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http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/uploads/Introducing_Bennett_Hypothesis_2.pdf
Where did I say I only want the rich to get an education? That is nonsense. What I want to see rather, is college costs restructured rather then throwing more money at the problem.
There is simply no reason for me to pay $700 for a 70 year old "professor" to read off wikipedia and show us movies because it is a "required Gen Ed." This was the case several times in my studies, and unfortunately that is several thousand dollars which I will never get back. If you really want to make college more affordable, get rid of teacher tenure.
Anyways, the second faulty assumption you are making is that this will lead to a more productive, trained workforce.
It should lead to one, but it won't if it just means we get more useless English and Art History majors instead of engineers. But, of course, that is a discussion for another time and place.
I guess you didn't really read the link. It's a hypothesis that admits it hasn't been tested. So much for that.
But indeed, the hypothesis really reduces to the claim that if more kids go to college, tuition goes up. It has nothing to do with loans per se. It wouldn't matter if the college is paid by a rich daddy or by borrowing at exorbitant rates from private banks. What does matter is how that affects the students.
Frankly even if tuition does go up because more kids are getting college education (not necessarily a bad thing if it means better services), as long as the loans have low interest, it's still benefits overall productivity. And so this excursion hasn't made your case at all, but it does make mine: better educated people are more productive and produce economic growth and general prosperity more than unskilled uneducated workers. Every study shows that. So you now need to trot out another discredited hypothesis for me to shoot down.
I love the defense of knownothingism from the right.
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