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My outlook is "suck it up buttercup". I did not have any money set aside for college when I was younger. I was working two part time jobs to make ends meet. I knew I that I wanted to go to college to better myself but couldn't afford to do so. I then joined the military and now have a bachelors degree free and clear with additional money leftover that I was able to transfer over to my children. My wife got scholarships for school, but as I said, we are still paying the remainder of her student loans and she graduated in 2001. No biggie, its just like buying a new car and financing it....do I really need that new car, no, but I got one so now I need to pay for it. There are options out there that don't require a degree while still making great money.
What happened to trade schools? Many of these trades earn far more than what many other careers that require a degree earn. Ever see what an electrician charges per hour? or a mechanic? or a plumber? There are other ways to excel in life besides getting a degree. The problem is you need motivation to drive yourself to do so. No one should hold your hand.
Again, college is a privilege.
My, I, me, me, me... you won the survival lottery and didn't come back from Iraq in a body bag so now everyone should join the military if they don't have the funds for college. Do you not see the flaw in that kind of centrist thinking? Centrist as in self-centered, not politically moderate. How many African Americans or Hispanics can make "great money" without college? The only African American considered competent to be President is a retired neuro-surgeon... talk about over qualified. If it wasn't for the public sector 80% of what African Americans are employed wouldn't have jobs. Show me the government job that doesn't require higher education? There is no problem with trade schools. Why do you think there is? If there is a problem it is that many charge outrageos tuition which they encourage you to finance. They promise job placement which often doesn't pan out. My brother is an auto-mechanic. He didn't pay a dime for his education. Older mechanics taught him most of what he knows. For free. Well not for free but not for cash. Apprenticeships in the 21st Century is just another name for slave labor. Everyone thinks they are smarter than the average bear and they have found the secret to wealth. Exploit all you find, and imprison anyone you can't exploit. Indenture anyone you can't imprison but let no one get out without leaving their pound of flesh.
Location: When things get hot they expand. Im not fat. Im hot.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jwkilgore
It's already much cheaper to go to an in-state public institution than a private institution. While the numbers would change some, and some private institutions would fail, most would continue on as before. If a degree from Harvard was worth $nnn,nnn before, it would arguably be worth much more after the market is flooded by people with "free" public degrees.
Good, reputable, private colleges and universities are in no danger.
My problem with Bernie's plan is that it only applies to academic degrees at "public universities and colleges". Keep in mind that I have such a degree, a Masters in Civil Engineering. Right now about 40% of Americans have a college degree (2-year associates or above). With a "free" degree available (1) more would try, so say the percentage eventually gets up to 55%.
As for the remaining 45%, well, the reality is that a significant portion of the population just doesn't have what it takes to acquire a college degree. I'm not saying they are dumb or of lesser quality, just that their skills lie elsewhere. I have relatives and friends who could never survive in an academic college setting. Many barely survived high school, and a few tried and failed at community college. Graduating with an academic degree would be impossible and pointless for them. Many are languishing in factories or service-level jobs, but some found their way to a trade school, learned a useful skill, and are flourishing at life. Turns out the guy I tutored in high school who barely squeaked by in algebra is brilliant at metalworking and makes more than I do. How do these people fit in with Bernie's plan?
Also, Bernie says this "free" college can be paid for with a simple trade tax on Wall Street Speculators, but let's get realistic... basic taxes would have to go up to cover everything he wants to implement. Back to my problem... assuming basic taxes go up on everyone, that means the blue-collar worker out there (the ones who wouldn't be able to finish a college degree) will basically be paying to educate the people who will eventually be their boss. That just doesn't seem right.
If Bernie would expand his program to include technical schools teaching useful trades like welding, equipment operation, pipe fitting, etc., then I'd be all for it. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any "public" technical schools. I may be wrong, but I believe all are private.
Note (1): Only the tuition portion of the costs of going to college is free. Students will still have to somehow find money for insanely expensive books and mandatory fees required for classes, plus money for housing, food, clothes, entertainment, etc. while taking classes instead of working. Calling any form of college education "free" is laughable.
Good points. I agree Bernie needs to expand his program. College isn't for everyone. Id like to see more emphasis on helping students find their right fit instead of pushing college as the answer to everything. I wonder how many brilliant metalworkers were steered to being mediocre college graduates and are now working at Kmart.
