8 ms·

Make the college free and provide students with a living stipend. Return higher education subsidies (and tax brackets) to their 1950s levels. Join the rest of t

Make the college free and provide students with a living stipend. Return higher education subsidies (and tax brackets) to their 1950s levels. Join the rest of the developed world.

jki275 8y ago
what is "free"? There is no "free", it just means I have to pay for it. I prefer to pay for my own responsibilities, not for people to get underwater basketweaving degrees.
- velcrovan 8y ago
  Free at the point of use, the way normal people mean it. Re: the responsibility thing, it’s a fundamental difference in ideology and subjective preference, I get it, and I’m not going to argue it. I used to make the same argument, actually. My own subjective preference is to live in a developed nation where everyone has a good on-ramp towards work that they find fulfilling and interesting, and where everyone pays it forward. Other countries get better outcomes in this regard so I want to follow their lead. Anyways see you at the ballot box.
- ChrisClark 8y ago
  And this is exactly what's wrong with the US right now. No one cares to help anyone else. Even in healthcare! "I have my money, if they die it's because they chose to be poor."
  - jedmeyers 8y ago
    > No one cares to help anyone else. If people in Europe cared to help their money would not have been taken by force via taxes.
    - quentindemetz 8y ago
      « People in Europe » have elected politicians who have enacted these tax policies. Money is not being taken by force...
      - jedmeyers 8y ago
        People with guns literally come to your house and put you in jail if you don't pay taxes. Not taken by force? Can one person come to your house and take your money? Can ten? At what point it becomes "not by force"?
        SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        Could you provide an alternative to this "violent" taxation with real world, contemporary examples of a system that provides the benefits of a modern nation?
    - Retra 8y ago
      You're assuming people don't see taxes as the preferred means of providing aid to those that need it.
      - jedmeyers 8y ago
        Most people don't know and don't care where their taxes are going, because they were conditioned to behave this way from the early childhood. Ever wonder why government funded schools don't teach about fiscal responsibility?
    - Shish2k 8y ago
      "Taken by force" is a strange (very American?) way to put it. As a European, I'm happy to pay taxes because it's a convenient and efficient way to get money out of my bank account and into the hands of people who need it more than me; I'm helping my fellow countrymen with literally zero effort on my part, which makes my country a better place for me to live in. If we cancelled taxes and required people to make individual donations, I would still want to, but I would probably be too busy / lazy to do it :P (Not to say that the government does a PERFECTLY efficient job of distributing taxes to those in need, I actually disagree with much of their spending - but on the whole it does a considerably better job than I would if I had to do it all myself)
      - jedmeyers 8y ago
        > As a European, I'm happy to pay taxes because Because you will go to jail if you won't. > taxes is a convenient and efficient way to get money out of my bank account and into the hands of people who need it more than me If this is something other than a very elaborate satire, I would be very surprised. > literally zero effort on my part Calling at least a third of your earnings "literally zero effort" is a bit disingenuous.
        Shish2k 8y ago
        > Because you will go to jail if you won't. Firstly, please don't put words into other people's mouths, it is very disingenuous. As to the actual point - I'll also go to jail if I murder someone. But I wouldn't say "the government is using force to stop me from murdering people", "the reason to avoid murdering people is because you will go to jail if you do" - I'm happy to go around not-murdering people of my own free will, because I believe that society is a better place when we don't murder each other. > Calling at least a third of your earnings "literally zero effort" is a bit disingenuous. The GOAL is to spend a third of my money, so I'm not counting that as effort - taxes take a third of my earnings in between my employer and my bank account, so by the time my monthly pay reaches my bank account, it has all been taken care of. Compare to the charity approach, where I need to research, make decisions, do bank transfers, keep up-to-date with the changing needs of a changing society... If I want to do a not-half-assed job of it, then I'm going to be spending so much time on it that it cancels out the benefit. A few people organising national spending at scale, even if they are only barely competent, is more efficient than everybody doing it individually.
  - instaheat 8y ago
