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I lived in Chile for several years. I think this is a bad idea for several reasons. First off, one of the things that makes Chile great is that its education

by MCRed 11y ago

I lived in Chile for several years. I think this is a bad idea for several reasons. First off, one of the things that makes Chile great is that its education system is independant of the government. It results in chileans who are markedly better at critical thinking than americans. (While there one of the things I did was work with high school and college students and of course got to know a lot of chileans.) Their schools are all about education and keeping the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them. There is a real effect where the person paying the bills calls the shots. When government is paying the bills, turning out good citizens is the goal. This is why the football players are the heroes of most schools and the computer nerds are beat up. This is why schools are enacting absurd zero tolerance policies. This is why standardized tests and teachers tenure and unions are so bad. There really is something to the market incentive to provide a better experience at lower cost... The socialists are in power in chile right now but I don't think that will last long, and the reality is the Chilean constitution is pretty well protecting capitalism. Consequently the government runs a surplus does a great job of providing services and mostly stays out of peoples way... and Chile is the south american economic miracle as a result.

illumen 11y ago
Is this good for the poor people who can not afford it? Will it make a difference? Certainly. Will this result in a more highly skilled, and a more highly educated population? Yes. People should still be able to afford private schools if they can now. The American idea that you can't mix socialism and capitalism is absurd! (urg, just saying these words makes me feel like I'm using outdated old ideas from the 1800's!) Societies much better than USA are mixing them well with great effect. Selling out your young people with debt is really silly. Having 45% illiteracy in the USA only benefits the people currently in power.
- MCRed 11y ago
  America is a mix of socialism and capitalism, and everywhere that socialism has touched it's been a bad experience. You give a good example in your response: %45 illiteracy only benefits the people who are currently in power. That's your statement, and who is in power? Who controls the schools? The government. How do they benefit? They have a populace which is sheeplike and easily controlled. That's the power dynamic I'd like to break. Home schooled kids do better than public schooled kids and by a wide margin. But instead of burdening every family with having to be a complete school to themselves,s why can't several families band together and take turns? If one parent is an engineer, then they can take a day off or on a saturday teach engineering topics to the groups kids. This would lower the burden and provide higher variety-- this would be a makeshift school at very low cost. Even poor people could do it... but of course that would threaten the government's schooling system and so it's not allowed.
  - galfarragem 11y ago
    From one side you show socialism as the root of all evil, from the other you propose another utopia: home schooling. >Then they can take a day off or saturday Do you really believe that this chaotic schedule would ever work? Every parent have to work somewhere else with an agenda that might not fit. And then? One lesson of a particular subject once a month? Once a year? >Even poor people could do it. How? As an e.g what would a janitor teach? >But of course that would threaten the government's schooling system and it's not allowed. I think most countries would be happy to do it. Maybe not US.
- gyardley 11y ago
  How will it make a difference? Say you're a poor Chilean and thanks to this new policy you get a free ride at Universidad de Chile or Católica, the two top universities in Chile. You're well educated, but you've got the wrong last name and no connections - who on earth is going to hire you for anything? Say you start a business. Who's going to give you capital? Who's going to even do business with you, when they've never heard of you or anyone in your family? This is a way to placate the often-radical student movement in Chile, but I can't see it helping poor Chileans that much if at all. Perhaps they can get their educations and then emigrate to a place with less nepotism.
  - illumen 11y ago
    You can make a lot of connections at university. Along with job offers. Along with special consideration from banks for graduates and even enrolled students. Will a change be immediate? No. But I've seen the affects in other countries over 10 year period. It's never a single thing which helps people in society. It's many things at once. Of course if the students need to work to support their families or even to feed themselves, then a free education is going to help far less people. But if those same students don't need to pay for their education, then many more will be able to do so.
- TTPrograms 11y ago
  Where exactly are you getting the figure that 45% of the USA is illiterate? Measured rates are closer to 1%. That kind of absurd exaggeration really discredits your point.
  - illumen 11y ago
    I meant functionally illiterate. Reading level of US adults at a proficient level is only 13% http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-...
    - adventured 11y ago
