Could Free College work in America?

[RCIAGraduate]

Do you think the idea of a free and available provision of a university education would work in the United States?

Here’s several takes I have on it.

On one hand, getting an education seems like a critical asset to attain especially for those who come from lower-income families. A college degree can open up tons of opportunities for individuals (as well as networks and connections and helpful services like career counseling and assessments). I remember my predominantly low-income working class middle and high schools basically promoting “College for Everyone” (I’m oversimplifying but I want to make a point) in order to open doors for their students. Furthermore, I believe I read somewhere (pardon for not having a link) that Europe has higher social mobility and is thus easier to reach the “American Dream” there due to reasons such as their commitment to public education.

On the flip side, education is something to be earned, not an entitlement. Sometimes, the journey to getting a university degree is often more critical than a degree itself, working those part-time jobs to help pay for tuition and books might not seem glamorous at first, but it might help build character (i.e hard work and determination), it develops a work history needed for future careers and employment, possible references and connections for the future.

And if college is made free, isn’t it kinda a slap to the face to those who really labored and worked hard for their education, especially if a flood of individuals come in and flood the market for a college degree and water down its down. That’s another issue, if college is made free, wouldn’t it make it easier for students to be less prudent with their decisions like not studying as hard or not picking a practical major (for example, personally I’m more at ease because I don’t need to take loans yet, but if I did take on significant loans, I might be more serious). With that said, Europe doesn’t seem to be having the problem of a flood of students coming in and deflating the value of a college education. On the other hand, we could end up with South Korea’s problem.

As a result, South Korea faces skilled labour shortages in some fields and hidden unemployment in others, according to 2012 employment trend research, conducted by Statistics Korea. The research also reveals that college graduates’ earnings are lower than those of high-school graduates. Yet, South Korean parents continue to encourage their children to enter colleges and universities. They have even disregarded the fact that the unemployment rate for college graduates is higher than that of high-school graduates.

Then, there’s the issue with accommodating the poor and disadvantaged, if you try to make something universal like health care and education, you need to try to serve everyone such as the middle class and in doing so, the poor and disadvantaged may the ones left behind in trying to help everyone.

Wouldn’t a more practical, prudent and compassionate decision be to reach them where they are, by for instance, opening education programs like T.R.I.O(i.e. Upward Bound) that try to get young people to college through supportive services such as academic counseling and tutoring as well starting foundations and organizations that give out academic,merit and need-based scholarships to those students, in areas such as the Indian Reservations, Salinas, Camden, the Appalachians, Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago.

There’s an initiative within my local community that’s encouraging students to get a college education, by providing guaranteed admission to a regional state university by meeting academic benchmarks such as fulfilling the state standards for college preparation. It seems to be working, more and more students are attending the school.
For me, it was an educational safety net since the other two private universities I preferred and applied to with too expense for me (or I didn’t have it in me to borrow). With that said, it seems to have worked out for me, the route’s more convenient, I made friends (better than High and Middle School) and there are supportive services to help me get through (i.e I have an mentor through a pilot program to support Sophomores). In the end, a college education is what you make of it.

I know there are alternatives out there(i.e vocational education can’t be forgotten and needs to be revitalized) but people don’t deserve to be shut and locked out from opportunity. Isn’t it best to the common good to encourage all to reach their highest potential? By the way, if you made it through, thanks for reading, I know it’s an exuberant post.

What do you think?

Have a wonderful September.

 

[Jelrak_TB]

Given that not all occupations require a college education, it is not certain that this could ever be made equitable. For given that those who might not require same might yet be called to sustain the high cost through taxes so that their peers might arrive at carriers far more lucrative than they themselves may have achieved, it would appear highly unfair from a given perspective…

Perhaps one means of solving such a dilemma is to merely tax those whose professions might best benefit from the education…for in taxing doctors so as to cover the costs of medical school for new graduates some level of equity might be attained…except, naturally, for those who have both already paid their way and yet must now pay a tax to assist those coming up from behind…

 

[utah_rose]

Given that not all occupations require a college education, it is not certain that this could ever be made equitable. For given that those who might not require same might yet be called to sustain the high cost through taxes so that their peers might arrive at carriers far more lucrative than they themselves may have achieved, it would appear highly unfair from a given perspective…

Perhaps one means of solving such a dilemma is to merely tax those whose professions might best benefit from the education…for in taxing doctors so as to cover the costs of medical school for new graduates some level of equity might be attained…except, naturally, for those who have both already paid their way and yet must now pay a tax to assist those coming up from behind…

I think it’s a real problem presuming everyone needs a college education. Some would benefit from community college courses and appreticeship in plumbing, electronics, even some courses in computing. Unless cars radically change within the next year car mechanics will always be in demand, and so will some health professionals such as nursing which can begun at a community college.

