Opinion Free educations supporters enlighten me

[GreenGorilla]

I agree, and I think it’s absolutely insane to ask an 18 year old kid to try to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives in general. That lack of maturity is a reason many drop out and also rack up massive debt.

Agreed something needs to change for the sake of the people of the USA, I am not from the US so technically I could care less but I can't help but feel some empathy.

 

[superpunch]

Too many Americans go to college. Americans need to be less educated so we can bring back manufacturing.

 

[Don Hagliatelli]

I think free or subsidised higher education would be a good thing.

Places should be limited and applicants should be selected based on academic merit.

The number of places subsidised for each course should be based on need. If you have a load of organic chemistry graduates who can't find work in that field, but have a bunch of engineering jobs you can't fill due to lack of qualified candidates, it should be obvious what to do.

If you wanted to do a course and weren't able to qualify for a subsidised place, then I guess I don't mind people paying the market rate.

I think this approach would benefit society and the individuals who get subsidised places. The potential losers are those who decide to pay their own way.

 

[giusti825]

Explain to me what the attraction of free education is? Hopefully from someone besides the communists in this forum.

It would not be free and state sponsored education with government approved curriculum.

Many nations already do this. In Finland, they pay students to attend college as if it were a job.

This is one of the many reasons scandanavian countries are higher on the social mobility index.

Access to higher education for the entire population instead of just those who can afford it puts people on an equal footing instead of giving the wealthy a huge advantage.

We all know free doesn't mean nobody pays for it, just like free healthcare, what is meant is free at the point of service; that you get these things as a birthright. It would only cost 60 Billion dollars a year and would give innovative minds the credentials to be successful without putting them in 30 years of debt that prevents them from buying homes at a decent interest rate.

The college debt crisis in this country is preventing a whole generation from upward social mobility.

 

[PajamaSnugz]

Yeah, that's kinda true (although up until recently we had a pretty decent, free elementary + high school education that worked for the less-fortunate as well) But dumb cunts will be dumb cunts.
There's also relatively a lot of people with higher education so your Master's degree becomes the lowest standard for jobs that shouldn't really require them.
Maybe the positive side-effect is that people "know more about shit" and are used to critical thinking more..
I say maybe because education certainly doesn't equal intellect.

Yeah elementary and highschool I think should be and is pretty standard. Most of my friends that went to college all either have shite jobs or it literally took them 10-ish years to finally find something in their field and they’re just now starting to make OK money. I went to college but dropped out because I had to move back home in with my rents when my dad got cancer. Never ended up going back and honestly idk how much it actually would have helped me. The only difference it would have made is that I’d be a lot more in dept right now.

 

[MilesAbove]

Funny because you asked for a free education, TS.

 

[freakroor]

The long-term economic and social benefits of having a well educated and debt-free population would far outweigh the cost of educating. But long-term thinking is not a prominent feature of american politics.

 

[MilesAbove]

Qanon is 100 percent true dumbass.

Due to your lack of proper punctuation, this statement is correct. Qanon is full dumbass.

prove me wrong.

Which part of it? I'd be happy to, although I assume you're going to point to something that requires the burden of proof to be on you and not me.

checkmate fucktard.

What's a "checkmate fucktard", is it some kind of sex thing?[/quote]

 

[AntiStasi]

Free post secondary education is a terrible idea. University degrees are getting watered down as it is with government loans that are way too accessible to teens with no credit. Its turning higher education into degree mills, and the fact that you can't declare bankruptcy with these loans is straight up enslavement. Imagine the corruption and incompetence if the whole thing ran off government funding. Look at what absolute failures public schools have become, and now you want that to extend to universities? Its already turning into a cesspool with safe spaces and neo-marxism, they do more harm than good.

 

[Day Drinking]

I like the irony of a post asking asking to know what the point of free education is, while criticizing it.

The fact that you dont have to pay to get a response to that question shows the value of a free education.

 

[NastyNinja]

I ask what can't you learn on the internet?

Built an entire engine last year using nothing but youtube ...

Making extra cash doing nails for Women after 2 weeks of youtube + a 40 dollar kit ordered off amazon...

Its all certification an status ... belt rank ..

The guy who is the richest in the world hates school ... same with the others ... You know the dumb asses who run the world like bill gates ...

Knowledge is free ... being allowed to use it ... isn't

Get your certs so you can play the game.... Got to pay to play if you can't create

 

[Throwin Bombs]

Funny because you asked for a free education, TS.

Do you really think your opinion is worth a monetary value?

 

[Throwin Bombs]

Many nations already do this. In Finland, they pay students to attend college as if it were a job.

This is one of the many reasons scandanavian countries are higher on the social mobility index.

Access to higher education for the entire population instead of just those who can afford it puts people on an equal footing instead of giving the wealthy a huge advantage.

We all know free doesn't mean nobody pays for it, just like free healthcare, what is meant is free at the point of service; that you get these things as a birthright. It would only cost 60 Billion dollars a year and would give innovative minds the credentials to be successful without putting them in 30 years of debt that prevents them from buying homes at a decent interest rate.

The college debt crisis in this country is preventing a whole generation from upward social mobility.

Do you really need to be wealthy to get a college education? It seems its most difficult for the middle class to pay for college and they end up with the most debt. Lower income families obtain far more tuition assistance than the middle class.

The tuition rates are out of hand and universities are scamming people. The increase in rates just since I graduated are ridiculous.

