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And watch the value of the college degree follow the trend of a high school diploma! If we offered free college, how long before we start dropping the standard

• rublev 8y ago
  Why do you talk about this like it's a theory? Many parts of the world have free education. The value of a diploma is already largely meaningless unless you go to an ivy league school.
• encoderer 8y ago
  I have to assume this is sarcasm but if not: you’re about 30 years late.
• leggomylibro 8y ago
  Who cares if we drop the standards to earn a degree? In a theoretical world where high-quality public education is freely available, who cares about earning a degree at all? The most successful and competent people who I have ever worked with don't share much in the way of education, but they all feel some sort of passion and drive for what they do. They see potential in their work and think about it all the time, so they are good at it and they have a lot of useful insights. "Education" shouldn't be a simple signal that you have enough diligence and financial werewithal to consistently show up in the same place over the course of 4 years. It should be a lifelong process of both asking and informing people what they are capable of. Personally, I think the all-or-nothing approach of primary school->secondary school->career->grave is a huge waste of people. I think we just need to figure out how to provide adults with the time and safety to uproot their lives for a couple of years at a time.
  • pcstl 8y ago
    People will care about earning a degree because the rat race never ends. When you devalue university degrees, people will start earning degrees just because they can and because clueless employers grasp at any straw they can use to differentiate between applicants. That's how it becomes impossible to get a half-decent job without a college degree.
    • wolco 8y ago
      mba anyone?
    • Amygaz 8y ago
      That’s pretty much the current state of affair. People go to college because that’s what you do after high school. Ideally at an Ivy League because it looks much better. Then you go to grad school because that’s what you do after undergrad...
  • tracker1 8y ago
    It anything this would increase the standards... this type of thing comes down to convincing someone that you are able to complete said goals, and that the degree you are working towards and the school itself is worth it.
• digitaltrees 8y ago
  Education has value independent of any increase in earning potential. Society benefits as members learn a wide range of things. I believe society would be better if there were periods of time throughout ones life to go back to school and learn without worrying that it is useful, practical or will lead to higher salary. Imagine in every member of society learned about John Rawls theory of justice as fairness, or how to weld and make beautiful art or fix their house. Sure some people seek this out but imagine if we removed the instinct to value education or a degree only on its financial impact. Imagine if we removed financial pressure.
  • rayiner 8y ago
    Citation needed.
    • digitaltrees 8y ago
      I learned tools in logic class that allowed me to arrive at that conclusion with no other source necessary. Value means utility in ones life. The experience of college adds numerous examples of utility to a generic students life beyond a future job.
  • SkyBelow 8y ago
    >Education has value independent of any increase in earning potential. And it can be gained independent of college and independent of educating oneself for a career as well. It is easy for someone going to college to get both a degree in something that will allow them financial freedom in the future and to learn all sorts of topics that employers would not care about.
    • digitaltrees 8y ago
      Most types of education can be obtained outside of a formal setting, but not everyone is self motivated; some benefit from structure and accountability. Similarly, the interaction with other students and expert professors is unique and shouldn’t be ignored. Alumni networks are powerful things.
  • deleted 8y ago
• zjaffee 8y ago
  Universal college education is still a great idea, even if it lowers the value of an individuals degree across the broader society. A world where more people can make meaningful contributions to the development of new technologies, providing healthcare, educate others, and contribute to other areas of human understanding the better the world will be for everyone (short of issues relating to capitalism itself). The key piece of this is that should any universal college education legislation pass, it needs to be designed in such a way that we don't make the focus of college be the same as high school where the goal is to make sure everyone can pass. And in turn, include a very rigorous minimum education standard in order for an institution to provide government funded education.
  • pcstl 8y ago
    You are assuming that higher education institutions still have an incentive to actually make people able to make "meaningful contributions to the development of new technologies" and all that good stuff after a college degree becomes a requirement to signal to the rest of society that you're not useless.
