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On the contrary, we absolutely need variety, we people to study weird things, we can’t all be doctors and lawyers. No idea what “bizarre ideologies” you’re refe
by dahart 1y ago
On the contrary, we absolutely need variety, we people to study weird things, we can’t all be doctors and lawyers. No idea what “bizarre ideologies” you’re referring to but generally speaking, lack of education combined with polarizing politics, propaganda, and misinformation are a risk that is orders of magnitude larger than having an educated populace. Why does it matter if every single degree is perfectly relevant? What evidence is there that we need to be selective, or worry about and try to ensure value? How do you define value? Sounds like the Nirvana Fallacy. When it comes to research, thinking this way often reduces positive outcomes; we have to risk and allow failures in order to capture the bigger breakthroughs. Not just true in research, but true in business too. Why would you think education is any different? Plus, people are already quite self selective for the high paying jobs on average, and there are countries that pay for education and have higher per capita GDP than the US, like Iceland and Norway. Education and research already provides a return to the economy of multiples on investment. There’s no demonstrated economic need to try to exert control over it.
- nradov 1y agoOn the contrary. If graduates can't even manage to pay back their loans then that's pretty good evidence that their education didn't have much value. If you want to claim some sort of abstract "value" measured in other ways then the burden is on you to provide evidence. I'm not interested in vague hand waving arguments to justify spending tax money.
- dahart 1y agoThat’s not good evidence at all, you’re making massive assumptions that don’t hold up. I did already provide some hard evidence you ignored: several other countries are already paying for education for all interested citizens and are doing better than the US by economic measures, not worse. My salary is not my GDP. The financial cost of a loan is not equal to the financial value education provides to society. I’m asked to pay back my loan very early in my career in my 20s, before I have the chance to build a career and accumulate any savings. On top of that, the financial cost of education has risen faster than inflation for a few decades due to incentives that wouldn’t exist if education was provided. According to the St Louis Fed, among other sources, income taxes collected on college grads is more than 2x the taxes collected on people without degrees, and the lifetime total collected for college grads is many multiples of what college costs even today. Think about the taxes a little harder and it should become obvious that it’s a waste of tax money to not ensure that everyone who wants a degree should get one without having a financial burden. We won’t spend more tax money providing free education, we will collect more tax money.