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A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College

mac said:
Did this post have a purpose?
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I dunno. I think it is true. I think we see that on a lot of threads. Conservatives are so used to advocating hurting people and opposing helping people that they just do it instinctively without always thinking about whether they actually believe that would be the best thing. Look at the "arguments" the folks on the right have posted on this thread. Many of them just boil down to negative ways to characterize helping people in general.
 
mac said:
The reality is that college could be completely free and a very large segment of the population would still not attain even an Associates.
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Can't argue with that one. There is no way you can give someone an education. Even if the taxpayer pays for it, it still has to be earned through hard work.
 
teamosil said:
I dunno. I think it is true. I think we see that on a lot of threads. Conservatives are so used to advocating hurting people and opposing helping people that they just do it instinctively without always thinking about whether they actually believe that would be the best thing. Look at the "arguments" the folks on the right have posted on this thread. Many of them just boil down to negative ways to characterize helping people in general.
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So your point is nothing more than liberals = good, conservatives = bad....with no real reasoning. Got it.

Hyper-partisanship ftl
 
mac said:
So your point is nothing more than liberals = good, conservatives = bad....with no real reasoning. Got it.

Hyper-partisanship ftl
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Spot on......
 
teamosil said:
Try to state your position without any empty rhetoric at all. List off what you see as the disadvantages- like real world impacts- of government paying for school, then list off what you see as the advantages, like the ones we've discussed, and make your argument for why one is bigger than the other. If you won't even do that, you aren't really presenting a position at all, you're just repeating slogans.
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you must think you have done this to support YOUR opinions....
 
UtahBill said:
you must think you have done this to support YOUR opinions....
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Right, I have. It's weird that you don't distinguish between just stating a conclusion and presenting the arguments to support that conclusion. The former is just a waste of time.
 
teamosil said:
Right, I have. It's weird that you don't distinguish between just stating a conclusion and presenting the arguments to support that conclusion. The former is just a waste of time.
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yeah, we know your conclusions, and they are based on delusions.....not arguments.
What percentage of the population would you guess is stupid enough to think that a govt program that pays a salary to attend college will be anything more than a boondoggle of historic proportions?
I will meet you halfway....I would support a govt program that chooses the top 10% of all HS students, tests THEM, and then offer full scholarships to the top 10% of those tested. That will put our top 1% of brainpower into the top universities at govt expense, BUT if they don't then use their education appropriately, they have to pay back all the money.
 
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UtahBill said:
yeah, we know your conclusions, and they are based on delusions.....not arguments.
What percentage of the population would you guess is stupid enough to think that a govt program that pays a salary to attend college will be anything more than a boondoggle of historic proportions?
I will meet you halfway....I would support a govt program that chooses the top 10% of all HS students, tests THEM, and then offer full scholarships to the top 10% of those tested. That will put our top 1% of brainpower into the top universities at govt expense, BUT if they don't then use their education appropriately, they have to pay back all the money.
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First of all, I never suggested paying anybody a salary to attend school. No idea where you got that from. But, you're missing the point.

Look at your post. Tell me, are you making an argument? Or are you just asserting your position?

I've made boatloads of arguments. I've discussed the way our needs for education change over time, I've compared and contrasted states with higher levels of education with ones with lower levels of education, I've presented the data on salary differentials, I've talked about how those salary differences would pay for the college and then some with more tax revenues, I've talked about how the level of education here would enhance our ability to compete with other countries for jobs and compete with immigrants for the jobs that are already here.

What arguments do you feel that you have presented? All I've seen is you asserting over and over that you think it is a stupid idea or blurting out slogans about people being lazy whiners or whatever. I haven't seen a single argument. Not one. I haven't seen you refute any of the arguments listed above. All I've seen you do is blurt out that you think they're wrong. I haven't seen you offer even one argument in favor of your position.

I'm not trying to be a dick. I've actually been enjoying our discussion anyways. But you need to up your game a bit man. You need to start going through policy questions more carefully analyzing the advantages and disadvantages pragmatically and not just rely so easily on the first slogan that pops into your head.
 
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teamosil said:
First of all, I never suggested paying anybody a salary to attend school. No idea where you got that from. But, you're missing the point.

Look at your post. Tell me, are you making an argument? Or are you just asserting your position?

I've made boatloads of arguments. I've discussed the way our needs for education change over time, I've compared and contrasted states with higher levels of education with ones with lower levels of education, I've presented the data on salary differentials, I've talked about how those salary differences would pay for the college and then some with more tax revenues, I've talked about how the level of education here would enhance our ability to compete with other countries for jobs and compete with immigrants for the jobs that are already here.