      You're misrepresenting what that stat means. ~86% of Americans are functionally literate. It's ridiculous these kinds of claims even make it to HN comments. Proficient on the survey that derives from, is the highest possible ranking. Proficient on that survey does not equate to functional; anything at or above basic is functional. About half the 14% of people that fall below functional, do so because of language barrier problems related to not speaking English as a first language. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp
      - illumen 11y ago
        United States has a functional illiteracy rate of 48.7% according to [0] The UK is at 21.8% for comparison. The link you provided shows between 43% and 55% are functionally illiterate (basic or below) depending on which test you look at, for English. Just because education is poor for people who don't know English as a first language, and just because USA services are not available in Spanish despite such a large percentage speaking Spanish does not mean there is no problem. Functional illiteracy in the USA is a big problem. The education system in the USA is a massive failure. [0] Cleckler, Bob (2009). Let's End Our Literacy Crisis, Revised Edition. Salt Lake City, Utah: American University & colleges Press. pp. 15–26. ISBN 1-58982-230-7.
- dataker 11y ago
  >Societies much better than USA are mixing them well with great effect. For example...?
- adventured 11y ago
  You're wrong about the 45% illiteracy rate. There are four scoring levels: below basic, basic, intermediate, proficient. 14% of Americans fall below basic, which is the line for functionally literate. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp
  - vellum 11y ago
    There used to be five levels, but only a 3-4% of Americans scored 376 or higher, out of 500. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93275.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93275.pdf
wordbank 11y ago
Excuse me, but you're too fast on making conclusions. Also you're totally ignoring the lack of vertical social mobility in the Chilean society because poor people have no chance for education and better jobs for their kids. > It results in chileans who are markedly better at critical thinking than americans. This statement is too generalized. But even if it's correct then you can't pinpoint it to education. There's a whole culture behind > Consequently the government runs a surplus does a great job of providing services That's simply not true. Chilean government is criticized a lot and the president has very low ratings. > Chile is the south american economic miracle as a result. Chile is resource-cursed country with quite small population and low corruption. It's not the government's achievement.
- MCRed 11y ago
  The primary thing inhibiting vertical social mobility in Chile is cultural.[1] I have worked with chilean high schoolers and college students and they have a lot of opportunity that they don't see because they are locked into a specific tract (namely work for a large company.) The only reason poor people would have no chance for education and better jobs for their kids is if government made education illegal. Even poor people can get together and hire people to teach and teach their kids themselveS (imagine home schooling but with a dozen families cooperating)... unless government prevents it. The internet has made all the information of the world available free... education is cheaper now than at any point in history. It's true the chilean government is criticized-- I saw the sometimes weekly marches down the blvd of students and communists making noise. That doesn't mean they are right. When you look at Chile's economic development over the past 20 years and its political stability, it's doing better than it's peers. Sure people are criticizing the president, she may be bad, but that's not what I'm talking about. I think it's silly to say Chile is resource cursed. You would rather the country be poorer? You think economic development is a curse? Yes, it does have low corruption- that's a good thing and that's a sign of a good government, relatively speaking. [1] This conclusion, by the way, I'm taking from what I was told by people running Startup Chile as the motivation for the program, it may even be in their public website... and it is consistent with my experiences talking to Chileans. I'm not a chilean culture expert by any means!
the_af 11y ago
Is the government truly paying the bills, or the population? If public university is autonomous, like in Argentina, you won't have this problem of the government calling the shots.
anigbrowl 11y ago
We have government-sponsored higher ed in many Eurozone countries and I think they do quite a good job at turning out critical independent thinkers. Using the US as your only point of comparison seems somewhat misleading to me - I'm a good bit to the left of you and I also think a lot of US public education is a shambles. However, I think there are multiple complex reasons for that and it's not as simple as 'public financing >> intellectual bankruptcy'. Rather, it's a mix of overly-powerful unions, civil war legacy and the extreme politicization of education in the US, a litigation-driven culture, and more. Education in the EU (at least in the western EU) is less politicized and a bit more paternalistic.
- MCRed 11y ago
