Free education

Gaius46 said:

A number of kids I know, my children included, opted to get their non-major course work done at inexpensive community colleges and then transfer to "good" schools for their final 1.5 or 2 years. It helps that in NY transferring from a community college to a school in the state university system - which is quite good - is a nobrainer and students already in the system get preference over kids who aren't.

Click to expand...

The approach your kids used in a sage and thrifty one. One can even build on it by taking AP classes in high school and scoring 4 or 5 on the AP exam so as to obtain college credit for the work. Doing so can open up a world of options and it's cheaper even than the community college option.

I'm Supposn said:

Free education:

If a USA student continuously demonstrates their ability to fully benefit from an education to prepare them for their chosen profession, requiring they financial sacrifice to pay for that education is contra-productive to our nation's economic and social well-being. Scholarships based on merit should be awarded to all those that earn them, regardless of their personal wealth. Our nation requires the sacrifices and then complains of a medical providers' prices. That's unreasonable.


No student that has acquired their “ticket” to exercise their chosen (and nationally needed) professional knowledge and/or technical craftsmanship should be in financial debt due to direct and indirect costs of that education and training They leave school with a mountain of debt, and then we unreasonably complain they're too greedy and materialistic?


Respectfully, Supposn

Click to expand...

Education isn't free it cost something somewhere. That being said I think our education system needs some work.

First I think we should focus on Primary School and make sure that were teaching things people need to know not just the things we've always taught because it's tradition and don't get me wrong that has a place but there's nothing taught in schools about personal finance.

I digress This Thread is about secondary education. One thing I find it interesting is how many industry based scholarships go unclaimed I'm going into welding just about to finish my secondary education for that field. And I have enough money to outright pay for books and classes without really worrying about needing a loan but I got scholarships from the industries that I'm trying to get into.

I think part of the thing missing in k through 12 is realizing School is for education 4 your profession it's not a place to go and find yourself or spend time between High School and a professional life.

I would say if you want to do that take a loan out and go travel the world or whatever it's cheaper.

One thing I'm starting to see in the neighborhood I grew up in is industry oriented high schools there's one that has a bistro in it. And you can go there and have a meal. Of course you have to sign a scary little waiver but they're actually working in the field they're going to pursue.

I don't think it should necessarily be free because again there's no such thing as free teachers won't work for free construction companies won't builds buildings for free and nobody will dispose of the trash for free so free is not possible.

That being said there are ways to lower costs. And there are probably hundreds I can think of and there are probably thousands more I can't and we can discuss that if you wish but I think I've said enough here.

Mycroft said:

Who do you suggest pay the costs?

Click to expand...

Well it costs too much. And student loans are different than other loans.

The more money that were willing to give schools the more likely they're going to use it all up to ask for a bigger amount next year.

If you want actual social mobility in society, you need to have as few barriers to higher education as possible. The main barrier in the US and other places is cost or the idea of cost. Yes there are scholarships as so many Americans state over and over again, but they are few and far in between and actually require considerable luck and work to get... that is a barrier. The red tape is a barrier. Race is often a barrier (but that is another discussion) and so on.

In countries where education is "free" or near free, the only barrier is skill. My own country has "free" higher education and that means anyone with the correct grades can become whatever you want. That also means that the social mobility is much higher and easier. You can literally live the American dream in Denmark and most people actually do.

Americans when I grew up, always told me that in American you can be anything you want... that was not true then nor is it now. The amount of luck and work that is needed for a poor black kid from inner Chicago or Harlem to become a top CEO or doctor is mindboggling. He can be the brightest kid around, and yet the system is built to discourage him at every level. Poor schools, lack of money, and so on and so on.

Now in my country, a kid of any race or religion or economic situation.... mother a drugie, father dead.. or whatever sad life story you want. If that kid gets the grades needed to get into med school or whatever he wants, then he will get in. So this poor kid will in the end come out as a doctor earning more money than anyone in his family ever dreamed off. In the US, it aint that easy to say the least.

Of course there are drawbacks with free education.. people drop out often, the cost can be high relative to non free and so on. But the over all benefits of a far more social mobile country.. in my opinion, supersedes any real negative stuff. If you ask any Dane (but the rabid far right conservatives), then they would never give up the education system in Denmark as they have lived the huge changes that have come in Denmark since the war on social mobility... and that comes down to education and access.

WE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY WELL EDUCATING OUR YOUNG

I'm Supposn said:

If a USA student continuously demonstrates their ability to fully benefit from an education to prepare them for their chosen profession, requiring they financial sacrifice to pay for that education is contra-productive to our nation's economic and social well-being.

