5 ms·

First off you just stated that 63% of the US population 25-34 is either illiterate or non consceintious, so, yikes. Secondly, I'd love to see some real data on

First off you just stated that 63% of the US population 25-34 is either illiterate or non consceintious, so, yikes. Secondly, I'd love to see some real data on college as a misallocation of resources. Everything ive seen would suggest the opposite. The "college experience" is kinda the height of a true free market place for ideas and people leave better for it. The government should be funding more for education, not cutting people off from it.

isoskeles 7y ago
Maybe you went to a great college. I went to a large state school, and the "college experience" there was not at all like you described it. At best, it could be close to that if you chose the right major and friends. But the majority experience seemed closer to binge drinking, cheating on homework assignments, and wasting time in class by asking the professor if X was going to be on the test. College is absolutely just a continuation of high school for most people, and I'm afraid it's going to become even worse as the demands for free college get louder.
- lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
  I also went to a large state school (although to be fair, one that's fairly highly rated for STEM). Access to people, both socially and academically, access to information, access to opportunity (I did not get a degree in CS yet here I am making piles of cash in this field) all increase with the resources available at uni. Asking a high school student, especially one that likely grew up in a small town with limited exposure to people careers, and ideas, to go into an uncaring workforce essentially unable to pivot for the rest of their lives sounds heartbreaking. I strongly believe that my opportunity should be available to every person. As a side bar I think this probably should start way earlier than college; more well run state boarding schools would be a huge life line to high performing students stifled by their geography.
rayiner 7y ago
I went to an excellent college, and I don’t think public money should be spent on “the college experience.” It’s not like American college graduates are leaving well versed in the works of Aristotle. We’re talking about spending tax dollars subsidizing what is mostly drinking/sex/video games/partying, with someone occasionally picking up a shallow idea.
- lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
  i know you're just being needlessly flippant, but, givenmost hs curriculum don't cover classical philosophy how is a student supposed to know they're interested in the field if not exposed to it during higher education ( i know I personally got into Foucault during conversations I had with classmates after snubbing the field like many an edgy teen). Plenty of people meet their co-founders, find their passion, pivot their lives entirely during the time; even if the only activities a student takes are "drinking/sex/video games/partying" they're probably out making connections that end up serving them pretty well interms of employment/relationships. Restricting access just so some group youve determined "doesn't deserve it" is elitist to the extreme. I'd much rather have 5% ( or more)of my income go to funding state run education rather than subsidizing my extracurriculars (which ironically are way more drinking/sex/video games/partying than I ever had time for in college).
  - rayiner 7y ago
    I’m not being flippant. I don’t think college is valuable for most people, and the “four year vacation for already privileged kids” isn’t something I want to see public money being spent on. As to being elitist: subsidizing college is a handout to people who are already pretty well off. The people who need help the most aren’t going to college. I’d very much like to see colleges defunded and that money redirected to social services for kids in high-need communities.
    - lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
      It's not a 0 sum game; it's very possible to have subsided education and meaningful social services; hell you can even deliver on economies of scale and do both academic out reach run by the local school with the intention of preparing applications from high-need communities. In today's system if you can afford university with no debt you're very well off and it's probably a wash since the funds are coming largely out of your taxes (ie just about everyone that works in US tech and comments on this forum). The biggest winners are middle class families that can prepare their children for college but can't pay for it; but again, helping one group doesn't mean that it's no longer possible to help another group. I can't see how restricting higher education back to the days when the hyper rich gathered to circle jerk about how much of the classics they've memorized helps in anyway (other than give all of us already educated in the workforce a lovely gate against the next generation).
triceratops 7y ago
> The government should be funding more for education, not cutting people off from it. College costs an insane amount of money in the States. I'm not sure more money is the answer. The government should be pushing ways to make it cheaper. Ceasing to guarantee public student loans and making private debt more easily dischargeable in bankruptcy would be a great start. Turn off the money firehose and colleges will return to their core competencies - teaching and research - instead of building football stadiums, basketball arenas, and doing other stuff that's irrelevant to a good education. They may also differentiate by having tuition prices better reflect costs and future job prospects. So for example art, writing, polisci, history degrees may cost way less than engineering, science or medical degrees. Making community-college-to-state-college transfers easier would be another thing to try. Basically there are many things one could do to expand access to college, and leave students better off, without spending more tax money.
- AngryData 7y ago
  To me the solution is simple, make college debt dischargable through bankruptcy. The only people who are actually going to declare bankruptcy are people who aren't and can't pay for their loans in the first place. It isn't just a simple reset button like people pretend, declaring bankruptcy has a serious repercussions, but at the end of it all they will end up in a better position and will contribute far more to the economy than they will stuck in a poverty trap.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

isoskeles 7y ago

Maybe you went to a great college. I went to a large state school, and the "college experience" there was not at all like you described it. At best, it could be close to that if you chose the right major and friends. But the majority experience seemed closer to binge drinking, cheating on homework assignments, and wasting time in class by asking the professor if X was going to be on the test. College is absolutely just a continuation of high school for most people, and I'm afraid it's going to become even worse as the demands for free college get louder.

lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
I also went to a large state school (although to be fair, one that's fairly highly rated for STEM). Access to people, both socially and academically, access to information, access to opportunity (I did not get a degree in CS yet here I am making piles of cash in this field) all increase with the resources available at uni. Asking a high school student, especially one that likely grew up in a small town with limited exposure to people careers, and ideas, to go into an uncaring workforce essentially unable to pivot for the rest of their lives sounds heartbreaking. I strongly believe that my opportunity should be available to every person. As a side bar I think this probably should start way earlier than college; more well run state boarding schools would be a huge life line to high performing students stifled by their geography.

rayiner 7y ago

I went to an excellent college, and I don’t think public money should be spent on “the college experience.” It’s not like American college graduates are leaving well versed in the works of Aristotle. We’re talking about spending tax dollars subsidizing what is mostly drinking/sex/video games/partying, with someone occasionally picking up a shallow idea.

lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
i know you're just being needlessly flippant, but, givenmost hs curriculum don't cover classical philosophy how is a student supposed to know they're interested in the field if not exposed to it during higher education ( i know I personally got into Foucault during conversations I had with classmates after snubbing the field like many an edgy teen). Plenty of people meet their co-founders, find their passion, pivot their lives entirely during the time; even if the only activities a student takes are "drinking/sex/video games/partying" they're probably out making connections that end up serving them pretty well interms of employment/relationships. Restricting access just so some group youve determined "doesn't deserve it" is elitist to the extreme. I'd much rather have 5% ( or more)of my income go to funding state run education rather than subsidizing my extracurriculars (which ironically are way more drinking/sex/video games/partying than I ever had time for in college).
- rayiner 7y ago
  I’m not being flippant. I don’t think college is valuable for most people, and the “four year vacation for already privileged kids” isn’t something I want to see public money being spent on. As to being elitist: subsidizing college is a handout to people who are already pretty well off. The people who need help the most aren’t going to college. I’d very much like to see colleges defunded and that money redirected to social services for kids in high-need communities.
  - lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
    It's not a 0 sum game; it's very possible to have subsided education and meaningful social services; hell you can even deliver on economies of scale and do both academic out reach run by the local school with the intention of preparing applications from high-need communities. In today's system if you can afford university with no debt you're very well off and it's probably a wash since the funds are coming largely out of your taxes (ie just about everyone that works in US tech and comments on this forum). The biggest winners are middle class families that can prepare their children for college but can't pay for it; but again, helping one group doesn't mean that it's no longer possible to help another group. I can't see how restricting higher education back to the days when the hyper rich gathered to circle jerk about how much of the classics they've memorized helps in anyway (other than give all of us already educated in the workforce a lovely gate against the next generation).

triceratops 7y ago

> The government should be funding more for education, not cutting people off from it. College costs an insane amount of money in the States. I'm not sure more money is the answer. The government should be pushing ways to make it cheaper. Ceasing to guarantee public student loans and making private debt more easily dischargeable in bankruptcy would be a great start. Turn off the money firehose and colleges will return to their core competencies - teaching and research - instead of building football stadiums, basketball arenas, and doing other stuff that's irrelevant to a good education. They may also differentiate by having tuition prices better reflect costs and future job prospects. So for example art, writing, polisci, history degrees may cost way less than engineering, science or medical degrees. Making community-college-to-state-college transfers easier would be another thing to try. Basically there are many things one could do to expand access to college, and leave students better off, without spending more tax money.

AngryData 7y ago
To me the solution is simple, make college debt dischargable through bankruptcy. The only people who are actually going to declare bankruptcy are people who aren't and can't pay for their loans in the first place. It isn't just a simple reset button like people pretend, declaring bankruptcy has a serious repercussions, but at the end of it all they will end up in a better position and will contribute far more to the economy than they will stuck in a poverty trap.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]