  Oh, I'd never say there aren't lots of factors. As another person pointed out, culture is a factor too. The US seems to have been in a cultural decline for much of the last 100 years. You can't make direct comparisons, absolutely. But, you can make an argument about incentives and that's what I'm doing. When government is in control you have no choice. You are forced to pay for it and you get what they decide you get. You can't opt out. When things are privately financed you have choice. Every company has to keep its shareholders, employees and investors happy. They have to do all this and compete well, and that's not easy. But their incentives are more in line with each of those constituencies. When it comes to government I find little alignment-- even elections have been completely compromised, and I'm not just talking about the rampant election fraud that's been going on since 2001 (when Gore won the election) but is not talked au tanymore-- I'm talking about how the system of elections is set up to deny anyone but the two parties a meaningful chance, and within the two parties their selections at high levels are not really democratic either. (Remember the Nevada republican convention that was cancelled to keep the Ron Paul delegates from voting for him?) I am making a generalization... but I think history is on my side. Look at the degree inflation in the USA and the rampant debt that kids are graduating with and yet they can't repay because they can't get good jobs. That's a distortion that has messed things up... and you would't have it if there was no "free money" of subsidized loans and the consequent incentive to pursue a degree program that would result in you being able to pay back the loans.
  - 11y ago
galfarragem 11y ago
I respect your opinions (i've read other comments that you made) but this comment is full of fast conclusions and fallacies. If I could downvote it would be my first downvote ever.
- MCRed 11y ago
  If I had a fallacy or made a "Fast conclusion" please explain it. I don't get this "fast conclusion"... yes, I know more about a subject than I'm explaining-- I tend to be too verbose -- and so I give a quick summary of the reasons behind my conclusion. But that doesn't make them bad (as you imply by grouping them with fallacies). I think if you make the accusation of fallacies you should show where the error is, in specific, and give at least an argument for why its in error (Rather than merely asserting its wrong.) Otherwise isn't it kinda like saying "Your thinking is fallacious" which is sorta talking to the person rather than the point.
rospaya 11y ago
> Chile is the south american economic miracle as a result. Is miracle the right word? Their 4% growth is impressive, but GDP per capita is on par with Eastern European countries.
- MCRed 11y ago
  The one of those is velocity and one of those is present position.
dethstar 11y ago
Is higher education public in America? What's with all I'm hearing about student loans then? It seems that without that, your whole argument falls apart.
- adventured 11y ago
  The student loan problem in the US didn't exist 15 years ago. It is a big problem now, all due to the US Government perpetually backing higher loan amounts. Student loan debt has increased by about eight fold in that time. About 13% of Americans have student loans, and only about 3-4% of Americans have problematic student loans. The median student loan debt is less than the cost of a cheap car: $13,700. Between, say, ~1940 and 2000 the US had both the best university system on earth and it was affordable. There are still a lot of public universities in the US that are extremely affordable to go to.
yogthos 11y ago
Your assertions are simply not supported by evidence from countries that already have free higher education.
guelo 11y ago
Nice libertarian fantasy rant but Chile ranks way below the US in most education measures. For example 8th grade science 525 vs 461: http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table11_5.asp http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table11_5.asp
gohrt 11y ago
> markedly better at critical thinking than americans. >Their schools are all about education and keeping the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them. by far the largest compaint against US colleges is that the don't teach students, because the students pay the bills, and the students want to be happy -> amenities and easy grades, not a tough education. > When government is paying the bills, turning out good citizens is the goal. This is why the football players are the heroes of most schools and the computer nerds are beat up. What does the government care about football players? Computer nerds are useful, productive, revenue-generating citizens. > This is why schools are enacting absurd zero tolerance policies. This is why standardized tests and teachers tenure and unions are so bad. What does this have to due with "good citizens" ? Your post makes no sense.
nationcrafting 11y ago
I live in Peru, next door (give or take a few thousand miles), and completely agree with you w.r.t. Chile being very start-up and generally business-friendly, which does indeed involve government staying out of wealth creators' way, and setting up a couple of programs like Startup Chile. Setting up a new company in Chile can be done in a couple of days now, and much of it online. Peru is following in Chile's footsteps and has had amazing growth for the last 20 years as a result of a radical reforming of government in the 90s, precisely to kill stifling bureaucracy and red tape. Where there was 50% poverty in the mid-90s, there is now about 20%. Even remote farmers are online via their smartphones, and now know what to grow, when to grow it, how to grow it, where to sell it, etc. Tech and free markets have substantially improved people's lives, to the point that anyone who visited around the year 2000 would just not recognise the place today. It's clear to me that free markets work, and that Chile and Peru are living proof of it. Sure, it's not first world levels yet, but both countries are certainly getting there at turbo speed. Anyone who doubts this should look at the number of highly qualified migrants going not from Chile and Peru to Spain, but in the other direction: from Spain to Chile and Peru. They see it as a place of opportunity where the old and sclerotic welfare systems of Europe have let them down.
- dash2 11y ago
  That radical reform in the 1990s - was it down to Fujimori? I thought he was corrupt. Would be interested to hear your opinion.
