major spending and deficits to win to the cold war and it was without any real outrage against the spending and deficits used. but when folks talk of major spending and deficits to educate and take care of americans EVERYONE goes apeshiit. why? a population of uneducated and unhealthy citizens is an enemy within. not only that, but that type of spending would be a major boost to our economy across the board not just industrial military jobs.
This is basically the way it has to be if you want free university or free people of student debt. Just don't let in the r****ds who have no hope to graduate out. Currently they just admit them to worse schools and let them flounder at their own financial peril. I don't think the culture would allow for this change. American culture is one to try and give everyone a shot.
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Keep in mind that one of the big reasons college costs are so high IS because of the funding available. All kinds of financial aid programs, so very little reason to cap costs or price. Same drivers as health care. Everyone wants a good education, just like the want good health care, so if the funding is available, they will pay the price...and the price therefore just keeps going up.
While I get your point, and think an argument could be made around it....you really don't see the drastic difference? Even if you take out one involving national security, it also had a finite life to it. These types of programs don't. There is a HUGE difference between borrowing to build something, as a short term cost, and borrowing to pay for it forever. First, would like to see a breakdown on just what it would mean. I do believe a more educated workforce is a good thing, but do we lack educated workers currently? If not, then producing a bunch more of them isn't necessarily going to be a major boost to the economy. It could, in fact, end up being a drag, with lots more unemployed, or the glut of educated people dragging down wages for such skills.
Not on ignore. I do not have any poster on ignore and I don't believe I ever have, been tempted once or twice. I vaguely remembered perhaps doing it for a day or two with one poster and can't remember who it was Hey I am well aware that political consciousness has changed a lot in 40 yrs. I remember that tuition in NY and CA was very close to zero in the late 1960's. I have friends to this day who paid that. Bernie's tax on Walls Street for instance will pay for it. Hey Germany, etc. are enough to convince me that it is purely a question of political will. Now that they are drinking the conservative kool-aid I realize that Britain for instance has eliminated free or token charges for universities and started socking it to their students while generating more finance millionaires and billionaires. After looking at your data and comments. Tutition has gone up a lot due to a lot of administration costs and the student health costs you mention will be taken up by national health care. It is true that fancy climbing walls, excessive administrators etc. that I saw at private schools we toured when my son applied raise expenses. Your pell grant chart was irrelevant as there wd be no need for such grants when tuition is free. I do see that you agree that paying for it is largely a function of conservative opposition. Again not everyone will be admitted to 4 yr public colleges especially to the flagship type like UT Austin UC Berkely etc. Bernie has said that a tax on Wall Street would pay for free tuition and I think that this is largely correct.
Is this magical Wall Street tax going to be indexed to the rate of inflation of free college? It would cost about 45 billion for tuition from what I read and I think we are close to an 8% tuition inflation rate (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). So the cost would double in about 9 years. He is also proposing college loan rate cuts and increased financial aid on top of this free tuition for public schools. Is the government going to institute cost controls for public universities? If UT wants to add on to DKR Memorial Stadium will they be allowed to just jack up the cost of tuition so the govt pays for it? And do you have time to read this about the potential impact of Bernie's proposed taxes? http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-would-bernie-sanders-wall-st-tax-look-like-2016-02-14 and another one from NPR if the website named marketwatch.com is a turn off for you http://www.npr.org/2016/02/12/46646...ion-tax-on-big-wall-street-firms-what-is-that His ideas are just strange and it would not create as much revenue as he projects with the decline in volume. It would effectively kill high frequency trading and day trading. Market liquidity would decline and volatility would increase. Both of which are bad for investors, but I know you don't care about that. I would basically become a derivatives (options and commodities) trader because for some random reason he is proposing to tax derivatives at a much much lower rate (.5% for stocks and .005% for derivatives) than stock transactions. So basically, if he is running shortfalls in the free college idea because costs aren't being controlled and the taxes aren't being generated then what? Do you increase taxes more?