Also, would the state be paying for everything such as the professors salaries or just tuition? I doubt that people would like their taxes raised even higher for this purpose.

 

[JerryZ]

Just what we need. Fixing the ONLY educational institution that works in this country.

Just ask out there where do people go to get the best College education in the world?

Europe? Asia? Africa? South America?

Nope it is the USA. People flock to this country from everywhere to get the best education specially on the technical fields.
I so hope the politicians don’t screw that one too.

…

 

[Tomdstone]

People flock to this country from everywhere to get the best education specially on the technical fields…

When was the last time you looked at the education program in foreign countries? I believe that the education in higher mathematics is better in Russia overall, than in the USA and it is free for the top 50% of students.

 

[Kal2012]

College prices are artificially high because universities count on the Federal government to back student loans, regardless if the loans make financial sense or not. So there’s that piece.

Then, they spend a ton of money making sure that they have the “latest and greatest” in dorms, food, athletic facilities, libraries, student unions, etc.

When I went back for my 15th college reunion, I realized why tuition was $47K/year. (And I thought the $20K/year was expensive.) It wasn’t for the professors, but to pay off the loans for the amazing facilities they built in the years after I left.

The point is that a lot of college isn’t just the learning, but the learning environment.

I’m not convinced that “free college” could work because we’re Americans and Americans typically think that if you pay more, then you’ll get “better”.

A lot of Americans are more status-conscious than community conscious.

I’m not sure how you change that mindset at the university level because there will always be people who can pay tuition out of pocket and will demand “better.”

Also, are you assuming that your professors are going to be tenured and have a decent wage or are you assuming that the professors are going to be adjuncts - w/zero job security and minimally paid? That will raise your costs a lot, especially if you decide to go with professors that actually expect benefits like health care and life insurance and disability and make enough to actually purchase a decent apartment/house. Also, as someone else brought up - who’s going to pay the bill?

I think that College of the Ozarks has the closest model to ‘free college’ that America’s going to get.

Germany and other places can afford “free college” because their taxes are a lot higher and they don’t have the same global responsibilities as “superpower” America.

Americans, in this day and age, simply don’t trust government to do what they say they are going to do. A lot of us aren’t interested in giving these clowns more of our money at either the state, federal or local level, unless there’s a valid reason and tangible benefit.

If you significantly changed our culture, then yeah, maybe, it could work. (Always got to leave people with a little hope) However, you’d have to convince people to like higher taxes and tell people that America can’t be #1 anymore in the world militarily. That isn’t going to go down with a lot of the elites that you’d have to get on board to make this work. They live for war, not peace. Americans just don’t run with the crowd. We are highly individualistic and our government was designed to support individuals, not huge bloated bureaucracies.

 

[Allegra]

I think it could if we developed a wide enough variety of higher education programs and made admission to each contingent on the individual’s abilities and merits as a student. We need more vocational training for those who aren’t able to be successful as a university student. I do believe that most people can be successful at something. I also don’t think that students who have worked their rear ends off to earn their chance at a college education should have to put up with their educational environment being disrupted by the frat boy culture and “students” on full scholarships whose only skill is the ability to run and hold a football at the same time. But that’s just me.

 

[RCIAGraduate]

Just what we need. Fixing the ONLY educational institution that works in this country.

Just ask out there where do people go to get the best College education in the world?

Europe? Asia? Africa? South America?

Nope it is the USA. People flock to this country from everywhere to get the best education specially on the technical fields.
I so hope the politicians don’t screw that one too.

Not fix, but open. I know this sounds melodramatic but what about reaching the kids in Chicago, Detroit? Or the student from a working class family that can’t make enough to pay tuition but is just above the eligibility limit for Financial Aid?

Your skepticism on government is valid though. I bet a lot of people supporting the Great Society thought they were going to make utopia. Also government social projects seem to be to an extent mediocre if not poor compared the capabilities and achievements of charities (the historical legacy of Catholic Schools in comparison to your regular old public school) but currently the human arm of private charity only seems goes so far. Perhaps with prudence, one day we could master subsidiarity, but I digress…

A lot of Americans are more status-conscious than community conscious.

If only that was inverted, then more and more people would find happiness and fulfillment in their lives serving others and giving back.