  - 1337biz 11y ago
    Would love to hear some thoughts on that too. I remember watching quite a while ago some really fascinating documentary movie on Fujimori. Really interesting situation, e.g. highly corrupt but without the public questioning their support of him.
  - nationcrafting 11y ago
    Hello das2, sorry for the late reply. Yes, it was down to Fujimori. It's true that Fujimori is in jail right now, but not for corruption. He's in jail for his overzealous approach to the antiterrorist campaigns that took place in the early 90s. When the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist group that nearly managed to overthrow the state in the late 80s/early 90s) were at their peak, Fujimori came to power. Very shortly thereafter, the SL hijacked the Japanese embassy on a night when they had a big event on, kidnapping everyone from the Japanese ambassador to the directors of large Japanese corporations (Toyota, Sony, etc.). Fujimori ordered a replica of the embassy to be built in the desert, and special forces trained there for weeks in preparation to storm the embassy. The operation was a great success, the kidnappers were killed, only one soldier died, none of the hostages died. High on this amazing success, Fujimori ordered more campaigns against SL, and managed to pretty much eradicate them from the country. Two campaigns, however, did not go as planned. One at a university called La Cantuta, one in a poor district of Lima called Barrios Altos. Innocent people died in these campaigns, which had received his direct, personal go-ahead. That is what he went to trial for, and the reason he's in jail now. Fujimori took over when the state itself was a failed state: hyperinflation of both the old Sol and the new Inti, had all but destroyed everyone's savings, political processes were sclerotic, there was enormous bureaucracy, no foreign investment, etc. Fujishock, as it has come to be called, was the process of undoing all this. Fujimori created the new Sol currency which has been a very stable currency ever since. Parliament was closed and replaced with one single congress and a super-simple process of election that elects both the percentage of parliamentary representatives and the president. Bureaucrats were sent home and the machinery of government simplified a great deal. A lot of investment went into infrastructure, too: where it used to take more than a day for a farmer to take his produce to the nearest city, it can now take just 3 or 4 hours, which means they don't just go once a year but once every month, which puts them more in touch with the market and more responsive to price signals. Many things that would take forever to start (companies, brand registrations, etc.) can now be done online in a couple of days. The country has seen between 6 and 9% annual growth ever since the mid-90s, reducing poverty from over 50% to around 20% today.
MrGando 11y ago
> First off, one of the things that makes Chile great is that its education system is independant of the government. Well that would depend on the definition of great. And for me, great is not zero class mobility > It results in chileans who are markedly better at critical thinking than americans. (While there one of the things I did was work with high school and college students and of course got to know a lot of chileans.) Could you tell me the names of those Schools? Because in my experience, as a Chilean, that happens not to be the case. > Their schools are all about education and keeping the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them. The good, more expensive schools are > "all about education and keeping the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them." >> There is a real effect where the person paying the bills calls the shots. When government is paying the bills, turning out good citizens is the goal. This is why the football players are the heroes of most schools and the computer nerds are beat up. This is why schools are enacting absurd zero tolerance policies. This is why standardized tests and teachers tenure and unions are so bad. I don't really understand what you're saying here. Are you saying that when I pay for my education in a Chilean School I call the shots and I can decide how the education of my Children should be? Well, if that's the case, even for the ones paying, that's only true in a minority of higher-end private schools in Chile. > There really is something to the market incentive to provide a better experience at lower cost... Yeah, we have a lot of choices when it comes to education, and among them, a lot of McDonald's equivalents have appeared. I'm sorry, but get real, yeah, there's an 'opportunity for Cheap High Quality', how is the target audience going to realize what's high-quality or not, if they are already uneducated? That's why in Chile, marketing is king for this crappy private universities, they lure the big mass of uneducated with the promise of a better future. In reality, that future, is just debt. > The socialists are in power in chile right now but I don't think that will last long, and the reality is the Chilean constitution is pretty well protecting capitalism. Consequently the government runs a surplus does a great job of providing services and mostly stays out of peoples way... and Chile is the south american economic miracle as a result. Dicator Augusto Pinochet and their team designed the current constitution of Chile, who has so many issues that are now collapsing our society. We definitely need improvements, a lot of the Chile that you see now, with a lot of capable professionals etc, is people who got formed pre-dictatorship. tdlr, it seems that you only just know an epsilon of Chile. Next time you're here, try to see the big picture.

