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This is the main thrust of the conservative argument against free higher education. It just lets universities continue tricking the smartest of our students int
by merpnderp 5y ago
This is the main thrust of the conservative argument against free higher education. It just lets universities continue tricking the smartest of our students into picking career fields with zero room for new participants, only instead of wasting their potential and burying them in debt, they merely waste their potential while sticking tax payers with the debt.
- thenoblesunfish 5y agoOne should be careful when making this argument to distinguish between niche "higher education" like the history PhDs under discussion here (things which people do because they have an overwhelming passion for the "pure" subject and/or for teaching it) and the broader "higher education" which most people pursue (degrees which lower barriers to careers). The post here suggests on the order of 1200 people a year getting history PhDs in the U.S. - multiply that by a few dozen other esoteric fields and that's still not much compared to the millions of people who want to get "higher education" of some kind each year in the U.S.
- merpnderp 5y agoGood point. A free education in most fields might likely be a net gain for society, even if it was troublesome from a justice point of view.
- dfxm12 5y agoI'm having a hard time finding a politician, a mainstream politician at least, putting forth a higher education platform that explicitly includes a free PhD. With that in mind, who are the conservatives arguing against?