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The amount of labor required for an individual to attend even a community college has increased more than 5-fold. This is for basic tuition at a no-name univers

The amount of labor required for an individual to attend even a community college has increased more than 5-fold. This is for basic tuition at a no-name university, obviously the numbers are far worse for ivy league. You can slice that in terms of markets demanding more, costs going up, administration bloat or whatever else how you like but the fact of the matter is, when a college education is more critical than ever for many fields, it costs five times what it used to, optimistically. If we want college grads able to leave school and not be saddled with debt for the remainder of their lives, make college free. I'm not interested in hearing about how someone might dare learn something that isn't inherently profitable; I reject the assertion that just because something cannot be successfully monetized does not automatically make it worthless. Art, culture, history, all of these are more valuable to society at large than the highest valued startup. End of. Argue it.

defen 7y ago
> This is for basic tuition at a no-name university, obviously the numbers are far worse for ivy league. It's worse, but opposite of the way you're thinking. Harvard/Yale/Princeton are basically free if your parents make less than about $65,000 per year. So, a smart ambitious kid with non-rich parents can graduate from a top school with an extremely strong network and have no debt. But an "average" kid with non-rich parents will have to work a side job or two, and graduate with substantial debt, all for a not particularly useful degree.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  > So, a smart ambitious kid with non-rich parents can graduate from a top school with an extremely strong network and have no debt. Or the kid could win the lottery, with effectively the same odds of success. That does not make this a good system.
  - defen 7y ago
    I'm not saying it's a good system, but we've effectively ended up in a situation where some of the kids least in need of a leg up end up getting a huge boost, and the ones who need more help get nothing.
    - FussyZeus 7y ago
      Except this argument is an offshoot of a problem caused by a greater fault. To take this in a programming metaphor, you're attempting to make an unmaintained, old library work with new code, when there are perfectly good alternatives available with better functionality and support, and good use cases. Instead of band-aiding the bad solution, throw it out. Get a better one.

defen 7y ago

> This is for basic tuition at a no-name university, obviously the numbers are far worse for ivy league. It's worse, but opposite of the way you're thinking. Harvard/Yale/Princeton are basically free if your parents make less than about $65,000 per year. So, a smart ambitious kid with non-rich parents can graduate from a top school with an extremely strong network and have no debt. But an "average" kid with non-rich parents will have to work a side job or two, and graduate with substantial debt, all for a not particularly useful degree.

FussyZeus 7y ago
> So, a smart ambitious kid with non-rich parents can graduate from a top school with an extremely strong network and have no debt. Or the kid could win the lottery, with effectively the same odds of success. That does not make this a good system.
- defen 7y ago
  I'm not saying it's a good system, but we've effectively ended up in a situation where some of the kids least in need of a leg up end up getting a huge boost, and the ones who need more help get nothing.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    Except this argument is an offshoot of a problem caused by a greater fault. To take this in a programming metaphor, you're attempting to make an unmaintained, old library work with new code, when there are perfectly good alternatives available with better functionality and support, and good use cases. Instead of band-aiding the bad solution, throw it out. Get a better one.