by MCRed 11y ago

illumen 11y ago

Is this good for the poor people who can not afford it? Will it make a difference? Certainly. Will this result in a more highly skilled, and a more highly educated population? Yes. People should still be able to afford private schools if they can now. The American idea that you can't mix socialism and capitalism is absurd! (urg, just saying these words makes me feel like I'm using outdated old ideas from the 1800's!) Societies much better than USA are mixing them well with great effect. Selling out your young people with debt is really silly. Having 45% illiteracy in the USA only benefits the people currently in power.

MCRed 11y ago
America is a mix of socialism and capitalism, and everywhere that socialism has touched it's been a bad experience. You give a good example in your response: %45 illiteracy only benefits the people who are currently in power. That's your statement, and who is in power? Who controls the schools? The government. How do they benefit? They have a populace which is sheeplike and easily controlled. That's the power dynamic I'd like to break. Home schooled kids do better than public schooled kids and by a wide margin. But instead of burdening every family with having to be a complete school to themselves,s why can't several families band together and take turns? If one parent is an engineer, then they can take a day off or on a saturday teach engineering topics to the groups kids. This would lower the burden and provide higher variety-- this would be a makeshift school at very low cost. Even poor people could do it... but of course that would threaten the government's schooling system and so it's not allowed.
- galfarragem 11y ago
  From one side you show socialism as the root of all evil, from the other you propose another utopia: home schooling. >Then they can take a day off or saturday Do you really believe that this chaotic schedule would ever work? Every parent have to work somewhere else with an agenda that might not fit. And then? One lesson of a particular subject once a month? Once a year? >Even poor people could do it. How? As an e.g what would a janitor teach? >But of course that would threaten the government's schooling system and it's not allowed. I think most countries would be happy to do it. Maybe not US.
gyardley 11y ago
How will it make a difference? Say you're a poor Chilean and thanks to this new policy you get a free ride at Universidad de Chile or Católica, the two top universities in Chile. You're well educated, but you've got the wrong last name and no connections - who on earth is going to hire you for anything? Say you start a business. Who's going to give you capital? Who's going to even do business with you, when they've never heard of you or anyone in your family? This is a way to placate the often-radical student movement in Chile, but I can't see it helping poor Chileans that much if at all. Perhaps they can get their educations and then emigrate to a place with less nepotism.
- illumen 11y ago
  You can make a lot of connections at university. Along with job offers. Along with special consideration from banks for graduates and even enrolled students. Will a change be immediate? No. But I've seen the affects in other countries over 10 year period. It's never a single thing which helps people in society. It's many things at once. Of course if the students need to work to support their families or even to feed themselves, then a free education is going to help far less people. But if those same students don't need to pay for their education, then many more will be able to do so.
TTPrograms 11y ago
Where exactly are you getting the figure that 45% of the USA is illiterate? Measured rates are closer to 1%. That kind of absurd exaggeration really discredits your point.
- illumen 11y ago
  I meant functionally illiterate. Reading level of US adults at a proficient level is only 13% http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-...
  - adventured 11y ago
    You're misrepresenting what that stat means. ~86% of Americans are functionally literate. It's ridiculous these kinds of claims even make it to HN comments. Proficient on the survey that derives from, is the highest possible ranking. Proficient on that survey does not equate to functional; anything at or above basic is functional. About half the 14% of people that fall below functional, do so because of language barrier problems related to not speaking English as a first language. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp
    - illumen 11y ago
      United States has a functional illiteracy rate of 48.7% according to [0] The UK is at 21.8% for comparison. The link you provided shows between 43% and 55% are functionally illiterate (basic or below) depending on which test you look at, for English. Just because education is poor for people who don't know English as a first language, and just because USA services are not available in Spanish despite such a large percentage speaking Spanish does not mean there is no problem. Functional illiteracy in the USA is a big problem. The education system in the USA is a massive failure. [0] Cleckler, Bob (2009). Let's End Our Literacy Crisis, Revised Edition. Salt Lake City, Utah: American University & colleges Press. pp. 15–26. ISBN 1-58982-230-7.
dataker 11y ago
>Societies much better than USA are mixing them well with great effect. For example...?
adventured 11y ago
You're wrong about the 45% illiteracy rate. There are four scoring levels: below basic, basic, intermediate, proficient. 14% of Americans fall below basic, which is the line for functionally literate. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp
- vellum 11y ago
  There used to be five levels, but only a 3-4% of Americans scored 376 or higher, out of 500. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93275.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93275.pdf

