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There used to be limitations on who could go to college. You have to qualify but now everyone goes, many universities no longer have admission standards.
The dwindling number of taxpayers simply cannot give every 18 to 26 year old a free ride to the party school of his/her choice. In addition there are the growing numbers of people living off welfare handouts. Adding another $100,000 for each and every 18 year old for the taxpayers to cough up is not a good idea.
That's absolutely not true. The percentage of students who graduate from high school is significantly higher now than in the past, even the fairly recent past, and test scores are higher than they were in the past (though they lag behind other nations now). The reason students go to college now is because blue-collar living-wage jobs are gone, and the only chance they have to make a decent living is to go to college.
Indeed, as I noted above, less Americans go to college now than some other first-world nations and those nations don't have this extreme crisis that we do. Even Britain, which IS experiencing some crisis, has a more generous and universal income-based repayment program. Same for Australia.
Also, the stereotype of "party schools" is bunk; schools have cut down on binge drinking slowly but surely since the 1980s.
Finally, schools don't have to be anywhere near 100k, but a fully public, fully subsidized system like, say, the French system, goes against our decentralization fetish.
You make a debt; you pay the debt. This country is having the life sucked out of it by freeloaders. My ancestors sacrificed to build this country and Obama's deadbeats are destroying it.
Wow, YOUR ancestors. Good to know. Only yours, right? The backs of slaves and sharecroppers didn't build it, too? Oh, but they were never paid and generations of THEIR offspring have never been restored to anything near full equality from the continuing effects of that wrong. But yet I bet if I talked about "Affirmative Action", that would be just more welfare, right?
More importantly, the idea that you get some special credit because of your ancestors is insane. You aren't your ancestors, you are the lucky and unearned beneficiary of whatever they did. To claim it as if it is your property, your birthright, is the most insanely entitled thing I can think of.
It's amazing that the people who work thankless jobs and live in the most dire poverty are the "deadbeats" and the people who live in comfort off of those persons' labors are the producers and the makers and the elite.
And then those who have had everything handed to them (by their ancestors ) complain about the young kids trying to get an education.
This thread encompasses everything wrong with America's selfish, irrational, entitled (and, yeah, I mean the entitled white middle and upper class) zeitgeist.
It's the use of unwarranted hyperbole such as "out of control" that is out of control. The right-wing echo-chamber media seem to have had a great deal to do with this. They'll say almost anything in their efforts to appeal to and stir up people's emotions. Of course, I'd do the same if I didn't have any actual facts to support my position.
When the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. When the law is on your side, pound on the law. When neither the facts nor the law is on your side, pound on the table.
-- Old lawyer's saying that explains the right-wing media entirely.
... Even having a "Women's Studies" degree is miles better for a resume than "High School Diploma".
But that "Women's Studies" degree is miles worse than, say, becoming a welder or HVAC tech. There is nothing wrong with pursuing a skilled trade.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwhitegocubs
... I went to the same undergrad as [my father] did years later and it was... vastly more expensive in inflation adjusted terms. Since I left there eight years ago, it's gone up even more (of course) in comparison to inflation.
The REASON the price of tuition goes up higher than the general price level is because we subsidize higher education. When we raise tuition subsidies by a dollar, universities are free to raise the price by a dollar. When they raise their price by a dollar, ineluctably they increase their cost structure by 80 cents or more.
"You must abandon this house. My family and I need to move in."
"Son, I own this house. You are a very confused person."
"How did you come to own this house?"
"My father left it to me, if you must know."
"How did he come to own it?"
"Son, this land has been in my family for generations."
"How did the first generation come to own it?"
"Son, my great-great-grand-whatevers fought for this land!"
"Fine. I will fight you for it."
But that "Women's Studies" degree is miles worse than, say, becoming a welder or HVAC tech. There is nothing wrong with pursuing a skilled trade.
No, and there is nothing wrong with pursuing a degree in women's studies either. Here is some good advice -- Do what you love. The money will find you.
The REASON the price of tuition goes up higher than the general price level is because we subsidize higher education.
It's much more because we DON'T subsidize higher education to the degrees that we used to. Public universities are state-funded, tax-supported institutions. But short-sighted tax-whiners put pressure on legislatures to cut costs across the board. No thought to how those cuts would affect the fiscal balance of nature or what sort of unfavorable blow-back would result. With state funding reduced, universities could either fold their tents and become smaller and lesser institutions in the face of needs to become larger and greater intistutions, or they could raise tuition, even if to the point of making education prohibitively expensive to the point where access to grants and ultimately burdensome loans became more important than GPA or SAT scores. Here's another nice mess that the TEA Party mindset of the right-wing has gotten us into.
But that "Women's Studies" degree is miles worse than, say, becoming a welder or HVAC tech. There is nothing wrong with pursuing a skilled trade.
For the first 100,000 people who do that, maybe. But all the "skilled trades" talk doesn't come close to filling the gap towards full employment, and once those skilled trades are full, the wages in those industries will quickly fall (since barriers to entry are lower than college).
Quote:
The REASON the price of tuition goes up higher than the general price level is because we subsidize higher education. When we raise tuition subsidies by a dollar, universities are free to raise the price by a dollar. When they raise their price by a dollar, ineluctably they increase their cost structure by 80 cents or more.
The solution is obvious, although painful.
I don't disagree that tuition goes up because we subsidize it without also controlling costs on the back-end. The solution IS obvious, but it's not to let the market price out all but a tiny handful of the middle and lower classes; the solution is to model our university systems on other wealthy nations that have rigid cost-controlled systems with similar enrollment, higher graduation rates, lower costs, and fewer debts.
But that system is diametrically opposed to your libertarian capitalist paradigm.
It's much more because we DON'T subsidize higher education to the degrees that we used to. Public universities are state-funded, tax-supported institutions. But short-sighted tax-whiners put pressure on legislatures to cut costs across the board. No thought to how those cuts would affect the fiscal balance of nature or what sort of unfavorable blow-back would result. With state funding reduced, universities could either fold their tents and become smaller and lesser institutions in the face of needs to become larger and greater intistutions, or they could raise tuition, even if to the point of making education prohibitively expensive to the point where access to grants and ultimately burdensome loans became more important than GPA or SAT scores. Here's another nice mess that the TEA Party mindset of the right-wing has gotten us into.
I think SportandMisty, as much as I disagree with him or her, was talking about how we subsidize colleges through loans by ensuring that every person, regardless of co-signer or creditworthiness, gets a loan if they enroll in school.
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) complain about the young kids trying to get an education.