Click to expand...

I would be pleased to state that more European students graduate into better-paying jobs than do American students. But, that economic fact cannot be proven with clarity. Why?

Because both the US and EU have suffered through at least 6/8 years of a Great Recession, which is not the most agreeable period in which to be measuring economic performance. So, we must take on its own credit the notion that better education leads to better paying jobs. (That is a proven statistical verity.)

The OECD is nonetheless a good measure, due to the comparative similarity of economies, with which to portray educational attainment. That is shown here: Population with tertiary education

Moreover, what is very interesting about that infographic is not only that it shows the US at the high-end (which is goodness), but also the distinction between different ages of the same population (25/34 and 55/64 year-olds) is amongst the most reduced of the entire selection of countries shown.

More than likely, that achievement is due to the fact that we won WW2 and without devastation meaning our people not only got right back to work but right back to school (ex-soldiers aided by government subsidies). However accomplished, the overall rate of 42 to 48% is the total number of Americans who have completed a Tertiary-level Education.

Which is really nice, but not nearly good-enough. We must get cracking on that other half of the pie who do not achieve a post-secondary education. And we are NOWHERE NEAR DOING SO.

We as a nation stoopidly slapped down Hillary who was the the only presidential candidate proposing that the national government subsidize tertiary-educational schooling. Which prompts this question: What do we do about the OTHER HALF of high-school graduates who do not enter advanced schooling?

They all are going to find jobs a food-outlets - like flipping hamburgers for BigMacs? Btw, that's a good example. See the average non-management staff wage at Macdonald's in the US here.

That income-level is below the Poverty Threshold wage for a family of four (at $25K a year or $12 an hour)!

And another factoid that you might want to think about: That 60% of inmates who do not have any secondary-education whatsoever in a typical state jail!

Is THAT the kind of America you want? Because it's the kind you're getting ... !

Xelor said:

As an undergrad, it doesn't much matter where one goes so long as one goes to a decent-enough school (in the U.S., damn near all colleges are) because it's not as though the body of information taught to an undergrad differs by where one goes to college, and strong critical thinking skills are what one is supposed to have developed prior to matriculating, thus that isn't what one is there to learn (if it were, everyone'd be required to take philosophy)

Click to expand...

Well put. It doesn't matter where one gets an education - whether vocational or associate-level, or bachelors, or masters or doctorate. (Unless its Hah-vahd and you think another Hah-vahd graduate will somehow favor your career.)

"Success" is measured not only in terms of monetary success, but that is the one Americans take most seriously. It is also measured in terms of intellectual capacity that furthers knowledge or science.

Moreover, I doubt seriously that supposedly "smart people" with degrees are any for fortunate in business-success than "clever people" without said degrees. Cleverness in business consists of seeing a need (for commerce/industry) and fulfilling it. Of course, that's the easy part - but most people don't even get that far even though the process is intuitive and not necessarily educative. (I teach MBA courses and find that the "basic knowledge" is very rudimentary in nature.)

Many simply don't see "the need" that creates "Demand" because that takes "insight" - of which we are not all gifted ...

HowardBThiname said:

Most scholarships ARE based on merit, and Pell grants are given out to the poorest students. Financial aid, in the form of student loans is available to all.



The problem with this is that if the student (or parents) do not assume the responsibility for the costs, the taxpayers must assume those responsibilities, and many students who do not go to college end up working jobs where their taxes go to pay for those who wen to college. In reality, the one who benefits directly from the education should be the one to foot the bill.

Click to expand...

College graduates on average make more than non-college grads. Thus over a lifetime they may pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more in taxes.

So in an indirect way, college students do pay for their own education, even if the education was directly paid for by the government.

Mycroft said:

Who do you suggest pay the costs?

Click to expand...

Nobody pays. It's free.

That's the problem with free stuff. It isn't. Somebody pays
.

More important than who pays is that University is so high in cost and as well so low in quality.

Maybe we fix those two things first.

ecofarm said:

They got Youtube. And blogs. They believe university education is brainwashing and they were smart to miss it. Ask 'em, they're satisfied.

Click to expand...

Blah, blah, blah fit for third-grade class.

Try harder but first get informed here: College Affordability and Completion: Ensuring a Pathway to Opportunity

College has never been more expensive.

Even as a college degree or other postsecondary credential or certificate has never been more important, it has also never been more expensive. Over the past three decades, tuition at public four-year colleges has more than doubled, even after adjusting for inflation.

