Do you think college should be free?

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No, I am fully against the 10th plank of the Communist Manifesto.

All government schools should be abolished.

Stop the easy loans and let competition drive down costs.
 
casslean said:
A better educated population is always helpful to society. A population that has the ability to comprehend what they are reading, communicate effectively through writing, hear and analyze conflicting opinions… those will all benefit society.

There are more objectives to a college education than a job.
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Shouldn’t those skills be taught by the end of high school? If not, why not?
 
phil19034 said:
  • they have been raising professor salaries in order to attract the best professors, not to pay professors their just salary. For example: they pay a famous law professor $400,000 a year while other professors in the law school are just low paid adjuncts (unless there is a famous adjunct)
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Professor salaries are the same as they were in the early 1970s, adjusted for inflation. It’s not the professors, it’s the four year vacation resorts and the huge expansion of administrator positions and salaries.
 
whatistrue said:
Shouldn’t those skills be taught by the end of high school? If not, why not?
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Whether they should or shouldn’t be, they most assuredly are not being taught in high school, or at least competency is not being required before obtaining a high school diploma.
 
That wasn’t his argument though, his argument was that he paid his own way. The economic situation is massively different now to even fifteen years ago, things need to evolve or they fail. The current system is failing, let’s evolve it.
 
You’re not making any sense. When you say “what difference does it make,” you make it sound like he suffers no consequences for other people getting “free” tuition. But there are consequences. Taxes.
 
casslean said:
competency is not being required
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Of course some would say that the powers that be (at all points on the political spectrum) don’t really want Joe and Jane Voter to think independently or critically. It might require them to actually come up with policies rather than talking points.
 
casslean said:
A better educated population is always helpful to society. A population that has the ability to comprehend what they are reading, communicate effectively through writing, hear and analyze conflicting opinions… those will all benefit society.
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I agree. But I (and many others who have much more authority to have an opinion worth listening to) would contend that this is not at all the result produced by a great many colleges, for a great many students. The idealized concept and the actual outcome seem, today, to be poles apart. To the extent that college students who study the “soft” disciplines today are often among the most badly educated, most politically brainwashed people in the population.
 
Government makes or guarantees student loans, protecting the lenders from loss. That ensures a supply of students, and universities are glad to take the money. This artificially created demand drives up prices. Not everyone who starts college graduates, but they still end up with student loans. No one qualifies their creditworthiness, and not much thought is given to their academic preparedness for college. Student loans drive up tuition costs (and administrator salaries.) Making college tuition-free would just transfer the cost to the taxpayers.
 
Thankfully my University had lower priced Satellite Campuses. They still raised the tuition but it was manageable.
 
That is, by its own admission, an opinion piece by a conservative writer working at a conservative think-tank. It is not an objective measure.

So-called “soft” disciplines teach communication, critical thinking, analytical skills, and reading comprehension. Are they always done well? No, but that doesn’t mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater or bash the whole discipline. Academia as a whole has become very left-leaning (if you think the liberal arts are bad, wander out to a law school) and somewhat closed minded to opposing views. But dismissing the liberal arts won’t help that situation. It will only make it worse because it will encourage people to become entrenched in their position instead of equipping them with the skills needed to objectively assess arguments and formulate responses.
 
snarflemike said:
For example, here is an article by Thomas Sowell. It is merely the first article that came up in a search, but it is representative (and he certainly has the authority to speak on the subject).
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Further, the fact that you call this “authoritative” despite the fact that the author has clear biases demonstrates the need for liberal arts training. How to assess to quality of a source is one of the very first lessons you learn in any arts methodology class. How to recognize bias (including your own) is the second.
 
Inquisitor85 said:
I’ve never understood this logic, what difference does it make to you?
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What do I have to justify my position, and those who want free education do not?
What difference does it make to them?

I don’t want reimbursement for the college expenses I rightly paid back. I owed em, I paid em.
Why should anyone be given something of value without responsibility? And why should anyone assume the are due a benefit but others are not worthy of the same?
That’s injustice, oddly enough, for a crowd that wears the word “justice” on it’s shirtsleeve. (it becomes sloganeering when it’s inauthentic)
 
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goout said:
I don’t want reimbursement for the college expenses I rightly paid back. I owed em, I paid em.
Why should anyone be given something of value without responsibility? And why should anyone assume the are due a benefit but others are not worthy of the same?
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This kind of self-interest prevents us from ever making progress on major issues like the cost of post-secondary education. “Why should they get a free ride? I paid my way!”

I’m sure you did, as did I. But we have also seen the fallout of that system. We have seen how it disproportionately impacts minorities and the poor. We see how it perpetuates cycles of poverty by making it so difficult to escape.

Things like free education (or free healthcare) only come when people can set aside their own self-interest and look at what would benefit the greater part of society.
 
Nope. Obviously not what I was referring to. Those basically don’t exist anymore.
 
casslean said:
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goout:
I don’t want reimbursement for the college expenses I rightly paid back. I owed em, I paid em.
Why should anyone be given something of value without responsibility? And why should anyone assume the are due a benefit but others are not worthy of the same?
Click to expand...
This kind of self-interest prevents us from ever making progress on major issues like the cost of post-secondary education. “Why should they get a free ride? I paid my way!”

I’m sure you did, as did I. But we have also seen the fallout of that system. We have seen how it disproportionately impacts minorities and the poor. We see how it perpetuates cycles of poverty by making it so difficult to escape.

Things like free education (or free healthcare) only come when people can set aside their own self-interest and look at what would benefit the greater part of society.
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You miss the point.
The point is not that I care for self interest. My concern is that we raise another generation of entitled irresponsibles who expect more out of life than they give.

That’s my concern: they are focused on themselves rather than the whole of society.
Again: I paid mine and I’m happy to have done it. I’m a better person for it. Everyone should be responsible.

If you can’t afford college education, GO TO TRADE SCHOOL and be a millionaire, because that is very possible.
 
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