wordbank 11y ago

Excuse me, but you're too fast on making conclusions. Also you're totally ignoring the lack of vertical social mobility in the Chilean society because poor people have no chance for education and better jobs for their kids. > It results in chileans who are markedly better at critical thinking than americans. This statement is too generalized. But even if it's correct then you can't pinpoint it to education. There's a whole culture behind > Consequently the government runs a surplus does a great job of providing services That's simply not true. Chilean government is criticized a lot and the president has very low ratings. > Chile is the south american economic miracle as a result. Chile is resource-cursed country with quite small population and low corruption. It's not the government's achievement.

MCRed 11y ago
The primary thing inhibiting vertical social mobility in Chile is cultural.[1] I have worked with chilean high schoolers and college students and they have a lot of opportunity that they don't see because they are locked into a specific tract (namely work for a large company.) The only reason poor people would have no chance for education and better jobs for their kids is if government made education illegal. Even poor people can get together and hire people to teach and teach their kids themselveS (imagine home schooling but with a dozen families cooperating)... unless government prevents it. The internet has made all the information of the world available free... education is cheaper now than at any point in history. It's true the chilean government is criticized-- I saw the sometimes weekly marches down the blvd of students and communists making noise. That doesn't mean they are right. When you look at Chile's economic development over the past 20 years and its political stability, it's doing better than it's peers. Sure people are criticizing the president, she may be bad, but that's not what I'm talking about. I think it's silly to say Chile is resource cursed. You would rather the country be poorer? You think economic development is a curse? Yes, it does have low corruption- that's a good thing and that's a sign of a good government, relatively speaking. [1] This conclusion, by the way, I'm taking from what I was told by people running Startup Chile as the motivation for the program, it may even be in their public website... and it is consistent with my experiences talking to Chileans. I'm not a chilean culture expert by any means!

the_af 11y ago

Is the government truly paying the bills, or the population? If public university is autonomous, like in Argentina, you won't have this problem of the government calling the shots.

anigbrowl 11y ago

We have government-sponsored higher ed in many Eurozone countries and I think they do quite a good job at turning out critical independent thinkers. Using the US as your only point of comparison seems somewhat misleading to me - I'm a good bit to the left of you and I also think a lot of US public education is a shambles. However, I think there are multiple complex reasons for that and it's not as simple as 'public financing >> intellectual bankruptcy'. Rather, it's a mix of overly-powerful unions, civil war legacy and the extreme politicization of education in the US, a litigation-driven culture, and more. Education in the EU (at least in the western EU) is less politicized and a bit more paternalistic.

MCRed 11y ago
Oh, I'd never say there aren't lots of factors. As another person pointed out, culture is a factor too. The US seems to have been in a cultural decline for much of the last 100 years. You can't make direct comparisons, absolutely. But, you can make an argument about incentives and that's what I'm doing. When government is in control you have no choice. You are forced to pay for it and you get what they decide you get. You can't opt out. When things are privately financed you have choice. Every company has to keep its shareholders, employees and investors happy. They have to do all this and compete well, and that's not easy. But their incentives are more in line with each of those constituencies. When it comes to government I find little alignment-- even elections have been completely compromised, and I'm not just talking about the rampant election fraud that's been going on since 2001 (when Gore won the election) but is not talked au tanymore-- I'm talking about how the system of elections is set up to deny anyone but the two parties a meaningful chance, and within the two parties their selections at high levels are not really democratic either. (Remember the Nevada republican convention that was cancelled to keep the Ron Paul delegates from voting for him?) I am making a generalization... but I think history is on my side. Look at the degree inflation in the USA and the rampant debt that kids are graduating with and yet they can't repay because they can't get good jobs. That's a distortion that has messed things up... and you would't have it if there was no "free money" of subsidized loans and the consequent incentive to pursue a degree program that would result in you being able to pay back the loans.
- 11y ago

galfarragem 11y ago

I respect your opinions (i've read other comments that you made) but this comment is full of fast conclusions and fallacies. If I could downvote it would be my first downvote ever.