    Chris, I understand what you are saying. Of course we care to help other people. Collectively, the US might be seen as "selfish" but I think at a certain point, you have to understand you do not want to harm yourself just to help someone else. I really feel for people who will go to great lengths to help others, even if it reduces the quality of their own life just because it's the "right thing to do" My mother-in-law is like this. She would let a convicted murderer that was down on their luck move in with her because "everyone deserves a roof over their head" Again, I GET IT. But do you understand why some may have these selfish viewpoints?
    - Jotra7 8y ago
      >Again, I GET IT. But do you understand why some may have these selfish viewpoints? Psychopathy.
      - instaheat 8y ago
        Sound analysis from one sentence.
    - mrguyorama 8y ago
      >Again, I GET IT. But do you understand why some may have these selfish viewpoints? A complete lack of empathy for fellow people
      - instaheat 8y ago
        Cue the violins.
    - danans 8y ago
      > but I think at a certain point, you have to understand you do not want to harm yourself just to help someone else. What's special about the US among highly developed nations is that we've convinced ourselves that most of us would be harmed, when it's likely that only a very well-off minority would be harmed (where "harmed" means "be slight less well-off, but still well off").
- mijamo 8y ago
  Plenty of things are free. Free does not mean it costs nothing, it means the client does not have to pay. Just like it's free for you to move in the city but the city still has to pay for roads.
- jly 8y ago
  We already collectively pay for K-12 education (in the US). I'd rather pay a little extra and see progress equalizing opportunity in a world where complex skills are increasingly needed to succeed. Anyone who was able to go to a great school and get a great education without mountains of debt because mom and dad subsidized it should count themselves among the lucky. Everyone capable should get this chance. Public universities are run like businesses now, with trillion dollar endowments and tuition expanding at insane rates. My own state school tuition has gone up 250% in the last 20 years, outpacing inflation by several times. Something needs to change to bring this under control.
  - smileysteve 8y ago
    > I'd rather pay a little extra and see progress equalizing opportunity in a world where complex skills are increasingly needed to succeed. There's little evidence that modern college provides skills to succeed; There is increasing evidence that there is a shortage in trades.
- tracer4201 8y ago
  My parents didn’t have mountains of wealth. We grew up in a home where sometimes my mom forced me to go to school even when I was feeling sick because I could get one of my meals there. In your view of the world, people like me essentially wouldn’t have access to opportunity that would be reserved for the wealthy folks. You shouldn’t have to care about me individually, but if there are enough people like me, it takes a huge toll on society. You won’t be able to hide from it.
  - exodus_de 8y ago
    > In your view of the world, people like me essentially wouldn’t have access to opportunity that would be reserved for the wealthy folks. That is just not true. Historically, working your way through college was completely feasible. It still is feasible, unless you need one of those fancy 50,000$-100,000$ degrees, in which case you need a loan. In Germany, a lot of students are working and living modestly through college. You don't have to rush your degree, employers do value actual work experience. > You shouldn’t have to care about me individually, but if there are enough people like me, it takes a huge toll on society. You won’t be able to hide from it. Look at it this way: In society, not everybody can or needs to be an academic. If you're not willing to work your way through college, or get a loan, or get one of these ISAs, then society isn't worse off if your place is taken by someone else. Just look at the situation right now, there are tons of Americans with advanced degrees that are bartending and they're deeply in debt. Clearly society didn't need them to get that education, so it's better off not having paid for it.
    - SeanAppleby 8y ago
      $50000 is not a fancy degree, that's just about the floor for an in-state public school without even accounting for cost of living. >If you're not willing to work your way through college, or get a loan, or get one of these ISAs, then society isn't worse off if your place is taken by someone else. It absolutely could be. People are not interchangeable pieces. Our society is built on the achievements of improbable people doing improbable things. You need only imagine a world where Einstein was born on a struggling farm without the resources or encouragement to prosper to understand the problem. At some level it's a statistical game of trying to distribute opportunity to get the relatively few outliers into position for us to reap the rewards of their output. If you narrow the funnel you minimize the probability of great intellectual work getting done to help steer society, which holds all of society back. And if you don't understand how it could be infeasible to be able to pay your way through $50k on top of living expenses before starting your career, or how it could be unbearably risky to take on $50k+living expenses in debt as a 20y/o, even if you expect to exit that pipeline with good career prospects, you really need to explore outside of your bubble.