Between 1992 and 2012, the average amount owed by a typical student loan borrower who graduated with a bachelor's degree more than doubled to a total of nearly $27,000.

Even after historic investments by the Obama Administration, the maximum Pell Grant covers only about 30 percent of the cost of a four-year public college education—the lowest proportion in history and less than half of what it covered in 1980. Despite that fact, Congressional Republicans have proposed to cut the real purchasing power of Pell Grants even further.

Click to expand...

Get it? Why are we WASTING* close to 50% of the National Discretionary Budget on the DoD when there is no major threat abroad? So, let's decrease that amount substantially and shift it to Free Postsecondary Education is what Americans need most in this new Information Age of ours!

It will put our people to work in real-jobs at a decent pay scale. Instead of hunting smart-heads abroad (who obtained their degrees free, gratis and for nothing in their home countries); and we are and putting them to work at plush salary levels. Because businesses cannot find enough of such talent at home! And why? Because it is too effing expensive!

Where there's the will, there's a way ...

*On behalf of a business cartel that has been groveling after lucrative Defense contracts since time immemorial. See here from The Military Factory.

Lafayette said:

Blah, blah, blah fit for third-grade class.

Try harder but first get informed here: College Affordability and Completion: Ensuring a Pathway to Opportunity



Get it? We are WASTING close to 50% of the National Discretionary Budget on the DoD? Decrease that amount substantially and shift it to Free Postsecondary Education is what America needs in this new Information Age of ours!

Where there's the will, there's a way ...

Click to expand...

I support tuition free college (a rare exception to my fiscal conservatism). But I do not support conspiracy blog educations (to which I referred).

I got mine. An MSc in International Environmental Science (guess what that includes) and PhD candidate Interdisciplinary Ecology (low input ag development). Most of it via GI Bill.

SELF-ACTUALIZATION

Lafayette said:

Where there's the will, there's a way ...

Click to expand...

And that "will" was called Self-Actualization by psychologist AH Maslow who proposed his Five Level Hierarchy of Needs (in 1943!)

Excerpt:

Self-Actualization Needs

At the very peak of Maslow’s hierarchy are the self-actualization needs. "What a man can be, he must be," Maslow explained, referring to the need people have to achieve their full potential as human beings.

According to Maslow’s definition of self-actualization:

"It may be loosely described as the full use and exploitation of talents, capabilities, potentialities, etc. Such people seem to be fulfilling themselves and to be doing the best that they are capable of doing... They are people who have developed or are developing to the full stature of which they [are] capable."

Click to expand...

It is that inbred desire for self-actualization that drives us all. Like it or not ...

ecofarm said:

I got mine. An MSc in International Environmental Science (guess what that includes) and PhD candidate Interdisciplinary Ecology (low input ag development). Most of it via GI Bill.

Click to expand...

Good for you.

Why should anybody have to risk their life in the DoD to have what you got? Why, pray tell? It's absurd.

In the EU, any post-secondary education is free, gratis and for nothing. All you need do is show-up. (Having paid a yearly tuition-fee of less than 900€ in all of the EU.)

Lafayette said:

Good for you.

Why should anybody have to risk their life in the DoD to have what you got? Why, pray tell? It's absurd.

In the EU, any post-secondary education is free, gratis and for nothing. All you need do is show-up. (Having paid a yearly tuition-fee of less than 900€ in all of the EU.)

Click to expand...

I served because I believe in global liberation and the ending of genocide. I've no problem giving my life for either.

I know, I did my Masters in Sweden. Had to be accepted into the program, very few of many were. Not just show up.

I think you misunderstood my first post herein, presumably because I wasn't clear or I was referring to something we both witnessed prior probably in the Climate subforum.

ecofarm said:

I served because I believe in global liberation and the ending of genocide. I've no problem giving my life for either.

I know, I did my Masters in Sweden. Had to be accepted into the program, very few of many were. Not just show up.

I think you misunderstood my first post herein, presumably because I wasn't clear or I was referring to something we both witnessed prior probably in the Climate subforum.

Click to expand...

Yes that may be what happened. In dialogs on this forum subjects drift.

Which is why it is ALWAYS a good idea, in exchanging with someone, to do so with a header quoting what they said previously. First and foremost, that is the only way the person to whom you are responding is informed. Otherwise, they are not informed.

Moreover, one subject can easily lead to another - in real debate with rules it is called "meandering" and a debate-judge usually calls for it to stop in order for the subject to stay "on-line". But in real debate, there are one helluva lot less "debating" a subject than when on-line.

Each form of debate has its advantages and drawbacks ...

