So tell me, if the government pays for everyone's free college tuition, too, then do they also get to determine what is taught? If so....awfully close to some fallen socialist and communist societies of the past. Do we really want to go there?

Surely you have constitutional, legal and people-based protections against direct government interference in education? What kind of country doesn't?

Actually, I recall coming across an article a couple of years back that looked at the "value" of a higher education in terms of the outcome. Turns out, those with the advanced degrees accumulated less wealth on average than their less-educated peers. Wealth alone isn't the point of an education, of course, but in strictly economic terms, education apparently isn't worth much.

I'll try to dig up the reference if I can.

Cheers,
Daiwa

but in strictly economic terms, education apparently isn't worth much.

That would not surprise me at all. I would be interested in the reference if you could find it. Again not to diminish education in terms of self development and awareness.

Surely you have constitutional, legal and people-based protections against direct government interference in education?

Yes of course, now we do, but I was referring to the "slippery slope."

No one is devaluing anyone's education. But a line has to be drawn somewhere!

Heather, I agree completely. But, I find that the government is more prone to draw it's lines along some things that really don't make sense. As much as I'd like to see a utopia, where everything is wonderful, I know that's not going to happen. But, my overriding point, back to the Pell Grants, is that changing the tables to eliminate almost 90,000 people who would have otherwise qualified is tantamount to a cut, and is not the line that needs to be drawn to salvage an economy gone awry. In my opinion, it's counterproductive. Rolling back the corporate tax cuts would have been a better place to draw the line. Eliminating the financial give aways to wealthy sports owners would be a better place to draw the line. Preventing Halliburton from riipping off the government would be a better place to draw the line. But cutting education is a terrible place to draw the line. Absolutely terrible.

Here's what'll happen when the government pays for everyone's education. College tuitions will skyrocket because somebody else is paying the bills and people don't "worry" about the money nor are colleges accountable. Then the government will request more money for the grants because the allocated money isn't "enough money" any more. It's a black hole money pit. Funny thing is you can already see it happening....college tuitions are consistently outpacing inflation. Face reality, you can't win that battle by dumping money at the problem.

Reply #22 By: little_whip - 11/27/2004 3:24:52 PM

Ever slept on the street, literally? I have.

Ever overcome drug addiction? I have.

Ever had to break the law to buy health care you required to save your freaking life, and paid the price for it? I have.

Oh man, imma quit before i truly lose it, but dont you fucking tell ME about fighting a goddamn thing. man o man yer telling my story kid, funny how the ones that drag themselves from the dregs are the ones that are most content with life after the fight and stabalize there sickness....... you truly are the bomb {something I reserve for ann coulter} and you hubby is a lucky man {so are you for having him}

Heather,

1st: The government should not have any right to your sense of goal accomplishment. We both agree with your statement, and I understood that this was what you were implying. What I was implying is that, yes, no-one should be denied quality education, period, and that 'achieving" in education is about how far you let the learning process take you. A degree is just a degree; expanding your perspective on what you thought was possible, or true, is the goal, is what you achieve.

Heather:

Wouldn't it be a nice "utopian" world if higher education were free! We could all go to college and get our degrees and do nothing else?Now our government provides free education for K-12, but that isn't enough for some people. Now they must pay for college. But you know, I don't just want a bachelor's degree. I want to enhance my intellect with a master's degree. It is my right as a human being. I want the government to pay for my master's degree too...(*sarcasm dripping from my lips*)

Daiwa:

Last I checked, education was mandatory to age 16. Our society provides every child the opportunity to earn a high school diploma, something that, in theory and if taken proper advantage of, would prepare an individual sufficiently to survive and thrive on their own. I suppose it would be nice if higher education were made available to all, but it would frankly piss me off a bit, considering how I had to work 3 part-time jobs and put myself 8 years behind the earning curve of my peers (my friends who had gone into the work force right out of high school had bought & sold 2 or 3 houses by the time I could afford my first) to get that higher education. I would not want that kind of education devalued by giving it away

I don't get it. I mean, I guess I understand that whatever degree you acrue, what ever financial success you achieve, you want to feel the sense of accomplishment, that you did it all on your own. Economically, you refer to a world where one could make academia your life and not have to worry about anything else as "utopian", which is to say, that this world does not exist right now, in reality TabooTenente! Come back! Hello?

Cacto:

Well that's largely the case in Australia (we pay about US$3000 a semester max due to subsidies and Gov-sponsered loans), but most Masters and PhD candidates work as tutors and lecturers whilst they study and don't solely rely on federal funding

There's a perspective from DownUnder. In Europe, UK, Germany, France. . .most countries, in fact, provided free or only nominal tuition-paid higher education. About two years ago, certain countries met to discuss the problem of funding higher education, and while some tuition-structures (highly protested) were established in some places, the common perspective is that such a system must be avoided at all costs.

Because they believe that not encouraging education is the highest cost.

We're not talking about Utopia. We're talking about prioritizing.

Daiwa, and many others, are rightly proud of the effort required to accomplish education goals. But I do not think "education for education's sake" cheapens anyone. We just have to decide what's important. It seems to me that "freedom' ranks highest on most of our lists. Freedom to do what? I interpret this to mean "freedom to determine our destinies". Depending on the perspective, we want the minimum interference from our government, from other people's religion, from aggressive nations, from racial or other pigeonholing labels. We want to make our ways, to accomplish what we may without having to haul sluggards or freeloaders in our already heavy packs.

