5 ms·

Every free college country sends less of their people through college than the US. Is that the outcome we want? Fewer educated?

elashri 4y ago
Do you mean per-capita or over all? Because a very few countries with a bigger number of populations than US have free-education. If the former, can you provide a data source?
- revelio 4y ago
  They mean per capita. Countries with very cheap or free university allow very few people to go on such terms, relative to the size of the population.
  - jpgvm 4y ago
    Yes but they also generally don't offer bullshit degrees that people obtain and then end up working at McDonalds. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium all come to mind as countries with free or near-free education that while they don't graduate the same % of their population through tertiary eduction it's not for lack of available opportunity but rather many people choose not to pursue tertiary eduction. This is actually a good thing because they are often choosing alternatives like vocational education that is more suited to their career choices. Baristas with university degrees is the outcome of pushing everyone to get a degree and is common place in both the US, Canada and Australia as a result as all 3 have this same notion that you need a degree to get a job. Atleast in Australia and Canada you don't also get saddled with crippling debt.
    - revelio 4y ago
      Sure. I'm not saying their approach is bad or wrong, I'm supportive of it. I'm just observing that it results in far fewer people getting degrees. Agreed that this may be for the best.
      - jpgvm 4y ago
        I see, that wasn't how I interpreted what you originally wrote but yes, fewer people with degrees but seemingly better outcome.
throwaway71271 4y ago
looking at how things are going, why would you want more educated people?
- timcavel 4y ago
  [dead]
leoedin 4y ago
Maybe? The idea that "more formal education is better" is kind of silly when you dig into it. What value does it give society to have a huge percentage of people spend some of their most important years learning things which are completely perpendicular to whatever career they might do? Education at this point feels like exploitation. We tell people that they can achieve greatness, they just have to pay huge amounts to a college to be educated, when the truth is that most of the value of college is networking and status signalling, and the value of those is pretty much directly related to how prestigious the institution is. Yes, we should set up a system that allows all people, whatever their background, to pursue a liberal arts education if they're passionate about it. But a system that makes a pretty useless and very expensive degree a barrier for entry for completely unrelated jobs is just exploitative.
- SideQuark 4y ago
  > Maybe? The idea that "more formal education is better" is kind of silly when you dig into it If you believe that is true, then why would a country want to pay for it? After all, the world isn't limited to your strawmen. The reason it's valuable to countries the world over, why so many want to pay for it, and why most all of them provide some level of public paid education, is it demonstrably results in a population that ends up with a higher standard of living. Dont believe it? Simply check Google scholar.
yakubin 4y ago
Lithuania and Poland say hello: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...>
- SideQuark 4y ago
  That's 2014 data. Here's 2022 Poland data. https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-education.htm https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-educat... Lithuania doesn't have free college https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-free-college https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
  - yakubin 4y ago
    > Lithuania doesn't have free college My bad. I assumed free college is standard in that region.
kahirsch 4y ago
> Every free college country sends less of their people through college than the US. That used to be true.
ElFitz 4y ago
> Every free college country sends less of their people through college than the US. Really? Says who? Because the OECD certainly doesn’t seem to think there’s any significant difference. https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-education.htm https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-educat... https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/adult-education-level.htm https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/adult-education-level.htm
- SideQuark 4y ago
  From your data, median and mean among OECD with state paid tertiary education is 42% and 43%. US is 51.2%. So the mean and median is around 20% less people with tertiary educations. When you say no significant difference, what is your threshold? 50% less people educated? 20% is a huge difference.
  - ElFitz 4y ago
    Yes, but most countries in general have lower tertiary education rates. If I too were to play the data cherry picking game, I could point out that Norway is at 55%. How does that prove anything? It just disproves your unfounded assertion: > Every free college country sends less of their people through college than the US I really fail to see how any of this proves any causality between free college and lower or higher education rates. But it seems you enjoy shifting goalposts, so perhaps we should end it here?

elashri 4y ago

Do you mean per-capita or over all? Because a very few countries with a bigger number of populations than US have free-education. If the former, can you provide a data source?

revelio 4y ago
They mean per capita. Countries with very cheap or free university allow very few people to go on such terms, relative to the size of the population.
- jpgvm 4y ago
  Yes but they also generally don't offer bullshit degrees that people obtain and then end up working at McDonalds. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium all come to mind as countries with free or near-free education that while they don't graduate the same % of their population through tertiary eduction it's not for lack of available opportunity but rather many people choose not to pursue tertiary eduction. This is actually a good thing because they are often choosing alternatives like vocational education that is more suited to their career choices. Baristas with university degrees is the outcome of pushing everyone to get a degree and is common place in both the US, Canada and Australia as a result as all 3 have this same notion that you need a degree to get a job. Atleast in Australia and Canada you don't also get saddled with crippling debt.
  - revelio 4y ago
    Sure. I'm not saying their approach is bad or wrong, I'm supportive of it. I'm just observing that it results in far fewer people getting degrees. Agreed that this may be for the best.
    - jpgvm 4y ago
      I see, that wasn't how I interpreted what you originally wrote but yes, fewer people with degrees but seemingly better outcome.

throwaway71271 4y ago

looking at how things are going, why would you want more educated people?

timcavel 4y ago
[dead]

leoedin 4y ago

Maybe? The idea that "more formal education is better" is kind of silly when you dig into it. What value does it give society to have a huge percentage of people spend some of their most important years learning things which are completely perpendicular to whatever career they might do? Education at this point feels like exploitation. We tell people that they can achieve greatness, they just have to pay huge amounts to a college to be educated, when the truth is that most of the value of college is networking and status signalling, and the value of those is pretty much directly related to how prestigious the institution is. Yes, we should set up a system that allows all people, whatever their background, to pursue a liberal arts education if they're passionate about it. But a system that makes a pretty useless and very expensive degree a barrier for entry for completely unrelated jobs is just exploitative.

SideQuark 4y ago
> Maybe? The idea that "more formal education is better" is kind of silly when you dig into it If you believe that is true, then why would a country want to pay for it? After all, the world isn't limited to your strawmen. The reason it's valuable to countries the world over, why so many want to pay for it, and why most all of them provide some level of public paid education, is it demonstrably results in a population that ends up with a higher standard of living. Dont believe it? Simply check Google scholar.

yakubin 4y ago

Lithuania and Poland say hello: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...>

SideQuark 4y ago
That's 2014 data. Here's 2022 Poland data. https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-education.htm https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-educat... Lithuania doesn't have free college https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-free-college https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
- yakubin 4y ago
  > Lithuania doesn't have free college My bad. I assumed free college is standard in that region.

kahirsch 4y ago

> Every free college country sends less of their people through college than the US. That used to be true.

ElFitz 4y ago

> Every free college country sends less of their people through college than the US. Really? Says who? Because the OECD certainly doesn’t seem to think there’s any significant difference. https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-education.htm https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-educat... https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/adult-education-level.htm https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/adult-education-level.htm

SideQuark 4y ago
From your data, median and mean among OECD with state paid tertiary education is 42% and 43%. US is 51.2%. So the mean and median is around 20% less people with tertiary educations. When you say no significant difference, what is your threshold? 50% less people educated? 20% is a huge difference.
- ElFitz 4y ago
  Yes, but most countries in general have lower tertiary education rates. If I too were to play the data cherry picking game, I could point out that Norway is at 55%. How does that prove anything? It just disproves your unfounded assertion: > Every free college country sends less of their people through college than the US I really fail to see how any of this proves any causality between free college and lower or higher education rates. But it seems you enjoy shifting goalposts, so perhaps we should end it here?