  • SkyBelow 8y ago
    >Universal college education is still a great idea, even if it lowers the value of an individuals degree across the broader society. This is assuming the actual standards for a degree aren't lowered to achieve the goal of universal college education. That's why I bring up high school diplomas where the standards to graduate were lowered to increase the percentage of people with a degree. The end result was damage done to the degree and to the education that is needed for the degree. See the modern day nightmare of standardized testing preparation instead of education.
• michaelchisari 8y ago
  Why do you think this hasn't happened in Europe?
  • skookumchuck 8y ago
    I know a German who avoided work by staying in university into her 40s. This was only possible because it was free to her. Despite 20+ years of university education, she managed to get a low level job. I don't know how prevalent this is in Europe. But it's a general economic fact that people don't value what they get for free. They need to have "skin in the game", so to speak. If you want evidence, look at how people treat rental cars vs their own. Or how they treat those ride share bikes. Or how they treat public bathrooms. Etc.
    • travisporter 8y ago
      People may not value it but can I argue that society improves as a result? I personally treat rental cars, bikes and public bathrooms the same as anyone else. I don’t trash them but don’t clean them meticulously. I still value their presence.
      • monetus 8y ago
        I agree with your sentiment, but understand his as well. I think it's mostly a cultural problem rather than some instinctual problem with humanity. Japan has a culture of cleanliness as far as I can tell. In my area, however, a handful practices seem to persist because of the fun derived from exploiting the commons.
        • skookumchuck 8y ago
          Many times I hear the phrase "what do you care, it's a rental!" People who buy used cars tend to avoid ex-rentals. Once a group I was in was staying in a hotel. We were all heading out to dinner, and one person came out of her room, leaving the light on. I asked why she didn't turn out the light. She replied: "why should I? I'm not paying the electric bill." Apparently that's pretty common, as most hotel rooms I stay in these days require you to insert your room key into a device that enables turning on the lights, so they turned off when you leave.
• dv_dt 8y ago
  I'm highly skeptical that college degrees, or higher education follows a zero sum model, doubly so if you expand the value accounting to society at large.
• merpnderp 8y ago
  "how long before we start dropping the standards to earn a degree" I'd say the steepest decline began about 10 years ago. We have people receiving graduate degrees who are barely functionally literate, let alone know anything of value.
• maxxxxx 8y ago
  I think it's the other way. If you pay a lot of money then you sort of can expect to get a degree at the end. When I went to school in Germany they made a lot of effort to weed out people. If it's for free you can't really complain but if you already have paid $100000 it's harder for the school to justify people failing the course.
  • vonmoltke 8y ago
    Public funding sources can be tied to students and their success as well. If failing students means lower ratings and enrollment for the school, which in turn means lower funding levels, the school has just as much incentive to keep students advancing.
• thatfrenchguy 8y ago
  Instead, let's have only the rich kids have an education, that sounds like a great idea.
• tracker1 8y ago
  It's absolutely NOT free, and may not be without strings... such as your area of study (major), how far you want to go. Demonstrated competency going in, etc. In this case, the investor(s) could look at the potential value/income for the person going in. If you want to focus on an area that has limited job prospects and low salary, then you're unlikely to get funding.
• throwaway082729 8y ago
  Honest question. Instead of institutions declaring that so and so is certified in a field, why not let employers make these decisions based on the work that the student has produced. Particularly for the STEM fields, let each student publish their thesis or project work in a publicly available repo and rather than evaluate someone on GPA or degree, evaluate them on whether their domain knowledge is good enough.
  • basementcat 8y ago
    Honestly and fairly evaluating an individual requires more resources than checking the value of a single bit (hasDegree==1). Society has attempted to address this scaling problem with a system of _degrees_ and/or _certifications_.
• screye 8y ago
  That would be great. I've seen too many people coast off of prestigious degrees, while other hardworking people struggle because they do not have the same access to quality education. Note, that OP isn't suggesting that the educational process be centralized. Just the funding. Unlike K-12 public schools, universities will still maintain full autonomy on how they want to go about teaching or structuring curriculum. European countries offer free education, and their quality is still great.