What arguments do you feel that you have presented? All I've seen is you asserting over and over that you think it is a stupid idea or blurting out slogans about people being lazy whiners or whatever. I haven't seen a single argument. Not one. I haven't seen you refute any of the arguments listed above. All I've seen you do is blurt out that you think they're wrong. I haven't seen you offer even one argument in favor of your position.

I'm not trying to be a dick. I've actually been enjoying our discussion anyways. But you need to up your game a bit man. You need to start going through policy questions more carefully analyzing the advantages and disadvantages pragmatically and not just rely so easily on the first slogan that pops into your head.
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I might have, just maybe, confused you with Fromethues Bound.....for a moment.
 
This thread has gotten pretty big but I think I will put my two cents in again as I think there is much more pertaining to this. My generation has inherited a **** storm. Wages are flat, prices are high, and several in the older generations want to blame 20-somethings exclusively for their bad luck. While true that is a big part of it, my step-dads father back in the 70s could secure a $24/hr steel mill 40 hour job, a very cheap house paid off in ten years and be the only one working in a household of 5 children and live comfortably.

In order for many to obtain this now, one, you will probably be getting paid $24/hr at a steel mill today--which by today's standards is fantastic but you would need a 30 year mortgage, and your wife will have to be working or chances are someone is going to have to have a college degree in the first place in order to offset the cost of ****.
 
Part of higher learning costs can surely be trimmed, but the damage done lately will be hard to undo.
No matter how cheap you make it, there needs to be standards and requirements....standards to get in to a program, requirements to graduate, and requirements to pay back any debt you incur.
I see no shortage of professionals, whether they be scientists, engineers, or technicians.
The unemployment rate is high, and only part of that is from jobs lost, another part is from jobs needed just for growth rate.
New grads are competing with older, laid off, workers for the few job openings that currently exist. New grads don't really have much new knowledge in areas where old workers might be a bit stale. Creating more jobs is far more important than making college easier or cheaper. That means more consumers, people purchasing more stuff above the "needs" level of consumption. But a lot of us are apprehensive about the future, and are holding on to their cash.
Does anyone here really think either candidate can fix this without more govt spending, therefore more debt?
This recession will be a long one.
 
JohnWOlin said:
This thread has gotten pretty big but I think I will put my two cents in again as I think there is much more pertaining to this. My generation has inherited a **** storm. Wages are flat, prices are high, and several in the older generations want to blame 20-somethings exclusively for their bad luck. While true that is a big part of it, my step-dads father back in the 70s could secure a $24/hr steel mill 40 hour job, a very cheap house paid off in ten years and be the only one working in a household of 5 children and live comfortably.

In order for many to obtain this now, one, you will probably be getting paid $24/hr at a steel mill today--which by today's standards is fantastic but you would need a 30 year mortgage, and your wife will have to be working or chances are someone is going to have to have a college degree in the first place in order to offset the cost of ****.
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That's true, but don't be too disheartened. It is just because we're still clawing our way out of the Bush recession. Unfortunately, those fresh out of college are usually the last to feel the recovery because companies start by hiring the most experienced of the people they laid off and working their way down the list. IMO we need to do everything we can to help recent graduates through this, but no matter what happens, it won't last forever.
 
teamosil said:
That's true, but don't be too disheartened. It is just because we're still clawing our way out of the Bush recession. Unfortunately, those fresh out of college are usually the last to feel the recovery because companies start by hiring the most experienced of the people they laid off and working their way down the list. IMO we need to do everything we can to help recent graduates through this, but no matter what happens, it won't last forever.
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How many Presidents get to fail before you hyper-partisans stop blaming everything on Bush?
 
UtahBill said:
Does anyone here really think either candidate can fix this without more govt spending, therefore more debt?
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I don't think either candidate can fix this even with more government spending.
 
mac said:
How many Presidents get to fail before you hyper-partisans stop blaming everything on Bush?
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Well obviously Bush will always be accountable for the things he did. There isn't like some statute of limitations on that where somehow after x years we start blaming somebody else for stuff Bush did...

But the obvious and overwhelming failure of the Bush administration is especially relevant right now when you have a presidential candidate explicitly running on the platform of doing more like Bush did.
 
teamosil said:
Well obviously Bush will always be accountable for the things he did. There isn't like some statute of limitations on that where somehow after x years we start blaming somebody else for stuff Bush did...

