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Sure there is, and that reason is a well rounded, robust society. Plenty of nations fund higher education as a basic investment in the quality of their future

Sure there is, and that reason is a well rounded, robust society. Plenty of nations fund higher education as a basic investment in the quality of their future people.

onecommentman 6y ago
What is missing is data to support that, perhaps reasonable, assumption. Objective data not provided by those who stand to benefit from a positive result. Data that objectively identifies how that benefit is accrued and at what amount. The kind of data that guided the development of every major industrial and service sector over the last 50 to 100 years and is inexplicably lacking in higher education.
- ddingus 6y ago
  This goes well beyond industry and service.
pdonis 6y ago
> that reason is a well rounded, robust society That goal is not achieved by subsidizing college education in which students get to pick whatever major they want and have only a smattering of courses outside their major. According to the people who structured the US public education system, secondary school (middle school and high school) was supposed to serve this goal, not college. And the US does provide free secondary education to all, in which the basic curriculum is dictated by the government and, while students do have some choice in what courses to take, their choices are much more limited than in college and they are unavoidably exposed to a much wider variety of subject matter.
- ddingus 6y ago
  Sure it is. Plenty of nations understand the value of college education and they don't make people go into massive debt for it.
  - hnlurker 6y ago
    Name the countries that fit this description that don't also have strict entrance criteria? Criteria that also nearly invariably come with severe caps on the number of students that can enroll in those curriculae. Want to "follow your passion" and become a trained lesbian dance theorist? Sorry, we're all full up on that.. As much as I hate the idea of free college, I for one would happily trade our American model for those European ones. We'd all be better off with fewer college graduates (or even worse, drop outs) in general, and from non-STEM fields in particular.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Plenty of nations understand the value of college education It doesn't seem like many of them value it more than the US, and none value it all that much more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... In the US, 44 percent of people age 25-64 have a college degree; only 6 countries have a higher percentage and the highest is Canada at 54 percent, which isn't that much higher. > they don't make people go into massive debt for it It is true that many other countries have free college education; however, as shown by the numbers above, this does not seem to have resulted in a larger fraction of their people getting college degrees.
    - ddingus 6y ago
      Perhaps the numbers suggest a society with lower personal cost and risk exposure presents less incentive to get higher education. The more important discussion is how massive debt dilutes a lot of the value in the education. That debt is unnecessary.

Sure there is, and that reason is a well rounded, robust society. Plenty of nations fund higher education as a basic investment in the quality of their future people.

onecommentman 6y ago

What is missing is data to support that, perhaps reasonable, assumption. Objective data not provided by those who stand to benefit from a positive result. Data that objectively identifies how that benefit is accrued and at what amount. The kind of data that guided the development of every major industrial and service sector over the last 50 to 100 years and is inexplicably lacking in higher education.

ddingus 6y ago
This goes well beyond industry and service.

pdonis 6y ago

> that reason is a well rounded, robust society That goal is not achieved by subsidizing college education in which students get to pick whatever major they want and have only a smattering of courses outside their major. According to the people who structured the US public education system, secondary school (middle school and high school) was supposed to serve this goal, not college. And the US does provide free secondary education to all, in which the basic curriculum is dictated by the government and, while students do have some choice in what courses to take, their choices are much more limited than in college and they are unavoidably exposed to a much wider variety of subject matter.

ddingus 6y ago
Sure it is. Plenty of nations understand the value of college education and they don't make people go into massive debt for it.
- hnlurker 6y ago
  Name the countries that fit this description that don't also have strict entrance criteria? Criteria that also nearly invariably come with severe caps on the number of students that can enroll in those curriculae. Want to "follow your passion" and become a trained lesbian dance theorist? Sorry, we're all full up on that.. As much as I hate the idea of free college, I for one would happily trade our American model for those European ones. We'd all be better off with fewer college graduates (or even worse, drop outs) in general, and from non-STEM fields in particular.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Plenty of nations understand the value of college education It doesn't seem like many of them value it more than the US, and none value it all that much more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... In the US, 44 percent of people age 25-64 have a college degree; only 6 countries have a higher percentage and the highest is Canada at 54 percent, which isn't that much higher. > they don't make people go into massive debt for it It is true that many other countries have free college education; however, as shown by the numbers above, this does not seem to have resulted in a larger fraction of their people getting college degrees.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    Perhaps the numbers suggest a society with lower personal cost and risk exposure presents less incentive to get higher education. The more important discussion is how massive debt dilutes a lot of the value in the education. That debt is unnecessary.