- dahart 8y ago
  Do you pay for your own roads & police? It’s very likely you’re using some publically funded resources more than others. If you actually got your wish and paid for all of your own responsibilities, isn’t there a pretty good chance it would completely bankrupt you? Think about it and be honest about what benefits you’re actually receiving. Paying for education for all is something we could very easily afford by moving money from other publically funded programs, so you wouldn’t have to pay an extra cent in taxes above what you’re paying now. So the question is why not divert some money from the military or other programs? It has been demonstrated many times over that we don’t need new taxes to cover a national education program. Several countries in Europe have publically funded university, and they are ranking higher in education than the U.S. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index And that doesn’t seem to hurt those countries; wealth per adult is higher than the U.S. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_... So is it possible you’re mistaken and that public funding for education might not just be free but even have financial returns, that it might even make us richer in the long term not poorer?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Based on the demographics of HN (and software in general) it is highly likely that whoever you are talking to is a net contributor by a long shot, not net recipient.
    - rexpop 8y ago
      We're all net contributors. Even "the poor," who spend their lives in the jobs to which they're corralled. Dollar-for-dollar, perhaps they pay fewer individual taxes, but hour-for-hour their labor's just as constitutive of the commonwealth. Moreso, perhaps.
      - Matticus_Rex 8y ago
        "If I define the terms differently, I can say whatever I want."
- rchaud 8y ago
  The fact that you're using cliched "conservative" meme tropes like "basket weaving" indicates you're not interested in having a non-ideological discussion about this. As of 2016, the most common bachelor's degrees in the US were in the areas of business and healthcare [1]: [1]:https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_322.10.asp?current=yes https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_322.10.a... From the table in the link: Business - 371,694 Health Professions - 228,896 Public Admin/Social Services - 161,230 Biological + Medical Sciences - 113,749 This is Hacker News. Please respect the community here and attempt to present some data to support your comment.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Basket weaving isn't a "conservative meme". It may have once been (in a time before memes) but that phrase is in common usage as equivalent to "any degree of little to no value".
    - PascLeRasc 8y ago
      Yeah, I can't wait for Amazon University to start graduating Warehouse majors. Now that's a degree of value.
    - danans 8y ago
      It was never a conservative meme, and it isn't one now. It's just a stupid over-generalization today, as it was in the past, regardless of the politics of the person who uttered it. Nonetheless, the parent posts' point and evidence still stands, that the largest groups of degrees granted are in subjects of value.
      - stale2002 8y ago
        > Nonetheless, the parent posts' point and evidence still stands, that the largest groups of degrees granted are in subjects of value. I strongly disagree with that. "Business" majors are an effectively general education humanities degree, that is pretty worthless a lot of the time. The same goes for biology, actually. Yes, it is a hardish science, but the career path for biology majors is pretty grim.
jostmey 8y ago
And allow for students to file for bankruptcy on their student loans. That will force colleges to slash their insane budgets and stop building luxury dorms, new stadiums, and lay off the countless and unnecessary admins. Salaries for adjunct professors teaching the classes cannot get any lower, so the quality of education could remain about the same
- velcrovan 8y ago
  We could even cancel a trillion dollar fighter jet or two.
- harryh 8y ago
  Your proposal is unworkable because virtually everyone graduates from college with close to zero assets. No matter what someone's ability to repay their loans were, they would have a huge incentive to declare bankruptcy on the day they graduate to discharge the debt.
  - kaiju0 8y ago
    This is the natural fix. People then don't get the loans they can't afford. There is no limiters in place for a liberal arts major taking out 100k loans. The future is in income sharing agreements. Let the market and investors decide if they can be paid back.
    - harryh 8y ago
      If college loans could be discharged via bankruptcy it wouldn't just be liberal arts majors with 100k loans who did it, EVERYONE would. Even people graduating and taking high paying jobs who could easily pay back the loans. Saying that college loans should be dischargeable is basically saying that student loans shouldn't exist (which is a fine point of view, but people should be clear on what their position is).
      - charlesdm 8y ago
