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I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but I will say this: a lot of people that think like you do on the above issue also have absolutely no problem allocating billions of unaccountable dollars to the military.
You would be wrong, in my case. Philosophically, I oppose the existence of the State. In practical terms, I think the State is a necessary evil. I don't support the unbridled growth of the military, or the military industrial complex. I do think it is necessary to maintain some defensive capability, but I don't believe the US needs to maintain a military presence all over the world, and I don't believe it is proper to invade other countries or to wage war.
Books only contain textbook material. What about all the other learning that goes into a college education? The tacit knowledge from working with top experts in the field, the learning from debates, research, and writing... these are things that cannot be self-taught and require a significant amount of guidance.
Fortunately, while the tuition looks high, it is greatly reduced by merit-based rewards.
If working with experts is required for the course then people should not be able to pass the tests, right?
But now we have computer simulations on cheap computers that did not exist 20 years ago.
Since I don't know chemistry, I don't know how good any chemistry simulators are.
psik
Those tests and simulations only test on existing problems and solutions. They don't measure a student's ability to solve new and unknown problems. College might as well be an extension of high school if the only thing you want to get out of it is the ability to pass textbook material tests.
In an ideal world, should the government pay for all of higher learning? My daughter is in college and she has a large debt on a degree and even assuming she manages to land a good job it seems absurd she'll be required to spend about $400 a month to pay it back for the next 10-20 years. I have heard it's free in many European countries, why not the U.S the world's only super power? They can afford hundreds of billions to kill innocent people yet can't afford to at the very least make college free? How backwards is that?
No, it should not be free. I have no interest in paying for someone to get a Master's in Sports Psychology, or Women's studies, or Human Resources. Our economy gains nothing by someone with a useless degree.
College is not about being comfortable and well off. College kids have lived very plainly, surviving on cheap food, for a very, very long time. Having a student loan debt, or living a poorer lifestyle than what one is used to is not anything new for college students.
It's actually a very good time for people to learn, early on, that their decisions do have consequences. It is up to them to make smart decisions, or they suffer later on for the decisions that they made. They get to learn, really quick, that they may not get everything that they want, when they want it, how they want it, or even where they want it, but can still learn how to make decisions that will lead them in the right direction. It's a great time to learn how to budget. It's a great time to learn that life isn't fair. It's a great time to learn how to live uncomfortably. Not only do they learn what they learn in class, they learn valuable life lessons. If we continue to bail them out, where does it stop?
"Why can't we make kids lives free for the first 30 years? I mean, it's hard, and they have tuition loans to pay, and they have to find a good job, and they have to get established, and start making money...it's not fair, we should pay for that..." Seriously, where does it stop?
At 18 years of age, they are adults. It is time for them to make adult decisions, no matter how much they think it sucks, no matter how hard those decisions are. In the end, they will come out stronger people, if they make some good choices.
Go read up on the elite High Schools in NYC where you have to test to gain entrance.
They have "diversity" issues and DeBlasio intends to fix that. I'm calling it as I read it.
Black and Latino students pass those tests. The problem is something like 5 or 6 times as many students pass the threshold as there are slots. The original pool of qualifiers is diverse. So the solution the schools use is to take the top scorers. And who are the top scorers? That's the problem. Why is that a problem?
Students of color tend to score lower that their actual academic talent level on high stakes standardized tests. The tests alone are not indicators of academic talent for all students.
But of course it gets reported as if there are no students "smart enough" to qualify, and people jump on it because it confirms popular assumptions, while simultaneously demoralizing smart black and brown kids even further, helping perpetuate the phenomenon. It is a vicious circle.
Stuff like this is why I hate the world sometimes.
Anyway, I don't think college should be free, just not bank-breakingly expensive.
The costs in the US amaze me, its "free" (obviously its not free, its paid for by taxes) here and I definitely think that's the right way to do it. Have entrance exams so you're not paying for everyone to attend but only the ones smart enough and motivated enough to make it worth the money. Its good to invest in the education of the young.
The can of worms that would open up...you think the cries of "how unfair it all is, my child did not have a chance at a good school because of our neighborhood, it's not his fault, we are poor and cannot live in a good neighborhood, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc" are bad now? Try your approach. The cries of racism, classism, and sexism will be louder than they already are. It's not going to work in this big country of entitlement mentality.
The can of worms that would open up...you think the cries of "how unfair it all is, my child did not have a chance at a good school because of our neighborhood, it's not his fault, we are poor and cannot live in a good neighborhood, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc" are bad now? Try your approach. The cries of racism, classism, and sexism will be louder than they already are. It's not going to work in this big country of entitlement mentality.
That's the thing, having University be free but only for people who pass the entrance requirements shouldn't be associated with racism, classism or sexism (particularly classism) although of course that won't stop people making those complaints but anyone with brains would realise its a much fairer system.
Which is exactly what I said in my original post, that its not really free because its paid for by taxes.
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