Bernie Sanders 2016 Feel the Bern!

Yes in 2008 I did support Obama, and hoped that the influx of new voters would have made a bigger change. But I agree with those that say Obama didn't use that support as efficiently as he could have.

I think talking about a potential Sanders presidency is so far into a hypothetical world that its difficult to know what kind of mandate he'd have or not have, and what public opinions there would be to take advantage of, or would be lacking, etc.

 

I don't want college to be free. College is already too easy and too many people are attending. It should call for some level of sacrifice and be challenging. Cut tuition cost? I would support that... Offer more scholarships based on competive standards? Absolutely.

Free college for everyone would be a disaster.

 

I don't understand how a better educated society is a bad thing. You want to create an artificial barrier of competition because you think too many people are seeking a better education? My god.

 

I want a higher quality of secondary education. It isn't an artificial barrier either, it is based on performance. Those that do very well should be able to compete for grants and scholarships. Also a vast majority of Americans can go to college now if they want to through financial aid.

This BS simplistic talking points of the extreme left over the last 25 years has done nothing.... Give every child a computer, college for everyone with minimum effort.... It doesn't even the playing field ultimately.

College should be hard, it should be something kids strive for and work for, it should be something you sacrifice for because it should mean something.... It shouldn't be something anyone can half ass into.

 

I guess I missed the part where universities would have to get rid of their admission standards and the course material would be dumbed down. Do you have a link for that?

 

24 years later and the story is exactly the same.

 

glynch, did you look at any of the data and trends and arguments I posted? Maybe you have me on ignore.

40 years are not "meaningless" when things change over time.

 

At my workplace, they offered everyone free education (master programs). You have to keep a min level of performance at the school and of course at work. Some took the offer, but not many.

You can offer free college education and even increase the performance requirements if it looks like or if you are concerns that too many are just trying to get a degree but not performing or learning.

 

Sanders advocated free college for all of those WHO HAVE THE ABILITY. Just because it's free doesn't mean the admissions process is going to go down the drain. You still have to get into the school. If anything, the admissions process will become a bit more selective as to who gets in, especially considering that more people than ever will apply since it will be a feasible reality for them.

And on what ground is it too easy? I agree with grade inflation, but as far as the difficulty of college in general, it can argued that it's harder than ever for many universities

 

College is just an extension of school, it's one and the same. If school is free, college should be free. Grades don't mean anything, today they're more indicative of obedience than intelligence and intelligence is much more valuable to society than obedience.

In a democracy, there is nothing with more intangible value than a more educated population. The fact that someone thinks you should work "hard" is irrelevant really. I understand that like my grandparents, some people believe hard work is a prerequisite to free college. It's an antiquated view, and that's why it's so MUCH stronger among those in the older age range.

Living wage, shelter, education, healthcare.. we should get these as the baseline from the day we're born, and if it costs us a ceiling on how stupidly rich you can become so be it. It's a much better, less stressful, less dangerous, less terrorized society and that's worth it. There's more room for liberty, more room for creativity. Those handful of people who would fall under that ceiling need to adapt or they can follow their corporations to China.

As for people who don't fall under that ceiling who are still hypnotized by the b.s. marketing pumped into their brain all day, time to wake up. If your daddy didn't make you rich, then you have to **** on someone else to get rich. That's not a society, and most humans want to live in a civilized society.

 

Disagree. High school is supposed to provide everyone a baseline solid education and the chance for students to distinguish themselves in various ways, especially if they're interested in an excellent college education.

College gives much more freedom for students to pursue exactly their interests and goals -- it is fundamentally different than high school.

Having given over 1,000 grades, I strongly feel that grades are a mix of obedience and intelligence, but maybe that's b/c I teach science. And finally, intelligence isn't actually very useful to society if it just sits in a basement or online doing day trading b/c it doesn't want to interact w' anyone. Success and/or improving the world need a mix of intelligence and people skills (which I fear you mark down within "obedience").

Basically agree with each of those, but the "education" guarantee has to have a limit. Everyone gets a PhD? So that has to be a topic of society conversation, not fiat.