        You can't have a loan at high APR and then not have it be dischargeable. It's either a special type, but at low interest, or alternatively, high interest but normal. I like the way this girl did it. Great deal and she was smart about it.
simonsarris 8y ago
Absolutely not, at least not without making college much more difficult. Otherwise it is just subsidizing adult daycare. Many people do not belong in college and learn next to nothing, but go because they're shoo'ed along into it and the universities are in on the joke, and in on the money-making, and undergoing a drastic reduction of standards as a result. Some data on just how bad higher ed is getting, from 2017: https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/higher-education-erodes-a7c9983692e0 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/higher-education-erodes-a7c...
- RosanaAnaDana 8y ago
  1: Make college much more difficult. 2: Allow people to enter it and fail. People need to be made aware that just because they passed their undergraduate work, they really aren't as smart as they think they are.
- charlesdm 8y ago
  Most people are (somewhat) stupid in their early 20s. I don't disagree that not everyone belongs in university, however, most people don't realise that until it is too late and are already in debt. Free higher education works well in the European countries that offer it. What better investment could a society make than allow someone to pursue a field they are passionate about, and letting them start life with a clean slate? I'm by no means a socialist, but I think university should mostly be free. The only thing (student) debt does is tie someone down. To a lifestyle or employer that they actually should have no loyalty to. Tax brackets don't need to rise, resources just need to be moved from alternative things (i.e. military spending).
  - devmunchies 8y ago
    >Free higher education works well in the European countries that offer it It depends what you're looking at. I think it hurts local communities by exporting all the young talent and gets people plugged into the white collar, global economy. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy what I do, but I think a lot of the time in college could have been better spent learning how to build houses, make furniture, grow food, etc. If the government is going to pay for it I would like it to be a better resource for enriching the nation, not just a tool for generating more wealth.
exodus_de 8y ago
What do you mean by "the college"? Community colleges are already affordable. Other institutions only charge that much because of price inflation caused by reckless lending. > Join the rest of the developed world. Let me tell you about the situation in Germany with its "free" universities: First of all, there's a three-tier school system with the lowest tier barred from higher education altogether, the middle tier requiring further schooling to access second-rate colleges only and only the high tier allowing university access. Usually, children are separated into these tiers by their teachers, at the end of primary school. While it's technically possible get back on the higher track when they're 16 or so, it is rare. Parental income/education and race is a huge predictor on which bucket a child ends up. So let's say you were a "good child" and are allowed to the universities, prepare for long waiting times (years) unless you have a near-perfect grade average, in case you want to study something "popular" like medicine, business administration or law. Don't expect to get a seat at one of those crowded auditoriums, prepare to sit on the stairs. Also prepare to be "weeded out" early, especially in the technical fields. Fail a test in a course three times and you will not only be thrown out of your degree program, you are permanently barred from getting any degree that has that course in it. Failed your law degree? Maybe try computer science then! Okay, let's say you went through all those filters, you finally get a degree. If you're got one of those "popular" degrees, it turns out that job competition is actually quite tough, because far more people have a degree than what the job market actually can absorb. It's still better than in Spain, Italy, Greece etc, where degrees are handed out like candy but actual jobs are as rare as gemstones. Bottom Line: "Free College" just produces over-education, because most people choose popular degrees beyond what the market actually needs. With ISAs, at least there's an incentive to only support those degrees that are actually in-demand.
- bgorman 8y ago
  How would you get back on track if you were lumped into the "bottom third" after primary school? That seems far too early to make judgement calls about someones future, however I am not a child development expert by any means. One major problem with this is immigration. If a child moves to Germany at age 10 from and didn't know any German before the move, I doubt he would be stand a fair chance in this system.
randomsearch 8y ago
Most of the rest of the developed world. Seems to be a common situation where I find myself reminding Americans that their bad ideas about government have spread to the UK. Higher education costs in the UK are rapidly spiralling.