I also don’t think that students who have worked their rear ends off to earn their chance at a college education should have to put up with their educational environment being disrupted by the frat boy culture and “students” on full scholarships whose only skill is the ability to run and hold a football at the same time

You and me both. I remember in my Calc Class, when the instructor asked if people were leaving early for Spring Break, hands appeared to shot up and that got me thinking that the reasons others think of my college as a party school were self-inflicted. With that said, Fraternities can be very professional (great avenues for networking) and to give the Footballers the benefit of the doubt, they had to make the grade to stay in school.

 

[PolarGuy]

Great comment, JerryZ, for noting how people flock to the USA for higher education. True!

 

[PolarGuy]

Now, to the original question: No, it wouldn’t work, because there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Making college education free makes a college degree just another entitlement to be paid for by the overburdened US taxpayers.

 

[Allegra]

With that said, Fraternities can be very professional (great avenues for networking) and to give the Footballers the benefit of the doubt, they had to make the grade to stay in school.

No they don’t. I attended a university with what was considered a fairly poor athletic department. Even so, I got to suffer through a year of having a roommate who was there on a full scholarship so she could run on the track team. Never mind that she was functionally illiterate. Never mind that she had failed so many classes in high school that had she attended high school in the state where my university was located, she would not have been allowed to graduate at all. Never mind even that she was disqualified from actual competition because she could not manage to get above a 12 on the ACT, despite the university paying for her to take it five times. Never mind that I was working my butt off at two different jobs to pay for my education while she got to stay there for free. I would have been fine minding my own business. What I couldn’t ignore was her insistence that she had to have her various boyfriends over at all hours of the night, sleeping in the bunk over my head, her desire to stay up listening to loud music at all hours of the night, (why not? she didn’t have to work) and the fact that she kept trading/selling my belongings to pay for who-knows-what. Despite the fact that this person was unable to pass more than one remedial class a semester, she was allowed to stay for FOUR semesters before they finally put her out.

 

[Allegra]

Now, to the original question: No, it wouldn’t work, because there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Making college education free makes a college degree just another entitlement to be paid for by the overburdened US taxpayers.

It shouldn’t be a free lunch. The students should pay for it with their school work. Their job should be to learn to do something useful for society. If they can’t or won’t make the grade, they’re out of that program. The US taxpayers have a financial interest in APPROPRIATELY educating their youth and making them fit for a job that pays a living wage so they don’t end up supporting them and generations of their offspring until the Lord comes back. The taxpayers also have an interest in a qualified workforce. And society as well as the students have an interest in first class instruction that isn’t influenced by the parents’ pocketbook and a grading system that isn’t inflated in order to pass along the brain-dead brats of the rich.

 

[Adonia]

No. There is nothing “free” concerning collage. The teachers and professors need to be paid as does everything else that goes along with running an educational institution. From the janitor to the electric bills this all costs money. And the idea of some young person signing up and going for a women’s studies degree, or some other nonsense like that and getting a free ride is repulsive. Such a thing would be a poor investment for sure.

 

[1ke]

Could Free College work in America?

Free college doesn’t work anywhere. Because there is no such thing as free college.

**Someone **pays for the cost of the schooling. It may not be the student. But, if not then it is the government and by extension those who pay taxes. The system works well when the ratio of taxpayers to college-goers is high to low.

But, in states with declining populations and increasing social program burdens on a smaller tax base, it does not work. Which is why the European countries who have historically had such “free” college education are now implementing fees and tuition.

Additionally, in most places with “free” education, the schools are nationalized meaning that they are run by the government (i.e. at the country level equivalent to our Federal government). US public universities are funded and run at the individual state level. We are a Republic (theoretically), meaning such responsibilities lie with the individual states, not the Federal government. The Federal government could not make the states participate in such a nationalization scheme, although they could certainly incent them through various tax schemes.

So, “could” it work? Well, the devil is in all those details.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Just what we need. Fixing the ONLY educational institution that works in this country.

Just ask out there where do people go to get the best College education in the world?

Europe? Asia? Africa? South America?

Nope it is the USA. People flock to this country from everywhere to get the best education specially on the technical fields.
I so hope the politicians don’t screw that one too.

…

I agree that free college education would not work, but I was educated, in part, in Zuerich and Paris, and that education was exemplary. Still, I prefer the small Catholic college in the US where I earned my theology degrees.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

No. There is nothing “free” concerning collage. The teachers and professors need to be paid as does everything else that goes along with running an educational institution. From the janitor to the electric bills this all costs money. And the idea of some young person signing up and going for a women’s studies degree, or some other nonsense like that and getting a free ride is repulsive. Such a thing would be a poor investment for sure.