What Id like to see are scholarships that could be used at any college or tech school. We don't need new schools. And Id like to see these scholarships offered to older workers too. Id be fine for my taxes to pay for a deserving soul who earned this scholarship thru good grades etc. Emphasis on earned. Im not in favor of my taxes paying for some coaster to get four more years to party. If we don't set some kind of limits I can see this turning into another form of Welfare.
I am hoping those still need to be "earned". I mean, the hope with me is that we still have to earn things rather than having everything provided for us. Personally, I like the feeling that I have actually achieved something. I know that achievers are now looked down on in this era of redistribution from those who work and achieve to those who choose not to work, but it's still how I feel and think.
Since expense would no longer be a barrier to schooling at the better colleges, in the face of overwhelming numbers of prospective applicants, these schools would have to require even more stringent academic requirements for admission. The domino effect would then spread to the second-tier schools requiring more demanding admission requirements, and down to the next level. Pretty soon, C students can forget about going to college.
Which is as it should be. As an example, India has free secondary education, but they limit the number of people going to college based on the needs and capacity for accommodating graduates into society. This necessarily limits the opportunity to students who have worked hard to demonstrate their ability to succeed. In the end their society gets the best bang for their buck.
Those that cannot get into college can look forward to much lower standard of living. The prospect motivates the kids to work harder and that is why Indians end up getting H1B visas to come to the US to work. India's biggest export is probably intelligence.
My, I, me, me, me... you won the survival lottery and didn't come back from Iraq in a body bag so now everyone should join the military if they don't have the funds for college. Do you not see the flaw in that kind of centrist thinking? Centrist as in self-centered, not politically moderate. How many African Americans or Hispanics can make "great money" without college? The only African American considered competent to be President is a retired neuro-surgeon... talk about over qualified. If it wasn't for the public sector 80% of what African Americans are employed wouldn't have jobs. Show me the government job that doesn't require higher education? There is no problem with trade schools. Why do you think there is? If there is a problem it is that many charge outrageos tuition which they encourage you to finance. They promise job placement which often doesn't pan out. My brother is an auto-mechanic. He didn't pay a dime for his education. Older mechanics taught him most of what he knows. For free. Well not for free but not for cash. Apprenticeships in the 21st Century is just another name for slave labor. Everyone thinks they are smarter than the average bear and they have found the secret to wealth. Exploit all you find, and imprison anyone you can't exploit. Indenture anyone you can't imprison but let no one get out without leaving their pound of flesh.
I do not see the flaw. There are options of going to college for free, just choose which one works best for you. If you have the drive and do well in school, maybe you will get a full ride, if not join the military, if not apply for student loans. College is not, nor it should be a privilege. Blacks and Hispanics can get the same jobs without a degree as anyone else, its all about presentation. Present yourself in a manner of which you want other to view you and you will go far. As for government jobs that don't require a degree, there are plenty. I work for the government and the are plentiful jobs that do not require a degree so I am not sure where you are getting your info from.
I have no problem with trade schools...do you? This is another viable option outside of college as I stated before that can make someone a lot of money. I don't see what is wrong with financing...again, it should not be free. Apprenticeships...you are learning a trade...if it sucks for a while just deal with it there is always light at the end of the tunnel but in order to get there sometimes you have to go through hell. When you get there though you will be proud of yourself for doing so and there will be many rewards in life for doing so.
Don't make this about race or anything else. Its the will to succeed and anyone can do it. The way I see it is if you wait around for things to get easier or because you don't want to deal with temporary short comings than a person such as that with a degree is no different than someone without a degree because no one wants to hire those types of people.
Which is as it should be. As an example, India has free secondary education, but they limit the number of people going to college based on the needs and capacity for accommodating graduates into society. This necessarily limits the opportunity to students who have worked hard to demonstrate their ability to succeed. In the end their society gets the best bang for their buck.
Those that cannot get into college can look forward to much lower standard of living. The prospect motivates the kids to work harder and that is why Indians end up getting H1B visas to come to the US to work. India's biggest export is probably intelligence.
