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That’s where I can see the efficiency of free education. I live in France and I come from about the median class. I didn’t struggle in my education. But while

by pjerem 5y ago

That’s where I can see the efficiency of free education. I live in France and I come from about the median class. I didn’t struggle in my education. But while I was a student, I saw quite a lot of people, who came from poor family being able to catch the opportunity to leave this poverty. Of course they still struggled more than me to pay their day to day expenses while I had the chance to be backed by my parents. Some of them have a better situation than me. Of course, the fact that I was surrounded by tech students probably is an important variable. But I saw it happening outside of this circle too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s far from enough, and there is still a lot of people abandoning studies because of money issues in France and we should fix that. But managing to get through your studies to your first job with zero, or some manageable debt, is the way to leave poverty.

nivenkos 5y ago
I agree, but housing is the real kicker in Europe. Lower wages and higher taxes on working people (income and sales tax are way higher than property, inheritance and capital gains taxes (if they even exist!)) make it almost impossible to save up a reasonable deposit. Meanwhile house prices have gone to the moon. 30% rise in Stockholm in the last year alone for example, a 100+% rise in most of southern England since 2008, etc. So you're stuck renting, and paying more for less, with no hope of building up savings for retirement (the state pension won't exist for us!).
- nerdponx 5y ago
  At least you get social services. In the USA you don't, and you still can't afford a house anything like what you grew up in.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Well, that's what you get for using income taxes to improve the value of privately owned land.
dijit 5y ago
This is a harder problem than just "Free Education". I grew up in the UK (in "deprived" areas, to a single parent with no income other than jobseekers allowance and some childcare from the state) and I can formerly attest that my "free education" was atrocious. I am not sure if there was a negative feedback loop involved: School funding was determined by efficacy. How do you measure efficacy of a school? Well, test results... which people from this kind of background will not have good ones. Another issue that perhaps is not thought much about is that 'Homework' for impoverished people is very difficult, in my case I didn't have a place to actually sit and work (no dining table, we ate on our laps). But Homework is a necessary part of education. Add to the fact that socio-economic factors do filter into the school; things like gangs and in-groups. Worried about gangs and gang colours: uniform Uniforms cost money. Money people don't have. By the time you get to the age where you're allowed to work (or go to university)- you take what you can get to get out of poverty; which is not going to be further education. In my experience school is a temporary prison for children so that their parents can go to work, I definitely didn't learn the things I know from school. I learned them from my mum and school regurgitated them at me ad infinitum in a boring classroom in a small building surrounded by prison bars. I do not miss free school. I strongly resent that it was ever forced on me.
- ben_w 5y ago
  I'm also from the UK, and I was lucky enough that my parents used a cunning trick to get me into a good school[0], I'd like to add that even when the school is good, the expectations people have for you can make a huge difference. I am terrible at the French language. I could never get the verb conjugations into my head, and trying to do that is one of only three memories I have of the entire learning experience from Year 7 to the start of the exams. Somehow I managed to end up in the top class for everything, including French. I found it really stressful and asked to be moved down to the middle group, and the teachers agreed — but as soon as I did, I found nobody, students certainly and it felt like also the teacher, was even trying in the middle group. While it stopped me being stressed, I ended up with a GCSE grade D in French, my joint-worst with R.E. (guess who wondered into the New Age section of Waterstones and decided Wicca was a lot more interesting than the Bible, while still a student in a Catholic school with mandatory Mass attendance and R.E. lessons). For university I went to Aberystwyth[1]; I never even considered applying to Oxford or Cambridge, because Oxbridge is the best-of-the-best. When I graduated and got a job which happened to be in Cambridge, all my new friends assumed I was a fellow Cam grad, and I rapidly developed a regret I hadn't even tried to get in[2]. I might still have failed if I had tried, but I didn’t even try. I enjoyed learning German at school for the one year I was allowed to (hence moving to Berlin a few years ago), and like your general resentment, I resented having French GCSE forced on me when I sucked so much at it. And the R.E. lessons, too. [0] A Catholic baptism because the best local school was Catholic. [1] Owing to a misunderstanding, a friend said they had a lot of fun there when they were a student, but it turned out they were talking about the town and visiting friends as their university was a completely different one. [2] Thanks to a convoluted series of events, I can technically say I studied in Cambridge university as part of my degree; but this is because my industrial year job sent me on a training course in the William Gates building. This is also how I was in New Hall despite my beard and it being a women-only hall.
thatfrenchguy 5y ago
There is a sample bias: you only see the poor people that made it to university, not the ones that didn’t (also went to uni in France). You also don’t see a lot of lower/middle class folks in prestigious schools in France.
smrr723 5y ago
> Of course they still struggled more than me to pay their day to day expenses while I had the chance to be backed by my parents. As others mention, this is why free education should provide everything that the children need to be able to take advantage of said free education. I know many folk who went through the UK's free education whilst their parents struggled to even ensure they had breakfast, or lunch money. What does that do to a child's ability to concentrate and perform well in class? The same goes for school uniforms - I remember a few who I went to school with couldn't afford the schools own brand of uniform and would just wear the closest matching unbranded clothes their parents could find - and would often get made fun of for it. IMO - free education should include a healthy breakfast and lunch to ensure everyone is given the best chance to succeed. (The definition of healthy in the UK is another issue - our school meals growing up included some of the cheapest food available like chips, pies, sausage rolls). I'm a fan of how Finland have tackled this issue by making private schools effectively illegal - so that all schools have the same level of funding. A nice side effect, or I guess perhaps the intended effect is that if wealthy parents are having to put their children to the same schools as working class kids - then they're going to do their best to ensure these schools are up to standard. Everyone benefits. This video gives a bit of a glimpse into the Finnish school system - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCe2m0kiSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCe2m0kiSg