But the obvious and overwhelming failure of the Bush administration is especially relevant right now when you have a presidential candidate explicitly running on the platform of doing more like Bush did.
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I must have been sleeping. When did Romney advocate more of the Bush policies. Can't wait for this.
 
washunut said:
I must have been sleeping. When did Romney advocate more of the Bush policies. Can't wait for this.
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Well, there is nothing Romney is proposing economically that differs from anything Bush did. Continue the Bush tax cuts and further lower taxes on the rich and de-regulation. Nobody has been able to come up with a meaningful distinction between the two.

Romney’s economic plan is short on specifics - The Washington Post
The Romney-Bush mind meld - Mitt Romney - Salon.com

But here is an RNC spokesperson flat out admitting it- RNC Spokesperson Confirms: Romney Economic Policies Are "Bush Plan Just Updated" - YouTube
 
teamosil said:
Well obviously Bush will always be accountable for the things he did. There isn't like some statute of limitations on that where somehow after x years we start blaming somebody else for stuff Bush did...

But the obvious and overwhelming failure of the Bush administration is especially relevant right now when you have a presidential candidate explicitly running on the platform of doing more like Bush did.
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And what is it you think Bush did?
 
mac said:
And what is it you think Bush did?
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Well caused the recession obviously. He strangled middle class incomes in order to free up money for the tax cuts for the rich. That prevented our consumer spending from climbing nearly as fast as the surging investment capital that all the tax giveaways to the rich created. The P/E ratio exploded, the bubble burst, and here we are.
 
Yeah I really don't think it is exclusively a presidents fault. This was going on years before Bush just wasn't as pronounced.
 
teamosil said:
Well, there is nothing Romney is proposing economically that differs from anything Bush did. Continue the Bush tax cuts and further lower taxes on the rich and de-regulation. Nobody has been able to come up with a meaningful distinction between the two.

Romney’s economic plan is short on specifics - The Washington Post
The Romney-Bush mind meld - Mitt Romney - Salon.com

But here is an RNC spokesperson flat out admitting it- RNC Spokesperson Confirms: Romney Economic Policies Are "Bush Plan Just Updated" - YouTube
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Didn't Obama extend the Bush tax cuts?

Hasn't Obama signed in less regulatory acts than Bush?

Didn't Obama give out a Bailout like Bush?

Smells the same to me.
 
Blue_State said:
Didn't Obama extend the Bush tax cuts?

Hasn't Obama signed in less regulatory acts than Bush?

Didn't Obama give out a Bailout like Bush?

Smells the same to me.
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Oh, no, no, he is totally different. He's a Democrat, after all, and Bush is a Republican. They're not even the same species, and may not even be the same genus.

Never mind that their politics are so close as to border on identical.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Oh, no, no, he is totally different. He's a Democrat, after all, and Bush is a Republican. They're not even the same species, and may not even be the same genus.

Never mind that their politics are so close as to border on identical.
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DEMS and REPUBS are too often mirror images of the same anal opening...
 
lpast said:
Ok...I bow to your knowledge, I have no current knowledge of cost...I do know my uncle had a masters from columbia and telling me he couldnt afford harvard....but that was many many years ago..
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If America were not trapped by the Big Lie about college, we would think of this being as stupid as someone claiming he could have played football at a major college, but had to settle for a Class II college because it was the only one he could afford. Even more relevant to all you indentured servants who talk about free education instead of paid education, how many blue-chip recruits would go to college if all they got was free tuition but still had to live miserably on part-time jobs? We still won't get anywhere near our potential by merely free education. After all, prison is free too. Unless they are from the upper classes, which are behind the Big Lie, most college students live no better than do the homeless.

The Bible story about the patriarch who had to work as a slave for 7 years before marrying his owner's daughter and then being tricked into marrying her ugly sister should have warned us that college only prepares for the workoholic squeezed-out-free-time rat race, in which you have to become a rat in order to win.
 
PrometheusBound said:
If America were not trapped by the Big Lie about college, we would think of this being as stupid as someone claiming he could have played football at a major college, but had to settle for a Class II college because it was the only one he could afford. Even more relevant to all you indentured servants who talk about free education instead of paid education, how many blue-chip recruits would go to college if all they got was free tuition but still had to live miserably on part-time jobs? We still won't get anywhere near our potential by merely free education. After all, prison is free too. Unless they are from the upper classes, which are behind the Big Lie, most college students live no better than do the homeless.

The Bible story about the patriarch who had to work as a slave for 7 years before marrying his owner's daughter and then being tricked into marrying her ugly sister should have warned us that college only prepares for the workoholic squeezed-out-free-time rat race, in which you have to become a rat in order to win.
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Did you go to college?
 
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