Absolutely agree 100%.

 

[meltzerboy]

No. There is nothing “free” concerning collage. The teachers and professors need to be paid as does everything else that goes along with running an educational institution. From the janitor to the electric bills this all costs money. And the idea of some young person signing up and going for a women’s studies degree, or some other nonsense like that and getting a free ride is repulsive. Such a thing would be a poor investment for sure.

People seem to forget that the faculty and staff, not to mention the administrators, need to be paid. Education is not charity work, friends. Teachers and others must also earn a living. Even public colleges, such as the community colleges and senior colleges within The City University of New York (CUNY), cannot be totally free. Like it or not, money is the bottom line in education as it is in business. That’s why 50-70% of the professors nationwide are part-time faculty (adjuncts) since they are treated by administrators as cheap labor compared to full-time faculty. This latter fact is a scandal within the university system.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

People seem to forget that the faculty and staff, not to mention the administrators, need to be paid. Education is not charity work, friends. Teachers and others must also earn a living. Even public colleges, such as the community colleges and senior colleges within The City University of New York (CUNY), cannot be totally free. Like it or not, money is the bottom line in education as it is in business. That’s why 50-70% of the professors nationwide are part-time faculty (adjuncts) since they are treated by administrators as cheap labor compared to full-time faculty. This latter fact is a scandal within the university system.

I’m a college professor, and I was going to mention that I would not work for nothing. Some of these kids write papers so bad it takes me days to decipher and leave them helpful comments they probably ignore. I EARN my paycheck and would NOT give it up.

Thanks for mentioning that we need paid! And, we have employer-sponsored (in part) health insurance.

 

[Rohzek]

Do you think the idea of a free and available provision of a university education would work in the United States?

What do you think?

Have a wonderful September.

Either it should be free or mostly free. Many state and public universities are only public in name only now. They get about 20% of their funding from the state government. Everything else comes through grants and tuition hikes. In short, the entirety of the US higher education system can no longer be said to be truly public.

Of course, as someone mentioned, nothing is truly free. But that’s not the point. The point is to make it to where all those who are capable of earning a degree are able to do so regardless of financial hardship. If they are smart enough, then they have earned the privilege of a higher education. Giving them student loans that they can’t even file bankruptcy for a decade later if things go down the drain is not a good system. A lot of people don’t realize this, but student loans have a lot of special conditions attached to them to where you can have your wages garnished etc. You cannot file bankruptcy at all unless you are in some extreme circumstances and the judge agrees. It’s not like credit card debt. The usual reaction to this risk is: “Oh then get a useful degree so you have a guaranteed job, and stop whining.” Well, okay, my generation would be happy to oblige if the economy, which our elders ruined, wasn’t so uncertain. I know people with MA’s in STEM that couldn’t even find a job. They had to join the military for a measly pay. Do you think they can pay off their student loan debts any time soon? Probably not. People like that usually have to refinance for 30 years, something you only hear about for buying a house. It’s ridiculous.

It’s about time we stop treating education as a commodity. It isn’t. It’s a public good. And as for me, someone who does have student loan debt, I wouldn’t hold it against anyone for getting a free/public college education, while I had to pay. I don’t consider it unfair. I consider it an improvement in the human condition. I don’t think we will wind up like South Korea either. A lot of states are beginning to have publicly funded trades programs. This is something Europe has too in conjunction with its free college.

As for JerryZ, as much as our quality of education is superb, the system is undoubtedly broken. The costs are way too high and it has become a national liability with a student loan debt of one trillion dollars. If we make the supposed public universities truly public, they become publicly accountable. Therefore, we can dictate that they ditch their over-bloated administrative systems so we can start paying professors what they deserve, while saving huge sums at the same time. The major reason people come here to the USA for their degrees is so they can get a job here in the USA. In general, we pay better than most people. Having a degree from overseas usually doesn’t pan out too well here in the USA for some reason. It happens to people even from Oxford. It doesn’t mean that overseas degree-holding people never get a job here. It just means that it makes it much more difficult.

 

[Allegra]

The state of Missouri currently provides on average $9000 per public elementary and secondary school pupil. Why would that be an immense cost to extend that 2 to 4 years for students who earn it? The state and federal government already provide near that amount of money to universities and colleges, but it’s earmarked for research projects, athletic programs, vastly overpaid administrators, and grants that don’t accomplish anything. It doesn’t go toward students instruction, which is the whole reason the state should be investing in public universities in the first place. The money is mostly there already, but higher learned would have to look very different.