glynch, thanks for the reply. We agree on the political will front. Yes, America could be like Germany if we had the will to do that *and* (to robbie's excellent follow-up post) if we obtained a cost structure like German universities have. They are not on an exponential growth curve like our own. So more affordable (probably never free) higher ed in the US would take BOTH big shift in political will (and some kind of new tax, somewhere) + seismic shift in university financial realities -- in my opinion it would mean removing a lot of regulations and laying off about half of the staff growth of the last 40 years. We'd have to go back to what our universities looked like in the 1970's, with a majority of employees being faculty; I think that's closer to what they have in Germany (for instance). So in addition to political will, you'd need families who are okay sending their kids to universities without: Learning Disability Services that supply special testing environments and tracking for certain students (a huge # of students, actually); title 9 and rape prevention offices; "student life" wings that try to educate students on binge drinking, study habits (which they never get in high school), etc, etc, etc. It would be a different world, and I actually think we'd see *fewer* kids graduating from college. The high schools just aren't preparing a significant % of them to complete college degrees without all this extra help on the side, all the (to be blunt) coddling and protecting which they honestly seem to need. Check out a German high school grad sometime, seriously. It's like they already have two years of American college under their belts; they are ready to rock. /bitter-sounding prof rant But seriously, thanks to you both for good posts. To the subject, Bernie either understands a lot about higher ed that he's not sharing, or (my actual fear), is he sees Germany do it and how we *used* to do it and he actually thinks he can just fix this with money.
Not equal in effect, just equally unethical. Bernie thinks being rich is inherently unethical, even if that wealth is a manifestation of value provided to others. He also feels he should be granted authority to control that wealth.
Now that's some horeshiat strawmanning there. Bernie just believes that the rich should be held accountable for their illegal practices as much as any other income bracket.
Not everyone is up for the kinds of college degrees I would argue should be "free" (STEM fields, mostly). However, everyone should be given the option for education in a field for which they are suited and which will provide a good living. We still need electricians, plumbers, and a wide variety of other tradesmen, young people could benefit from education and internships in these fields even if they aren't suited for pursuing a college degree.
Colleges (especially public colleges) have had to raise tuition and fees in large part because the states have dramatically cut funding. Education inflation is certainly related to a great many things, but when the state cuts funds to public colleges, they have to find other sources of revenue in order to continue fulfilling their mission.
Everybody seems to be focused with colleges and universities but I feel that we also need vocational courses for those who just want to get a certificate ( e.g. Mechanic, electrician, etc). College is not for everybody. With regards to who gets free education, for me, anybody - regardless of past grades. I am sure that there are plenty of late bloomers amongst us here. We want to be able to provide opportunities for everybody. How about this.... If we say that it is only free if you can maintain a certain GPA, you can filter out the ones that don't deserve it. They can't get anymore free education till after X years of probation.
And the "free" education should be limited to STEM degrees or vocational education like those you mentioned, among others.
Following up on some of the other post here. B-Bob and others have raised some excellent points. Yes political will is important but that is only the first hurdle. We also can't forget that there is plenty of determined political will to block these proposals and the new taxes to pay for them. Regarding the history that places like UT and UC once provided free tuition or substantially cheaper tuition ignores that conditions then were very different. In the last 40 years college enrollment and the number of universities have increased exponentially. So they were serving a smaller student body and less universities. Also as others have noted many institutions are already in trouble regarding financing what they currently have. Just this week the UC Chancellor announced restructuring for more counts. Before we can consider addressing free tuition many public institutions funding for current levels needs to be fixed. As for the foreign models as stated Germany and UK are much smaller than the US. The populations of just CA and TX total are greater than that of the UK and not much smaller than Germany. This is a problem of scalability. For instance try managing a crew of 10 and then a crew of 40. You can't just do the same things you would do to manage the smaller group and expect it to work for a group that is 4 times the size.
Optional is what I am proposing. All throughout high school, we are bombarded with the idea "if you want to be successful , you have to go to college". Our high school education does not do a good enough job of promoting that you can still be a very productive part of society by getting a STEM degree. These are noble professions that require skilled professionals that help us function as a society . We can't all be doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc.
I have a great plan. I won't give you the details because if I did you would expose its flaws, but nevertheless it is still a great plan. You just have to trust me.