MCRed 11y ago
If I had a fallacy or made a "Fast conclusion" please explain it. I don't get this "fast conclusion"... yes, I know more about a subject than I'm explaining-- I tend to be too verbose -- and so I give a quick summary of the reasons behind my conclusion. But that doesn't make them bad (as you imply by grouping them with fallacies). I think if you make the accusation of fallacies you should show where the error is, in specific, and give at least an argument for why its in error (Rather than merely asserting its wrong.) Otherwise isn't it kinda like saying "Your thinking is fallacious" which is sorta talking to the person rather than the point.

rospaya 11y ago

> Chile is the south american economic miracle as a result. Is miracle the right word? Their 4% growth is impressive, but GDP per capita is on par with Eastern European countries.

MCRed 11y ago
The one of those is velocity and one of those is present position.

dethstar 11y ago

Is higher education public in America? What's with all I'm hearing about student loans then? It seems that without that, your whole argument falls apart.

adventured 11y ago
The student loan problem in the US didn't exist 15 years ago. It is a big problem now, all due to the US Government perpetually backing higher loan amounts. Student loan debt has increased by about eight fold in that time. About 13% of Americans have student loans, and only about 3-4% of Americans have problematic student loans. The median student loan debt is less than the cost of a cheap car: $13,700. Between, say, ~1940 and 2000 the US had both the best university system on earth and it was affordable. There are still a lot of public universities in the US that are extremely affordable to go to.

yogthos 11y ago

Your assertions are simply not supported by evidence from countries that already have free higher education.

guelo 11y ago

Nice libertarian fantasy rant but Chile ranks way below the US in most education measures. For example 8th grade science 525 vs 461: http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table11_5.asp http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table11_5.asp

gohrt 11y ago

> markedly better at critical thinking than americans. >Their schools are all about education and keeping the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them. by far the largest compaint against US colleges is that the don't teach students, because the students pay the bills, and the students want to be happy -> amenities and easy grades, not a tough education. > When government is paying the bills, turning out good citizens is the goal. This is why the football players are the heroes of most schools and the computer nerds are beat up. What does the government care about football players? Computer nerds are useful, productive, revenue-generating citizens. > This is why schools are enacting absurd zero tolerance policies. This is why standardized tests and teachers tenure and unions are so bad. What does this have to due with "good citizens" ? Your post makes no sense.

nationcrafting 11y ago

I live in Peru, next door (give or take a few thousand miles), and completely agree with you w.r.t. Chile being very start-up and generally business-friendly, which does indeed involve government staying out of wealth creators' way, and setting up a couple of programs like Startup Chile. Setting up a new company in Chile can be done in a couple of days now, and much of it online. Peru is following in Chile's footsteps and has had amazing growth for the last 20 years as a result of a radical reforming of government in the 90s, precisely to kill stifling bureaucracy and red tape. Where there was 50% poverty in the mid-90s, there is now about 20%. Even remote farmers are online via their smartphones, and now know what to grow, when to grow it, how to grow it, where to sell it, etc. Tech and free markets have substantially improved people's lives, to the point that anyone who visited around the year 2000 would just not recognise the place today. It's clear to me that free markets work, and that Chile and Peru are living proof of it. Sure, it's not first world levels yet, but both countries are certainly getting there at turbo speed. Anyone who doubts this should look at the number of highly qualified migrants going not from Chile and Peru to Spain, but in the other direction: from Spain to Chile and Peru. They see it as a place of opportunity where the old and sclerotic welfare systems of Europe have let them down.

