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I'm not sure; it depends on the specifics of the proposal, and especially on what happens to student loan debt which does not exist yet, and like you say, how p

I'm not sure; it depends on the specifics of the proposal, and especially on what happens to student loan debt which does not exist yet, and like you say, how public universities charge the government once education is made free. I agree that whether it's a good idea depends on that answer. I'm rejecting a stronger statement you made, about how any government program is suspect "given you have to pay for it". In the cases of education and healthcare, it seems to me that there has been a decrease of governmental involvement (compared to other nations, if you like, or even internally to our own nation in the case where bankruptcy discharge became disallowed) that should not have happened, and that decrease is costing dramatic amounts of money. You can't tell whether a policy is a good idea just based on whether it expands or contracts the role of government. We can be suspicious of government under-involvement too.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Re your second and third paragraphs: Not all government programs are suspect because you have to pay for them. When the main selling point is that it's free, though... that may be time to look at it a bit more cynically, remembering that it's not free. Which doesn't make it a bad idea, necessarily. But it means that those selling it need a better reason for us to buy it than "it's free". Back to fixing the education more-cost-less-results spiral. I agree that what this proposal will do will depend on the specifics. But this proposal, if it helps, probably will do so only accidentally, because it doesn't seem to be attempting to do any such thing. It's trying to address the cost to students, and that's all. To address the overall cost problem, it has to do something to incentivize universities to be more efficient at delivering education to students. If it was something like "If you've got an e-learning way to get to a full diploma, we'll pay you (the university) enough that you should be making decent money at it, and we'll give the student a computer and broadband if they don't have it", that would incentivize the university to have such a program, because money. And it could scale easier than in-person, if implemented well. Even better, you could now have competition between universities based on quality of instruction vs. odds of passing. I'm sure there are holes in that approach, but I think it's at least somewhat in the right direction...

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

Re your second and third paragraphs: Not all government programs are suspect because you have to pay for them. When the main selling point is that it's free, though... that may be time to look at it a bit more cynically, remembering that it's not free. Which doesn't make it a bad idea, necessarily. But it means that those selling it need a better reason for us to buy it than "it's free". Back to fixing the education more-cost-less-results spiral. I agree that what this proposal will do will depend on the specifics. But this proposal, if it helps, probably will do so only accidentally, because it doesn't seem to be attempting to do any such thing. It's trying to address the cost to students, and that's all. To address the overall cost problem, it has to do something to incentivize universities to be more efficient at delivering education to students. If it was something like "If you've got an e-learning way to get to a full diploma, we'll pay you (the university) enough that you should be making decent money at it, and we'll give the student a computer and broadband if they don't have it", that would incentivize the university to have such a program, because money. And it could scale easier than in-person, if implemented well. Even better, you could now have competition between universities based on quality of instruction vs. odds of passing. I'm sure there are holes in that approach, but I think it's at least somewhat in the right direction...