 

Yes but the world has changed. Governments and marketers through media have made a higher level of education a necessity. You are correct that high school WAS supposed to be the baseline. Why was that the baseline? It was a general standard we accepted to be enough to assist people in their foray into the work force or further education.

College is no longer fundamentally different than high school just because there's more freedom in college. That's an irrelevant difference. The relevant difference now is that people absolutely need college these days to achieve the preparedness achieved by high school in the past. Kindergarten gives less freedom than high school, doesn't make us change our attitude towards each - the argument is really inconsequential.

You have a very difficult job and do your best to maximize the role of intelligence in the classroom. It's just not happening. I spent 11 years of school achieving a maximum GPA, got bored and then started having fun through college. I kept my grades at exactly 80% from my final year in high school till I graduated college - my test scores never changed. I was just docked points for never attending class and regularly getting into trouble. Why should it matter? I understood the material better than anyone else. I live in a country where the last thing we need is for kids to learn more obedience. When you live in an authoritarian society - which we ALL do to varying degrees, but probably none more than me - teaching obedience becomes very apparently a method to keep kids from dreaming.

The guy who' sitting in his basement can vote for a climate change denier or not. Can participate in a civil rights movement, or not. There's no real threat of masses of people sitting around doing nothing all day, otherwise Germany, Norway and other countries which offer virtually free tuition would not be economic juggernauts developing vast new industries of the future. Tuition is free for tons of Saudis, the ones who take advantage of it end up being the industry leaders in their country, who in turn modernize that country. Exiled being the exception of course lol.

We can talk about whether PhD's should be free when the times comes. For the time being though, college should be free. It's a public good, you will benefit from someone else getting more educated even if they don't specifically use what they learn in college when they hit the workforce. People can do business from home, from a virtual location, they can devise apps which dramatically improve our lives. It's a different world.

What I will say is that college education has to be updated a lot. You can get more prepared graduates by more closely aligning what colleges are teaching to what society largely agrees is more in need. Unfortunately, large corporations and UHNWI's have taken college over like everything else and are just using them as factories for obedient employees. That's why you get a lot of guys sitting in their basement doing nothing - because that guy is not amazing at kissing ass, and he is now in debt so he can't think as an entrepreneur. It's a really ****ty proposition.

Most important of all, we're not talking about a theoretical position here. This is happening - successfully - in other countries. Enrolment is less in those countries, and I'd argue that enrolment is lower because tuition is free rather than vice versa. College education isn't as much of a status symbol in those countries and people are able to make a living for themselves without focusing on the narrow subjects at college. It's fine. Not everyone has to go to college. Not everyone has to respect authority. Not everything has to stay the same just because it was built for an outdated purpose.

Are you willing to pay a bit more in taxes, a lot less in tuition and end up with a more educated community pushing for better policies from their representatives IF that's the ONLY thing that comes out of it?

Come on. Think of how much is spent on war. Are you aware of what % of the war/defense budget can be cut in order for you to receive free education with no change to your taxes?

 

This. I don't care if anyone agrees or disagrees with the rest of his statement, we could conceivably provide free tuition (and more quite honestly) if we cut the military spending by 10%. That's $100 billion right there. No reason at all why college tuition shouldn't be free to all of those that are qualified. Even if you don't want college to be tuition free, there's so much other public good we could do with that money.

I think people underestimate just how much misdirected wealth there is in this country. It's just being put in all the wrong places due to special interests and the imperialistic nature this country has taken on.

On a side note, there needs to be way more military optimization. This ridiculous trend of constantly increasing funding neglects any inefficiencies in the system. I mean, we still use floppy discs to control some nuclear missiles, ridiculous.

 

what Bernie doesn't get

 

I agree that there are crooks at every level and that not all wealthy are just greedy a-holes. However, this graphic completely misrepresents the consequences each level has on the nation. It implies that those at the bottom have just as an equal negative effect as those on top. That's false

 

Sweet innocent child. You have so much to learn.