Make the college free and provide students with a living stipend. Return higher education subsidies (and tax brackets) to their 1950s levels. Join the rest of the developed world.

jki275 8y ago

what is "free"? There is no "free", it just means I have to pay for it. I prefer to pay for my own responsibilities, not for people to get underwater basketweaving degrees.

velcrovan 8y ago
Free at the point of use, the way normal people mean it. Re: the responsibility thing, it’s a fundamental difference in ideology and subjective preference, I get it, and I’m not going to argue it. I used to make the same argument, actually. My own subjective preference is to live in a developed nation where everyone has a good on-ramp towards work that they find fulfilling and interesting, and where everyone pays it forward. Other countries get better outcomes in this regard so I want to follow their lead. Anyways see you at the ballot box.
ChrisClark 8y ago
And this is exactly what's wrong with the US right now. No one cares to help anyone else. Even in healthcare! "I have my money, if they die it's because they chose to be poor."
- jedmeyers 8y ago
  > No one cares to help anyone else. If people in Europe cared to help their money would not have been taken by force via taxes.
  - quentindemetz 8y ago
    « People in Europe » have elected politicians who have enacted these tax policies. Money is not being taken by force...
    - jedmeyers 8y ago
      People with guns literally come to your house and put you in jail if you don't pay taxes. Not taken by force? Can one person come to your house and take your money? Can ten? At what point it becomes "not by force"?
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        Could you provide an alternative to this "violent" taxation with real world, contemporary examples of a system that provides the benefits of a modern nation?
  - Retra 8y ago
    You're assuming people don't see taxes as the preferred means of providing aid to those that need it.
    - jedmeyers 8y ago
      Most people don't know and don't care where their taxes are going, because they were conditioned to behave this way from the early childhood. Ever wonder why government funded schools don't teach about fiscal responsibility?
  - Shish2k 8y ago
    "Taken by force" is a strange (very American?) way to put it. As a European, I'm happy to pay taxes because it's a convenient and efficient way to get money out of my bank account and into the hands of people who need it more than me; I'm helping my fellow countrymen with literally zero effort on my part, which makes my country a better place for me to live in. If we cancelled taxes and required people to make individual donations, I would still want to, but I would probably be too busy / lazy to do it :P (Not to say that the government does a PERFECTLY efficient job of distributing taxes to those in need, I actually disagree with much of their spending - but on the whole it does a considerably better job than I would if I had to do it all myself)
    - jedmeyers 8y ago
      > As a European, I'm happy to pay taxes because Because you will go to jail if you won't. > taxes is a convenient and efficient way to get money out of my bank account and into the hands of people who need it more than me If this is something other than a very elaborate satire, I would be very surprised. > literally zero effort on my part Calling at least a third of your earnings "literally zero effort" is a bit disingenuous.
      - Shish2k 8y ago
        > Because you will go to jail if you won't. Firstly, please don't put words into other people's mouths, it is very disingenuous. As to the actual point - I'll also go to jail if I murder someone. But I wouldn't say "the government is using force to stop me from murdering people", "the reason to avoid murdering people is because you will go to jail if you do" - I'm happy to go around not-murdering people of my own free will, because I believe that society is a better place when we don't murder each other. > Calling at least a third of your earnings "literally zero effort" is a bit disingenuous. The GOAL is to spend a third of my money, so I'm not counting that as effort - taxes take a third of my earnings in between my employer and my bank account, so by the time my monthly pay reaches my bank account, it has all been taken care of. Compare to the charity approach, where I need to research, make decisions, do bank transfers, keep up-to-date with the changing needs of a changing society... If I want to do a not-half-assed job of it, then I'm going to be spending so much time on it that it cancels out the benefit. A few people organising national spending at scale, even if they are only barely competent, is more efficient than everybody doing it individually.
- instaheat 8y ago
  Chris, I understand what you are saying. Of course we care to help other people. Collectively, the US might be seen as "selfish" but I think at a certain point, you have to understand you do not want to harm yourself just to help someone else. I really feel for people who will go to great lengths to help others, even if it reduces the quality of their own life just because it's the "right thing to do" My mother-in-law is like this. She would let a convicted murderer that was down on their luck move in with her because "everyone deserves a roof over their head" Again, I GET IT. But do you understand why some may have these selfish viewpoints?
  - Jotra7 8y ago
    >Again, I GET IT. But do you understand why some may have these selfish viewpoints? Psychopathy.
    - instaheat 8y ago
      Sound analysis from one sentence.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    >Again, I GET IT. But do you understand why some may have these selfish viewpoints? A complete lack of empathy for fellow people
    - instaheat 8y ago
      Cue the violins.
  - danans 8y ago
    > but I think at a certain point, you have to understand you do not want to harm yourself just to help someone else. What's special about the US among highly developed nations is that we've convinced ourselves that most of us would be harmed, when it's likely that only a very well-off minority would be harmed (where "harmed" means "be slight less well-off, but still well off").
mijamo 8y ago
Plenty of things are free. Free does not mean it costs nothing, it means the client does not have to pay. Just like it's free for you to move in the city but the city still has to pay for roads.
jly 8y ago
We already collectively pay for K-12 education (in the US). I'd rather pay a little extra and see progress equalizing opportunity in a world where complex skills are increasingly needed to succeed. Anyone who was able to go to a great school and get a great education without mountains of debt because mom and dad subsidized it should count themselves among the lucky. Everyone capable should get this chance. Public universities are run like businesses now, with trillion dollar endowments and tuition expanding at insane rates. My own state school tuition has gone up 250% in the last 20 years, outpacing inflation by several times. Something needs to change to bring this under control.