Lafayette said:

Yes that may be what happened. In dialogs on this forum subjects drift.

Which is why it is ALWAYS a good idea, in exchanging with someone, to do so with a header quoting what they said previously. First and foremost, that is the only way the person to whom you are responding is informed. Otherwise, they are not informed.

Moreover, one subject can easily lead to another - in real debate with rules it is called "meandering" and a debate-judge usually calls for it to stop in order for the subject to stay "on-line". But in real debate, there are one helluva lot less "debating" a subject than when on-line.

Each form of debate has its advantages and drawbacks ...

Click to expand...

I think I was referencing a prior debate we were both aware of at the time but have since forgotten. It was five months ago.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

University doesn't have to be 100% free but put it this way:
In 1982 my last year of in-state tuition at UCLA was less then 1800 bucks, COUCH CHANGE.
I was working part time and I was able to afford it.

Click to expand...

That is EQUIVALENT TO ABOUT $4700 today...about what my grandkids pay at Utah State for 1 semester. Wife and I give them $20K for High School graduation, that will pay for 2 years if living at home. It is up to them and their parents after that.

Lafayette said:

Good for you.

Why should anybody have to risk their life in the DoD to have what you got? Why, pray tell? It's absurd.

In the EU, any post-secondary education is free, gratis and for nothing. All you need do is show-up. (Having paid a yearly tuition-fee of less than 900€ in all of the EU.)

Click to expand...

A military start in life works for many, and if you are smart enough for college then you are smart enough to qualify for technical training that will minimize your exposure to enemy fire. That may sound a bit harsh, but it is reality.

Mycroft said:

Who do you suggest pay the costs?

Click to expand...

Future generations, of course, as is the case with 2/3 of all current federal 'discretionary' spending.

It would be nice if AP classes were offered in more schools. My Utah grandkids can graduate HS with a year of college included. And, my biggest gripe is that we don't hammer it into our kids to start planning their lives starting at age 14. There are so many trades that pay as well as college. My dentist tells my that his brother makes more than him as a plumber who owns his owns business.

UtahBill said:

It would be nice if AP classes were offered in more schools. My Utah grandkids can graduate HS with a year of college included. And, my biggest gripe is that we don't hammer it into our kids to start planning their lives starting at age 14. There are so many trades that pay as well as college. My dentist tells my that his brother makes more than him as a plumber who owns his owns business.

Click to expand...

In Europe (well, at least Sweden where I lived) kids make a big decision at 16 - trade school or more academics. I guess if someone is unsure, they stick with academics for the time being.

ataraxia said:

The whole rest of the developed world is doing it. There are many ways. Why is it that it's such a profound mystery only to us?

A well educated public is a public good, not just an individual one.

Click to expand...

I agree with this 100% and it’s why I support subsidized education for those who can’t afford it.

UtahBill said:

That is EQUIVALENT TO ABOUT $4700 today...about what my grandkids pay at Utah State for 1 semester. Wife and I give them $20K for High School graduation, that will pay for 2 years if living at home. It is up to them and their parents after that.

Click to expand...

It was about 1800 bucks for an entire year.
But okayfinewhatever, twenty large is big chunk of change for a lot of people in families making 25 large a year.
What I was getting at is, if your family's income or YOUR own individual income is less than 60-75 thousand a year*, in state tuition shouldn't be an issue at all for state residents who have the grades and the demonstrated ability to benefit.

(*Depending on what state you're in)

Checkerboard Strangler said:

But okayfinewhatever, twenty large is big chunk of change for a lot of people in families making 25 large a year.

Click to expand...

Who are today's truly poor? That is, studies have shown who lives below the Poverty Threshold (which depends upon size of family, but for a family of four its around $25K of income per year).

Nonetheless, all groupings together, it looks like this:


Post Scriptum:
*There's a mistake in the above info-graphic. The notice "Under age 18" should below the line of which it is above. That is, it relates to the second group (from the bottom up) which otherwise has no title.
*The almost 20% that one sees on the third line must apply to the "65 and older" group.
*Note also the author of the graphic is the Census Bureau.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

It was about 1800 bucks for an entire year.
But okayfinewhatever, twenty large is big chunk of change for a lot of people in families making 25 large a year.
What I was getting at is, if your family's income or YOUR own individual income is less than 60-75 thousand a year*, in state tuition shouldn't be an issue at all for state residents who have the grades and the demonstrated ability to benefit.

(*Depending on what state you're in)

Click to expand...

Used to be, in AZ, the top 10% High School grads got a free ride for 2 years. Both our kids qualified.