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Unlike gold which is a scare resource, knowledge is non-rivalous. College tuition acts as an economic exclusion mechanism and thus only allows consumers/student
by kevinconroy 14y ago
Unlike gold which is a scare resource, knowledge is non-rivalous. College tuition acts as an economic exclusion mechanism and thus only allows consumers/students with sufficient means to gain access to it.
By removing the exclusion mechanism for these students, it in effect turns college education into a public good.
As a country, we've deemed that this is so vastly in the public interest that we provide free K-12 education to all students regardless of how much (income/property tax) their family pays.
I'm not very familiar with studies of free college-level educations, but based on the thousands of studies that shows the incredible economic and social benefits to obtaining higher levels of education, I'd wager that any negative consequences will be vastly out weighed by the positive impacts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics)
- jdminhbg 14y agoKnowledge is non-rivalrous, but it's not settled that the value of a college education comes mostly from added knowledge. If instead it comes from signaling, then it's no longer the case.
- kevinconroy 14y agoAgree with you on the signally aspect. As a nation we've become obsessed with college degrees and college may not be the right choice for everyone. But that's a whole other discussion thread.
- natrius 14y agoPublic goods are both non-rivalrous and non-excludable. This is an important distinction. We fund public goods as a society because they are very difficult to fund otherwise since you can't exclude the people who don't pay. Education is easy to fund privately. It should be funded publicly to the extend that society benefits from it. Most of the benefits of an education accrue to the student.