Indians don't work any harder than anyone else that is a hard worker. They aren't smarter than anyone else. Lots of them are pretty average just like America. Geez. Half a million Indian H1B's come to America leaving 1.2 Billion behind, and oh my those Indians... they're so smart! They work so hard! They're so good at everything they do... Calcutta... Mumbai... ... They come to America because American employers will have them. It would be a lot cheaper for them to go to France, or Germany or Switzerland, but those countries will not hire skilled foreign workers at the expense of their own citizenry. Which is as it should be. Blacks and Hispanics with college degrees are not hired in proportion to the number of them with the credentials. Americans are being forced out of skilled labor so Asian H1B's can take their place. American colleges are limiting access to those very institutions and 2/3 of the PhD graduates from American Universities are Asian. If you think its because they are smarter or "better" somehow you have been drinking the 1% Kool-Aid. And that's alright. You haven't answered why it is ok for secondary education to be free in India, indeed in most of the developed world, but not in America. Is it maybe so that America can artificially maintain an underclass, even though America is one of the riches economies on earth? Could that possibly be the reason?
And none of you "built that". You won the parent lottery and were born middle class or better. You didn't pay one thin dime for your educations and you possibly didn't even pay for your homes. I mean... housing is probably the biggest expense an American has and more than half of Conservatives pay nothing for their housing except maybe the property taxes... ... hmmm...
Heck yeah I won the parent lottery.
No they weren't middle class or better, they were poor. Like our neighbors were mostly section 8, and I used the surplus from our foodstamps to buy candy to resell at school so I could buy school clothes at the local thrift store.
But, I was born to American Parents.
My worst days were still better than much of the world will ever know, and once this was explained to me in highschool I did whatever I could to not squander the winnings. Fast forward a bit and I think I'm just about to breech upper middle class and you're 100% correct that my kids will never have to work half as hard as my spouse and I to get their education funded. It's about making the next generation better, plant the trees so your kids can enjoy the shade.
If you're on CD, odds are you won the birth lottery too, so did you squander your winnings?
Wherever you have free or reduced cost college tuition (translation heavily subsidized by taxpayers) there are restrictions on who benefits and how. I'll say it again; in a word, tracking.
All those little precious snowflakes and their parents had better realize this; that unless they have the proven academic chops to make it into a top tier college they will be shunted to community/poly-technical or whatever. The government will more likely than not pick and choose what degrees are deemed worthy of free tuition. No one is going to shell out tens of grand per year for some kid with a 2.0 GPA to study for an AAS in dog grooming. The fact we as a nation do already (via student loads if federal) is part of the current problem.
Health care and education are not expenses; they are investments because a healthy, educated population is a productive and content population.
Horrendous and evil expression of an odious and debauched philosophy. Stealing money from one person to pay for the individual private schooling of another person is morally and ethically decrepit and disgusting. We have tolerated this nonsensical faux compassion for long enough. Compassion ends at the point of a gun.
So no, education is not an investment in anything. It is robbery unless it is voluntary. I have NO OBLIGATION WHATSOEVER to educate you or your kids or your grandkids. If you're going to have them, you should educate them yourself. And home schooling would be best, because the legions of mental zombies currently being released without parole from intellectual prison sentences (aka public school graduates), are largely the ones joining the putrescent Trotskyite fossil Bernie Sanders in his campaign to destroy every principle that America stands for: Individualism, Private Property Rights, Freedom, Liberty.
And all for free adult pampers, free abortions, free dentures, and oh yeah, NOT SELFISH MUCH: Eliminate my student loans. It's astonishing in its audacity and frightening in its fecklessness. But what did we expect? A strong generation of get-it-done nothing-can-stop-me adults from a curriculum of collectivist utilitarian trash where the most happiness for the most people trumps freedom and trumps achievement and trumps private property rights and trumps liberty? No, the chickens have come home to roost and they are not LIKE chickens with their heads cut off, THEY ACTUALLY ARE CHICKENS WITH THEIR HEADS CUT OFF. Insofar as their brains are operating at all, they are operating like headless chickens, voting for a useless, idle, never-done-anything, zero-achievement old fart like Bernie Sanders who openly advocates collectivist Socialism without hiding it and obfuscating it like Hillary would (in a sense, he is more honest than she is in that he is not afraid to identify what he is).
Do you want to invest in education? Save up your damned money and put yourself through school. THAT'S an INVESTMENT. Or get a scholarship if you're worth anything, or a student loan that you expect to pay back and promise to pay back. THAT's AN INVESTMENT. Or, pull a Sanders, put a gun to your neighbor's head, squeeze gently but resolutely, and demand that others INVEST IN YOU or face the consequences.
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