- smileysteve 8y ago
  > I'd rather pay a little extra and see progress equalizing opportunity in a world where complex skills are increasingly needed to succeed. There's little evidence that modern college provides skills to succeed; There is increasing evidence that there is a shortage in trades.
tracer4201 8y ago
My parents didn’t have mountains of wealth. We grew up in a home where sometimes my mom forced me to go to school even when I was feeling sick because I could get one of my meals there. In your view of the world, people like me essentially wouldn’t have access to opportunity that would be reserved for the wealthy folks. You shouldn’t have to care about me individually, but if there are enough people like me, it takes a huge toll on society. You won’t be able to hide from it.
- exodus_de 8y ago
  > In your view of the world, people like me essentially wouldn’t have access to opportunity that would be reserved for the wealthy folks. That is just not true. Historically, working your way through college was completely feasible. It still is feasible, unless you need one of those fancy 50,000$-100,000$ degrees, in which case you need a loan. In Germany, a lot of students are working and living modestly through college. You don't have to rush your degree, employers do value actual work experience. > You shouldn’t have to care about me individually, but if there are enough people like me, it takes a huge toll on society. You won’t be able to hide from it. Look at it this way: In society, not everybody can or needs to be an academic. If you're not willing to work your way through college, or get a loan, or get one of these ISAs, then society isn't worse off if your place is taken by someone else. Just look at the situation right now, there are tons of Americans with advanced degrees that are bartending and they're deeply in debt. Clearly society didn't need them to get that education, so it's better off not having paid for it.
  - SeanAppleby 8y ago
    $50000 is not a fancy degree, that's just about the floor for an in-state public school without even accounting for cost of living. >If you're not willing to work your way through college, or get a loan, or get one of these ISAs, then society isn't worse off if your place is taken by someone else. It absolutely could be. People are not interchangeable pieces. Our society is built on the achievements of improbable people doing improbable things. You need only imagine a world where Einstein was born on a struggling farm without the resources or encouragement to prosper to understand the problem. At some level it's a statistical game of trying to distribute opportunity to get the relatively few outliers into position for us to reap the rewards of their output. If you narrow the funnel you minimize the probability of great intellectual work getting done to help steer society, which holds all of society back. And if you don't understand how it could be infeasible to be able to pay your way through $50k on top of living expenses before starting your career, or how it could be unbearably risky to take on $50k+living expenses in debt as a 20y/o, even if you expect to exit that pipeline with good career prospects, you really need to explore outside of your bubble.
dahart 8y ago
Do you pay for your own roads & police? It’s very likely you’re using some publically funded resources more than others. If you actually got your wish and paid for all of your own responsibilities, isn’t there a pretty good chance it would completely bankrupt you? Think about it and be honest about what benefits you’re actually receiving. Paying for education for all is something we could very easily afford by moving money from other publically funded programs, so you wouldn’t have to pay an extra cent in taxes above what you’re paying now. So the question is why not divert some money from the military or other programs? It has been demonstrated many times over that we don’t need new taxes to cover a national education program. Several countries in Europe have publically funded university, and they are ranking higher in education than the U.S. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index And that doesn’t seem to hurt those countries; wealth per adult is higher than the U.S. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_... So is it possible you’re mistaken and that public funding for education might not just be free but even have financial returns, that it might even make us richer in the long term not poorer?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Based on the demographics of HN (and software in general) it is highly likely that whoever you are talking to is a net contributor by a long shot, not net recipient.
  - rexpop 8y ago
    We're all net contributors. Even "the poor," who spend their lives in the jobs to which they're corralled. Dollar-for-dollar, perhaps they pay fewer individual taxes, but hour-for-hour their labor's just as constitutive of the commonwealth. Moreso, perhaps.
    - Matticus_Rex 8y ago
      "If I define the terms differently, I can say whatever I want."
rchaud 8y ago
The fact that you're using cliched "conservative" meme tropes like "basket weaving" indicates you're not interested in having a non-ideological discussion about this. As of 2016, the most common bachelor's degrees in the US were in the areas of business and healthcare [1]: [1]:https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_322.10.asp?current=yes https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_322.10.a... From the table in the link: Business - 371,694 Health Professions - 228,896 Public Admin/Social Services - 161,230 Biological + Medical Sciences - 113,749 This is Hacker News. Please respect the community here and attempt to present some data to support your comment.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Basket weaving isn't a "conservative meme". It may have once been (in a time before memes) but that phrase is in common usage as equivalent to "any degree of little to no value".
  - PascLeRasc 8y ago
    Yeah, I can't wait for Amazon University to start graduating Warehouse majors. Now that's a degree of value.
  - danans 8y ago
    It was never a conservative meme, and it isn't one now. It's just a stupid over-generalization today, as it was in the past, regardless of the politics of the person who uttered it. Nonetheless, the parent posts' point and evidence still stands, that the largest groups of degrees granted are in subjects of value.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      > Nonetheless, the parent posts' point and evidence still stands, that the largest groups of degrees granted are in subjects of value. I strongly disagree with that. "Business" majors are an effectively general education humanities degree, that is pretty worthless a lot of the time. The same goes for biology, actually. Yes, it is a hardish science, but the career path for biology majors is pretty grim.

