman or a news anchor, or a music composer, but that doesn't mean we those types of jobs don't exist. Typically graduates with specific interests will actively apply at the type of organazations that hire such people, and thus there is no need for public advertising.

Out of that, they got....

1. CAD Designer/Drafter
2. Director of Christian Education/Youth Services
3. Biology Professor/Researcher

Then you have to admit that they were being silly. Of course there are more than three different jobs where college is helpful.
 
Are either of you plumbers? If so then yes, you aimed low in life. Sorry to be the first to break it to you. There's nothing wrong with the profession itself. However, I have higher ambitions not only for myself but also for my children. If that's how you feed yourselves, please by any means pumpkins, however don't expect me to act like it's anything more than the kind of employment people who don't aim too high in life end up with. :shrug:

Just the other day there was this guy wearing a work shirt that said "Joes Plumbing" on it standing just in front of me in line at Walmart. So the guy ahead of him turns around and said that he though he had a leaky pipe in his basement and asked how much it would cost to get it fixed. Joe the plumber (he he excuse the pun) said that it would depend on how long it took and further explained that he charged $60 for a house call plus $125/hr. The guy with the leaky pipe said "wow, thats more than my doctor charges", Joe responded "yep, thats why I stopped being a doctor and got into something more profitable".
 
I don't really talk to the help. Do you?

I always try to be socialble to the help. My yard man, my plumber, my attorney, cab drivers, the pool boy, even the mail man when I see him. I'm nice to everyone.
 
Lol is that supposed to mean something to me? Unlike a certain lawyer on these boards, I don't really feel the need to plaster my income for all to see. However, if that plumber saved up every paycheck and didn't pay a single dollar in taxes, his $49K would pay for around 1/10th of the property that I own in St. Maarten (that's an island in the Caribbean). I won't even go into how much my house in Canada is worth.



Are you a plumber? I'm sorry to hear you aimed so low in life.

I like to see that you are differentiating yourself from TD, but you are being even a bigger jerk than him. And this is coming from someone who AGREES with your post about having low expectations.
 
No,the last thing we need is more pseudo-intellectual early 20's "psychologists" who can successfully diagnose all of society's ills in a single semester.
 
I think there should be affordable college. It is a violation of equal opportunity to make colleges so expensive that only kids with rich parents can attend.

But they aren't. There are all sorts of opportunities for deserving students. (You have to research them sometimes, but they're there.) I don't mean those who think they're deserving; I mean those who demonstrably really are. In fact, the genuinely outstanding students don't pay anything; the institution pays them.

I happen to have been very fortunate. My parents could well afford to pay for my education, and they did. I took a lot for granted when I was younger and had to learn the hard way, but I have seen for myself that those who are invested in their own education and willing to work to pay for it or at least help pay for it themselves value it more.

BTW, I put my own money where my mouth is. I told them that if they really wanted to attend college, they could continue to live at home and pay for it themselves. I intended, after they had demonstrated to be their serious intentions measured in academic performance for a few semesters to begin kicking in. But neither of them was actually interested enough in continuing their education to work for it.

So I saved money, they too may learn the hard way, and they aren't sucking the lifeforce out of academia the way thousands and thousands of college students who don't want to be there and don't have a single cell of intellectual curiosity are doing.
 
But that's not the case here. A capable young person who works and achieves scholastic excellence (or even in sports) can get a free education.

In addition to scholastic excellence and sports, a lot of colleges offer scholarships for leadership. My son also got a scholarship for something weird - music skills.
 
No,the last thing we need is more pseudo-intellectual early 20's "psychologists" who can successfully diagnose all of society's ills in a single semester.

What we need is some real psychologists who can diagnose all of society's ills, then get those who need it to seek psychiatric care. :mrgreen:
 
In addition to scholastic excellence and sports, a lot of colleges offer scholarships for leadership. My son also got a scholarship for something weird - music skills.

The gal who does my hair has a daughter who is currently a senior in high school. She plays golf, and is really good at it. Last year, she had colleges all over the country trying to sign her up. She could have had a full scholarship to several big name colleges, but she wanted to be closer to home, so she signed up for a full scholarship program at North Tx State.
 