dash2 11y ago
That radical reform in the 1990s - was it down to Fujimori? I thought he was corrupt. Would be interested to hear your opinion.
- 1337biz 11y ago
  Would love to hear some thoughts on that too. I remember watching quite a while ago some really fascinating documentary movie on Fujimori. Really interesting situation, e.g. highly corrupt but without the public questioning their support of him.
- nationcrafting 11y ago
  Hello das2, sorry for the late reply. Yes, it was down to Fujimori. It's true that Fujimori is in jail right now, but not for corruption. He's in jail for his overzealous approach to the antiterrorist campaigns that took place in the early 90s. When the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist group that nearly managed to overthrow the state in the late 80s/early 90s) were at their peak, Fujimori came to power. Very shortly thereafter, the SL hijacked the Japanese embassy on a night when they had a big event on, kidnapping everyone from the Japanese ambassador to the directors of large Japanese corporations (Toyota, Sony, etc.). Fujimori ordered a replica of the embassy to be built in the desert, and special forces trained there for weeks in preparation to storm the embassy. The operation was a great success, the kidnappers were killed, only one soldier died, none of the hostages died. High on this amazing success, Fujimori ordered more campaigns against SL, and managed to pretty much eradicate them from the country. Two campaigns, however, did not go as planned. One at a university called La Cantuta, one in a poor district of Lima called Barrios Altos. Innocent people died in these campaigns, which had received his direct, personal go-ahead. That is what he went to trial for, and the reason he's in jail now. Fujimori took over when the state itself was a failed state: hyperinflation of both the old Sol and the new Inti, had all but destroyed everyone's savings, political processes were sclerotic, there was enormous bureaucracy, no foreign investment, etc. Fujishock, as it has come to be called, was the process of undoing all this. Fujimori created the new Sol currency which has been a very stable currency ever since. Parliament was closed and replaced with one single congress and a super-simple process of election that elects both the percentage of parliamentary representatives and the president. Bureaucrats were sent home and the machinery of government simplified a great deal. A lot of investment went into infrastructure, too: where it used to take more than a day for a farmer to take his produce to the nearest city, it can now take just 3 or 4 hours, which means they don't just go once a year but once every month, which puts them more in touch with the market and more responsive to price signals. Many things that would take forever to start (companies, brand registrations, etc.) can now be done online in a couple of days. The country has seen between 6 and 9% annual growth ever since the mid-90s, reducing poverty from over 50% to around 20% today.

MrGando 11y ago

> First off, one of the things that makes Chile great is that its education system is independant of the government. Well that would depend on the definition of great. And for me, great is not zero class mobility > It results in chileans who are markedly better at critical thinking than americans. (While there one of the things I did was work with high school and college students and of course got to know a lot of chileans.) Could you tell me the names of those Schools? Because in my experience, as a Chilean, that happens not to be the case. > Their schools are all about education and keeping the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them. The good, more expensive schools are > "all about education and keeping the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them." >> There is a real effect where the person paying the bills calls the shots. When government is paying the bills, turning out good citizens is the goal. This is why the football players are the heroes of most schools and the computer nerds are beat up. This is why schools are enacting absurd zero tolerance policies. This is why standardized tests and teachers tenure and unions are so bad. I don't really understand what you're saying here. Are you saying that when I pay for my education in a Chilean School I call the shots and I can decide how the education of my Children should be? Well, if that's the case, even for the ones paying, that's only true in a minority of higher-end private schools in Chile. > There really is something to the market incentive to provide a better experience at lower cost... Yeah, we have a lot of choices when it comes to education, and among them, a lot of McDonald's equivalents have appeared. I'm sorry, but get real, yeah, there's an 'opportunity for Cheap High Quality', how is the target audience going to realize what's high-quality or not, if they are already uneducated? That's why in Chile, marketing is king for this crappy private universities, they lure the big mass of uneducated with the promise of a better future. In reality, that future, is just debt. > The socialists are in power in chile right now but I don't think that will last long, and the reality is the Chilean constitution is pretty well protecting capitalism. Consequently the government runs a surplus does a great job of providing services and mostly stays out of peoples way... and Chile is the south american economic miracle as a result. Dicator Augusto Pinochet and their team designed the current constitution of Chile, who has so many issues that are now collapsing our society. We definitely need improvements, a lot of the Chile that you see now, with a lot of capable professionals etc, is people who got formed pre-dictatorship. tdlr, it seems that you only just know an epsilon of Chile. Next time you're here, try to see the big picture.