jostmey 8y ago

And allow for students to file for bankruptcy on their student loans. That will force colleges to slash their insane budgets and stop building luxury dorms, new stadiums, and lay off the countless and unnecessary admins. Salaries for adjunct professors teaching the classes cannot get any lower, so the quality of education could remain about the same

velcrovan 8y ago
We could even cancel a trillion dollar fighter jet or two.
harryh 8y ago
Your proposal is unworkable because virtually everyone graduates from college with close to zero assets. No matter what someone's ability to repay their loans were, they would have a huge incentive to declare bankruptcy on the day they graduate to discharge the debt.
- kaiju0 8y ago
  This is the natural fix. People then don't get the loans they can't afford. There is no limiters in place for a liberal arts major taking out 100k loans. The future is in income sharing agreements. Let the market and investors decide if they can be paid back.
  - harryh 8y ago
    If college loans could be discharged via bankruptcy it wouldn't just be liberal arts majors with 100k loans who did it, EVERYONE would. Even people graduating and taking high paying jobs who could easily pay back the loans. Saying that college loans should be dischargeable is basically saying that student loans shouldn't exist (which is a fine point of view, but people should be clear on what their position is).
    - charlesdm 8y ago
      You can't have a loan at high APR and then not have it be dischargeable. It's either a special type, but at low interest, or alternatively, high interest but normal. I like the way this girl did it. Great deal and she was smart about it.