by pjerem 5y ago

nivenkos 5y ago

I agree, but housing is the real kicker in Europe. Lower wages and higher taxes on working people (income and sales tax are way higher than property, inheritance and capital gains taxes (if they even exist!)) make it almost impossible to save up a reasonable deposit. Meanwhile house prices have gone to the moon. 30% rise in Stockholm in the last year alone for example, a 100+% rise in most of southern England since 2008, etc. So you're stuck renting, and paying more for less, with no hope of building up savings for retirement (the state pension won't exist for us!).

nerdponx 5y ago
At least you get social services. In the USA you don't, and you still can't afford a house anything like what you grew up in.
imtringued 5y ago
Well, that's what you get for using income taxes to improve the value of privately owned land.

dijit 5y ago

This is a harder problem than just "Free Education". I grew up in the UK (in "deprived" areas, to a single parent with no income other than jobseekers allowance and some childcare from the state) and I can formerly attest that my "free education" was atrocious. I am not sure if there was a negative feedback loop involved: School funding was determined by efficacy. How do you measure efficacy of a school? Well, test results... which people from this kind of background will not have good ones. Another issue that perhaps is not thought much about is that 'Homework' for impoverished people is very difficult, in my case I didn't have a place to actually sit and work (no dining table, we ate on our laps). But Homework is a necessary part of education. Add to the fact that socio-economic factors do filter into the school; things like gangs and in-groups. Worried about gangs and gang colours: uniform Uniforms cost money. Money people don't have. By the time you get to the age where you're allowed to work (or go to university)- you take what you can get to get out of poverty; which is not going to be further education. In my experience school is a temporary prison for children so that their parents can go to work, I definitely didn't learn the things I know from school. I learned them from my mum and school regurgitated them at me ad infinitum in a boring classroom in a small building surrounded by prison bars. I do not miss free school. I strongly resent that it was ever forced on me.

ben_w 5y ago
I'm also from the UK, and I was lucky enough that my parents used a cunning trick to get me into a good school[0], I'd like to add that even when the school is good, the expectations people have for you can make a huge difference. I am terrible at the French language. I could never get the verb conjugations into my head, and trying to do that is one of only three memories I have of the entire learning experience from Year 7 to the start of the exams. Somehow I managed to end up in the top class for everything, including French. I found it really stressful and asked to be moved down to the middle group, and the teachers agreed — but as soon as I did, I found nobody, students certainly and it felt like also the teacher, was even trying in the middle group. While it stopped me being stressed, I ended up with a GCSE grade D in French, my joint-worst with R.E. (guess who wondered into the New Age section of Waterstones and decided Wicca was a lot more interesting than the Bible, while still a student in a Catholic school with mandatory Mass attendance and R.E. lessons). For university I went to Aberystwyth[1]; I never even considered applying to Oxford or Cambridge, because Oxbridge is the best-of-the-best. When I graduated and got a job which happened to be in Cambridge, all my new friends assumed I was a fellow Cam grad, and I rapidly developed a regret I hadn't even tried to get in[2]. I might still have failed if I had tried, but I didn’t even try. I enjoyed learning German at school for the one year I was allowed to (hence moving to Berlin a few years ago), and like your general resentment, I resented having French GCSE forced on me when I sucked so much at it. And the R.E. lessons, too. [0] A Catholic baptism because the best local school was Catholic. [1] Owing to a misunderstanding, a friend said they had a lot of fun there when they were a student, but it turned out they were talking about the town and visiting friends as their university was a completely different one. [2] Thanks to a convoluted series of events, I can technically say I studied in Cambridge university as part of my degree; but this is because my industrial year job sent me on a training course in the William Gates building. This is also how I was in New Hall despite my beard and it being a women-only hall.

thatfrenchguy 5y ago

There is a sample bias: you only see the poor people that made it to university, not the ones that didn’t (also went to uni in France). You also don’t see a lot of lower/middle class folks in prestigious schools in France.

smrr723 5y ago

> Of course they still struggled more than me to pay their day to day expenses while I had the chance to be backed by my parents. As others mention, this is why free education should provide everything that the children need to be able to take advantage of said free education. I know many folk who went through the UK's free education whilst their parents struggled to even ensure they had breakfast, or lunch money. What does that do to a child's ability to concentrate and perform well in class? The same goes for school uniforms - I remember a few who I went to school with couldn't afford the schools own brand of uniform and would just wear the closest matching unbranded clothes their parents could find - and would often get made fun of for it. IMO - free education should include a healthy breakfast and lunch to ensure everyone is given the best chance to succeed. (The definition of healthy in the UK is another issue - our school meals growing up included some of the cheapest food available like chips, pies, sausage rolls). I'm a fan of how Finland have tackled this issue by making private schools effectively illegal - so that all schools have the same level of funding. A nice side effect, or I guess perhaps the intended effect is that if wealthy parents are having to put their children to the same schools as working class kids - then they're going to do their best to ensure these schools are up to standard. Everyone benefits. This video gives a bit of a glimpse into the Finnish school system - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCe2m0kiSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCe2m0kiSg