 

[Brampton_Boy]

I ask what can't you learn on the internet?

Built an entire engine last year using nothing but youtube ...

Making extra cash doing nails for Women after 2 weeks of youtube + a 40 dollar kit ordered off amazon...

Its all certification an status ... belt rank ..

The guy who is the richest in the world hates school ... same with the others ... You know the dumb asses who run the world like bill gates ...

Knowledge is free ... being allowed to use it ... isn't

Get your certs so you can play the game.... Got to pay to play if you can't create

I think is probably only true of skills based occupations (and even then, very simple ones). While the internet is a wonderful resource and can teach people a number of things, it is not a substitute for:

1)Critical reasoning and analytical skills that are best achieved in a classroom setting - while yes, I suppose there are forums dedicated to advanced math/physics etc, the benefit of school is that there is a prescriptive path going from novice to expert in a subject area, and being evaluated on the necessary components that exhibit proficiency. I can't fathom how people could teach themselves advanced math or stats on the internet (unless they were one of those brilliant people wou have an innate aptitude regardless of how they were learning).

2)Alot of higher learning is about going out and conducting new research and promoting innovation. By its very nature, it seems like the internet would be a great thing to learn about various subjet, but not necessarily equip you with the tools to actually go about and advance understanding of a topic (through research, experiment testing etc.) and add to the existing knowledge base.

3) Even with skills based topics, i.e. car/computer repair, carpentry, electrical, you will need to have access to the correct tools/resources to train and became proficient on them. I can watch how to install an engine block until the cows come home, but I won't be able to do anything about it unless I had the right equipment. While school doesn't give you this equipment either, from what little I know about training courses in practical trades is that you get to use these tools during an apprenticeship. Without having that on the job training, I can't really see how you could teach yourself those skills solo.

 

[MilesAbove]

Do you really think your opinion is worth a monetary value?

Any education calculated through the lens of "monetary value" has already missed the point of education to begin with. Doubly funny is the idea that TS would want a crash course in macro economics and social structure ROI theory for free. That's the joke.

 

[Hadron90]

Degree bloat is too big of a problem. The issue is less the cost of a bachelor's degree, and more why we need a bachelor's degree to fucking do anything now. I would be in favor of a system of free college, but college admission standards would be dramatically raised. College should only be attended by about 30% of population, imo.

 

[sickc0d3r]

free education, would theoretically lead to a more enlightened, and educated populace, granting them more opportunity, making our country a better place, and less prone to crime.

I think about the billions of dollars we pour into our penitentiary system...and how many families that have been torn apart through crime and incarceration.

and I imagine what if...what if we poured this money into education at the start.

**puts down weed. drinks Vodka

Cannot like enough.

 

[giusti825]

Do you really need to be wealthy to get a college education? It seems its most difficult for the middle class to pay for college and they end up with the most debt. Lower income families obtain far more tuition assistance than the middle class.

The tuition rates are out of hand and universities are scamming people. The increase in rates just since I graduated are ridiculous.

Tuition rates definitely need to be reined in along with a requirement that a minimum percentage actually go to the professors teaching students. Way to much college money these days is going to non-educators.

Education should just be free for everyone treated like an investment in society.

If poor people mess up a single semester, many of them do not return as they cant pay back the student loans. The wealthy not only get an advantage of never having to go into debt in the first place, but when they do complete college, they are ready to begin life without a debt burden that will potentially follow them for 10-30 years.

People in this country used to be able to pay for college out of pocket with a summer job, now its a lifetime consideration that disqualifies way too many and discourages even more.

 

[D3THRONED]

I don't see why people make such an issue about free college/university. The root cause is high administrative costs leading to bloating college budgets far outpacing inflation for educations that are becoming increasingly worthless.

And only 1 in 4 people actually have a job related to the field they graduated with in college. We actually need 3 out of 4 people to stop going to university and wasting their time and money, and instead spend their time more wisely.

Probably shouldn't be going to college for useless degrees tbh. Get a degree that can get you a job. STEM, health sciences, etc. Mass communication, gender studies, psychology degrees are essentially worthless. People make dumb decisions like going 50k into student loan debt while working at Community Coffee because they picked a retarded major.

 

[panamaican]

I suppose the simplest answer to this question is "Look at free k-12, extend it to college."

The more complex answer is related to the importance of an educated society in developing strong and flexible economies. It's pretty common knowledge that the education needs of the modern society are more substantial than they were in the middle of the 20th century. At that time, the education provided by high school education was sufficient to meet the education needs of that era. To that effect, ~40% of the American population had a high school diploma. Meaning that 40% of the population had taken advantage of a free education system and thus were prepared to step most basic jobs in the economy of the time. This helped grow the economy with a stable educated workforce.

In the modern economy, the education needs have surpassed what is provided by high school. People need more education, even if they're entering the trades they tend to need a trade school or some kind of supplemental training. In 2020, over 90% of the population has a high school diploma. By comparison, only ~33% of the population has a 4 year college degree.

This means that the percentage of the population with a college degree today is the equivalent of those having a high school diploma in the 1960s. If we want to continue growing our economy and pumping out a high quality labor force ready to pivot into modern needs then we need to fund that education piece. That doesn't happen if the cost of the education is prohibitively expensive, either on the front end pushing people away from the education or on the back end in the form of expensive loan obligations.

So, long term economic competitiveness is going to be built on the quality of our labor pool and free education is how we've always done it.