simonsarris 8y ago

Absolutely not, at least not without making college much more difficult. Otherwise it is just subsidizing adult daycare. Many people do not belong in college and learn next to nothing, but go because they're shoo'ed along into it and the universities are in on the joke, and in on the money-making, and undergoing a drastic reduction of standards as a result. Some data on just how bad higher ed is getting, from 2017: https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/higher-education-erodes-a7c9983692e0 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/higher-education-erodes-a7c...

RosanaAnaDana 8y ago
1: Make college much more difficult. 2: Allow people to enter it and fail. People need to be made aware that just because they passed their undergraduate work, they really aren't as smart as they think they are.
charlesdm 8y ago
Most people are (somewhat) stupid in their early 20s. I don't disagree that not everyone belongs in university, however, most people don't realise that until it is too late and are already in debt. Free higher education works well in the European countries that offer it. What better investment could a society make than allow someone to pursue a field they are passionate about, and letting them start life with a clean slate? I'm by no means a socialist, but I think university should mostly be free. The only thing (student) debt does is tie someone down. To a lifestyle or employer that they actually should have no loyalty to. Tax brackets don't need to rise, resources just need to be moved from alternative things (i.e. military spending).
- devmunchies 8y ago
  >Free higher education works well in the European countries that offer it It depends what you're looking at. I think it hurts local communities by exporting all the young talent and gets people plugged into the white collar, global economy. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy what I do, but I think a lot of the time in college could have been better spent learning how to build houses, make furniture, grow food, etc. If the government is going to pay for it I would like it to be a better resource for enriching the nation, not just a tool for generating more wealth.

exodus_de 8y ago

What do you mean by "the college"? Community colleges are already affordable. Other institutions only charge that much because of price inflation caused by reckless lending. > Join the rest of the developed world. Let me tell you about the situation in Germany with its "free" universities: First of all, there's a three-tier school system with the lowest tier barred from higher education altogether, the middle tier requiring further schooling to access second-rate colleges only and only the high tier allowing university access. Usually, children are separated into these tiers by their teachers, at the end of primary school. While it's technically possible get back on the higher track when they're 16 or so, it is rare. Parental income/education and race is a huge predictor on which bucket a child ends up. So let's say you were a "good child" and are allowed to the universities, prepare for long waiting times (years) unless you have a near-perfect grade average, in case you want to study something "popular" like medicine, business administration or law. Don't expect to get a seat at one of those crowded auditoriums, prepare to sit on the stairs. Also prepare to be "weeded out" early, especially in the technical fields. Fail a test in a course three times and you will not only be thrown out of your degree program, you are permanently barred from getting any degree that has that course in it. Failed your law degree? Maybe try computer science then! Okay, let's say you went through all those filters, you finally get a degree. If you're got one of those "popular" degrees, it turns out that job competition is actually quite tough, because far more people have a degree than what the job market actually can absorb. It's still better than in Spain, Italy, Greece etc, where degrees are handed out like candy but actual jobs are as rare as gemstones. Bottom Line: "Free College" just produces over-education, because most people choose popular degrees beyond what the market actually needs. With ISAs, at least there's an incentive to only support those degrees that are actually in-demand.

bgorman 8y ago
How would you get back on track if you were lumped into the "bottom third" after primary school? That seems far too early to make judgement calls about someones future, however I am not a child development expert by any means. One major problem with this is immigration. If a child moves to Germany at age 10 from and didn't know any German before the move, I doubt he would be stand a fair chance in this system.

randomsearch 8y ago

Most of the rest of the developed world. Seems to be a common situation where I find myself reminding Americans that their bad ideas about government have spread to the UK. Higher education costs in the UK are rapidly spiralling.