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If you do that, you're entirely screening for "smart". Any bright kid is going to do really well on standardized tests even if they got C's in those courses in High School. The point of a High School transcript is to validate that the applicant actually shows up and does the work every day. That's just as important as having an adequate number of neurons firing.
The reality is that a college degree largely screens for the same thing. You at least know they were capable of showing up every day and passing the courses. It's not like a liberal arts degree gives an applicant any particularly meaningful 21st century job skills beyond some reading comprehension and writing skills. Even those are often pretty iffy and a 3rd tier state school.
My usual response to "free college" is that we need to fix K-12 instead. A High School graduate used to be able to read with comprehension, write coherently, and do basic arithmetic. That is no longer the case. A BA from a state school now has what used to be grade 12 proficiency.
Agreed, the college problem in my view is a symptom of some larger problems. Part of the problem is just the nature of work in today's world. It used to be that being able to read halfway decently and do basic arithmetic put you into the top 50% of workers. That doesn't even get you into the door at Jack in the Box these days. Work used to be more... well... labor intensive. You needed humans to run formulas for insurance companies, etc... Now we have software that does that so the humans have to be a few steps ahead of it.
Our K-12 system is not producing 21st century work skills, so they go to college. This was not the purpose of university to begin with. University was always meant to focus on expansion of knowledge and training professionals - doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc... It was never meant to train nurses, police officers, store managers, mortgage bankers etc... High school + otj SHOULD be enough training for those jobs. But it's not, so people go to college.
A lot of jobs... I'd wager half of all jobs today, ask for ridiculously high educational requirements. Why the heck do you need a bachelor's degree to be a administrative assistant (secretary?) High school should be preparing people to be able to learn a broad swath of job skills and then the jobs themselves should be providing job-specific training.
We have to do choose one of two directions 1) if we are going to do nothing with K-12 and employers are going to continue requiring higher education, we will need institutionalize public education beyond grade 12.
Or 2) we could fix K-12. I disagree with many people that our K-12 is failing. It's doing what it's fundamentally designed to do quite well - produce graduates who can read, write, and do math at a basic level. If we want it to compete with European or Asian secondary schools then we have to fundamentally change it. From what I've seen of foriegn education systems they focus A LOT more on academics and less sports and extra-curriculars. Generally speaking their high schools are more like our colleges. We'd have to have a sea-change to catch up to them.
Or 2) we could fix K-12. I disagree with many people that our K-12 is failing. It's doing what it's fundamentally designed to do quite well - produce graduates who can read, write, and do math at a basic level. If we want it to compete with European or Asian secondary schools then we have to fundamentally change it. From what I've seen of foriegn education systems they focus A LOT more on academics and less sports and extra-curriculars. Generally speaking their high schools are more like our colleges. We'd have to have a sea-change to catch up to them.
simple solution is to fail/hold people back if they cant meet the standards of that grade... then we wont get high school grads who cant read past 8th grade and cant do more than arithmetic with their digits.
but somehow this seems more unlikely than people pushing for free college.
but to only allow the top 5% of students into a university is to the extreme. That is like all 500 fortune companies only hiring candidates that graduated from Ivy Leauge Schools and the rest of college graduates are stocking shelves at Walmart, working in a factory, etc.
Not only that, but the colleges NEED the students. As many as they can get. How else will they make money?
Has anyone answered the question as to why college costs are rising at a rate far higher than inflation?
I would not want to support free college tuition until we answer that question and can get the annual tuition increases inline with inflation. Otherwise, it will just add to our state and federal growing debt.
Has anyone answered the question as to why college costs are rising at a rate far higher than inflation?
I would not want to support free college tuition until we answer that question and can get the annual tuition increases inline with inflation. Otherwise, it will just add to our state and federal growing debt.
Agreed. We don't really know the answer to that. There are various factors blamed by different interest groups for the costs but from what I've read it's a complex of problems we don't fully understand.
"Baumol's cost disease" is blamed by most economists now - basically the theory is that with certain services (the original study was of classical musicians) - when you add supply, you add costs. The Supply-Demand curve doesn't work for them because the labor is not scalable. This applies to things like performing Beethoven's 9th, training a drug-sniffing dog, or teaching students/producing research. It takes a certain number of hours by a certain number of highly trained professionals to do it. To do more of it, you need more highly trained professionals. Unlike producing widgets or cotton, you don't save any money by doing more, you just spend more.
If that is the case with college costs (and again, we're not sure), the only solution would be to limit or reduce the people going to college.
If you ask me, subsidizing college would be cheaper and easier than the reforms needed at the K-12 levels to accomplish the above.
Why shouldn't it? Rate of inflation isn't the cap on how much someone is willing/capable of paying
College isn't a right, legal obligation for education ends at 18
What are you getting at here? You are okay with spending millions of tax payer dollars for something that is increasing at an aplarently out of control rate? If we are going to pay for college it needs to be at the cheapest price possible, not a bidding war.
In Germany most students normally need about 600-800 Euro per month to cover all their expenses. It's normally financed by their parents or by earning own money by doing a part time job.
There is also a federal assistance program (Bafög). It's up to 670 Euro per month. The amount depends on the income of the student and the income of his parents. Half the amount is a grant, the other half is an interest-free loan.
Taking a normal loan from a bank is rather uncommon. I doubt that a bank would give a loan to a student unless he works and has a regular income.
Having spent the summer in a German university in Wurzberg I can also tell you that they don't let everyone go to college.
That's the difference between here and most of the places where they have low cost or free university. You actually have to earn your way into a university.
Not dumb it down and make the degree useless for all.
Most of the people in this country get a free education all the way through high school and totally blow it off. And now you want me to pay more taxes so that they can get free college? Eff that.
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