Still standing is the point that it makes no sense to have redistributive government programs "incentivizing" something where natural incentive already exists.

It's not about incentivizing, it's about making those who already have the incentive the ability to act on it.
 
The gal who does my hair has a daughter who is currently a senior in high school. She plays golf, and is really good at it. Last year, she had colleges all over the country trying to sign her up. She could have had a full scholarship to several big name colleges, but she wanted to be closer to home, so she signed up for a full scholarship program at North Tx State.

Yeah, so if you want to be a doctor or whatevber, you need to play good sports! That's a really rational education system we have there.
 
I always try to be socialble to the help. My yard man, my plumber, my attorney, cab drivers, the pool boy, even the mail man when I see him. I'm nice to everyone.

Stop doing that. It makes people aim too low in life. Treat them all like crap so they'll all try to be doctors and stockbrokers. We don't need plumbers anyway. What do they do that's useful?
 
It's not about incentivizing, it's about making those who already have the incentive the ability to act on it.

Well the post I originally responded to specifically said it was about incentivizing.

Oh, and your statement makes no sense. Having government use tax revenues that are already in short supply to underwrite peoples educational expenses doesn't give them an ability they don't already have. Many people take out loans and it turns out to be a very good investment in the case of doctors.
 
Yeah, so if you want to be a doctor or whatevber, you need to play good sports! That's a really rational education system we have there.

No. Again, you are making assumptions and are wrong.
 
I'd like to address the notion that a college education is for getting into a lucrative profession. I had a professor who asked, "Is the purpose of higher education to graduate making 100 thousand dollars a year?" He explained the goals of a college education. I took notes that day and kept them because they meant so much to me. Here is word for word how he defined the goals of higher education:

  • Ability to think abstractly and perform critical analysis
  • Acquire literacy in writing, reading, speaking, and listening
  • Ability to understand numerical data
  • Having a sense of the past
  • Intellectually at ease with science
  • Acquire the capacity to make informed and moral choices
  • Appreciation of the arts
  • International and multicultural experiences
  • Study in-depth

Notice there isn't anything in there about getting a fortune 500 company to hire you and pay you a buttload of money. The idea is that a person with the above skill set can learn anything she or he needs to in order to succeed. If you have those skills, you can also learn the a professional skill set. A person can graduate college and go to law school or learn about finances or whatever. When you graduate college, you're not done learning. You've acquired the ability to learn and can learn anything. The idea is not just to get a person who's capable of earning good money. It's to get someone who will make good choices for society as a whole. I've been extremely frustrated by the lack of the above skill set in people I've encountered in political "debate" in this country. I put that in quotes because what often is called debate is nothing more than shout fests chock full of fallacies and misinformation. If we had a country full of people with developed high education skills, we ought to be able to govern ourselves much, much better than we do. The vitriol and polarization that we've seen of late would not be so prevalent.

Don't get me wrong. I do think having a career direction while still an undergraduate is a good thing. It's entirely possible for a person to be in college and work both on the goals of higher education and on a marketable skill. The point is, a university is not a trade school. If someone wants to study a marketable skill and a marketable skill only, that's by definition a trade school, not a university. There's value in a marketable skill, but there's value in a well-rounded education also. A person who goes to a university only with the goal of getting a great job is missing the point. There's way more to higher education than that and there's way more to life than that.
 
Chalk up another victory for the American conservatives (63 % - no free college) as the more advanced nations in this world have...
I'd like to know exactly how Canada or Germany handle this..
No question, those with drive and intelligence should have affordable higher education, not necessarily free, but affordable.
This, we do not have...the student loans and the financial burden on the parents can be a back breaker.
 
Oh, and your statement makes no sense. Having government use tax revenues that are already in short supply to underwrite peoples educational expenses doesn't give them an ability they don't already have. Many people take out loans and it turns out to be a very good investment in the case of doctors.

So nobody has any problem meeting their financial needs for education? Come on.
 
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