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But the problem is how do you have someone with no assets get access to capital to allow them to build a better life? One approach is free education of course,

But the problem is how do you have someone with no assets get access to capital to allow them to build a better life? One approach is free education of course, but I think the context here is to make it work within a free market system.

finnthehuman 6y ago
>But the problem is how do you have someone with no assets get access to capital to allow them to build a better life? Reduce the cost of building a better life. If lenders don't want to make non-guarenteed student loans, then the schools will have to figure out how to lower prices or deal with sharply declining demand. The ballooning administrative overhead at American universities is a well known phenomenon. Guaranteed student loans means there is little downward pressure on it.
ggoss 6y ago
At least for public universities, how about sidestepping the lenders entirely, and replacinh tuition with payment of a fixed percent (say 20%) of 10-year post-graduation income? Aside from the effects that wealth can have on early education (which can't really be dealt with effectively so late in the education process anyways), this would eliminate wealth as a barrier to higher education or to continuity of higher education, and protect students from both predatory lenders and misleading marketing by universities. This would also incentivize colleges to invest more heavily into the aspects of education that actually contribute to career success (e.g. practical skills over fancier stadiums) and to rebalance the number of degrees they offer in each field to what is actually valued by society. For example, if they graduate too many people with degrees in communication, and only half get jobs and pay for the education, then maybe they offered too many communication degrees. Likewise, if every mechanical engineer graduated paid highly for their educations in the 10 years post graduation, they should consider offering more of those degrees. Interestingly, this would incentivize high-value education without any more information than level-of-payment; if, for some unknown reason, all of a university's 'basket weaving' graduates make tens of millions after graduation, then you don't need to know how they made so much money to know that you did something right in how you educated them.

finnthehuman 6y ago

>But the problem is how do you have someone with no assets get access to capital to allow them to build a better life? Reduce the cost of building a better life. If lenders don't want to make non-guarenteed student loans, then the schools will have to figure out how to lower prices or deal with sharply declining demand. The ballooning administrative overhead at American universities is a well known phenomenon. Guaranteed student loans means there is little downward pressure on it.

ggoss 6y ago

At least for public universities, how about sidestepping the lenders entirely, and replacinh tuition with payment of a fixed percent (say 20%) of 10-year post-graduation income? Aside from the effects that wealth can have on early education (which can't really be dealt with effectively so late in the education process anyways), this would eliminate wealth as a barrier to higher education or to continuity of higher education, and protect students from both predatory lenders and misleading marketing by universities. This would also incentivize colleges to invest more heavily into the aspects of education that actually contribute to career success (e.g. practical skills over fancier stadiums) and to rebalance the number of degrees they offer in each field to what is actually valued by society. For example, if they graduate too many people with degrees in communication, and only half get jobs and pay for the education, then maybe they offered too many communication degrees. Likewise, if every mechanical engineer graduated paid highly for their educations in the 10 years post graduation, they should consider offering more of those degrees. Interestingly, this would incentivize high-value education without any more information than level-of-payment; if, for some unknown reason, all of a university's 'basket weaving' graduates make tens of millions after graduation, then you don't need to know how they made so much money to know that you did something right in how you educated them.