I guess we also want to see our own morality reflected in the law. We don't mind supporting our unique agendas on national forums or in national courts. Majority should have more say, right? This is a democracy after all, and if most of us feel it's okay to ban Monday Night Football, then, well, let's go ahead and ban it.

Look, we're good, caring, freedom-loving people, but we're somewhat hypocritcal. We believe the roll of legal immigrants is to assimilate. We believe the roll of minimal government is to protect the freedom of the moral majority. We believe nothing tastes as good as something you had to work for. . .when you finally get to eat.

But this is USA right? Aren't we all immigrants? Doesn't the moral majority shift, change, realign with the changing world? And people who aren't eating yet probably do not universally share our culinary taste.

So what's our priority? Education does not equal utopia. Education is the purpose and the goal, and it exists in poorer places than the one we Americans live in. There are so many educational models out there that work, that it amazes me that we choose one that is underfunded (k-12 or higher education). Why does the concept of education for everyone feel so socialist to everyone? Why does someone else's quality education cheapen our own?

I do not understand the philosophy which says money=value. I work for money for education, so I have value. Why not say, "I value education?"

Does anyone believe that if education was our inalienable right, that welfare would become a less significant issue, that crime would be less of an issue, progress would be swifter, and your children would have the freedom to explore more possibilities than we even dream of?

Sorry, Heather. Your topic is too interesting to restrain all the tangents. Go ahead, blast away; I probably deserve it. You get an insightful from me, so I feel better about all this blathering .

TBT

rkuo:

no. it's not impossible. you just need to decide that education is a priority...for the country. if it is, then look around and decide whether or not the system could be better. if not, fine. if so, make it better.

Just a quick interjection of reality:

When something becomes a "right" the quality of it seems to go down.  Our high schools suck. That's because there's little competition involved. They're "free" so there's less concern about the quality.

By contrast, we DO care about the quality of colleges because we have to pay for them. When I was in college, I had to really look into which professors I would take. Which ones were GOOD teachers. That's because if I had to drop the class (in engineering, finding a professor you could understand was an issue) I knew I'd be out hundreds of dollars.  Hundreds of hours that were earned doing very menial labor at $4 to $5 per hour.

So no, I don't think college should be a "right". I think people should have to pay to go to college.  I do believe there shoudl be ample ways of paying for it (student loans, scholarships, etc.). But I think that people should be very painfully aware of the cost of it.

When something becomes a "right" the quality of it seems to go down.

That's not true. University education is a right in Australian yet on most indicators our universities score well - the last one I heard about had my own uni, the Australian National University, at number 10 in the world. That's pretty good for a country with a population that's roughly the same size as Beijing's.

You may be right, Draginol, that we care more about quality when we pay for it, but the education aspect of college is only one part of the system. Grades seem to outweigh the value of education, which seems reasonable because the success of one's education seems to be measured by the money one makes afterward. Good grades = top jobs. In some cases, people who learn the most obtain the best grades. Certainly not in most cases.

I would agree with you that a certain slice of the student population doesn't care enough, and one of the reasons for this is that their parents pay for it, without any lifestyle sacrifices for either the student or the parents. But I would also say that many of these students are not ready for higher education. They go because the societal class they come from suggests they are supposed to go. Why not let people learn when they are ready? Why not let them learn if they want to learn?

And I would guess, Draginol, that if you, in particular, had not been forced to pay for your eduation, you still would want to learn, and study with the best professors available. Your motivation was not just money. It was the education itself. And from reading some of your other articles, it seems like making the most cash per hour is not your objective, either. You talk about the importance of working environment, about business ethics, about sacrificing wage for other values.

Because the system uses productivity as the heart of education, you lose out on the diversity of talents that exist. Let someone take 10 years to pick up a degree that means something-- they'll probably end up using it more productively in the end, anyway.

TBT

Just a quick interjection of reality:

Reality? Oh really? Oh, I get it. Your reality. sheesh..........................

Are the Aussies getting inferior educations? Are the French and the British getting inferior educations? I think that they would object to your subjective and arrogant interjection of your "reality".

I firmly believe that given the opportunities to get quality educations (and this doesn't mean just providing it for free), will not diminish the quality of such educations. It may raise the quality of a lot of people's standards of living, however. We all know that getting a good education is about getting back what sweat equity you put in. Drag, you are a college graduate. You know what I mean. Some wil always get better educations than others because they are willing to make the intellectual investment. It's not only about the money. As for government subsidies and boosts up, like the Pell grants, it's a priorities issue, which has been a proven success. In your reality, trickle-down Reaganomics, to which you seem to adhere to and to which it is a proven failure, is the priority because it gives you tax cuts. But, education for lots of people, with assistence from government, is not your priority because you'd gain nothing.

dabe:

Rolling back the corporate tax cuts would have been a better place to draw the line

In an already "fragile" economy, do you think this would be a better "priority?"

Preventing Halliburton from riipping off the government would be a better place to draw the line.

Sad that you think this. Was it also Halliburton ripping off the government when Clinton allowed them no bid contracts, too?

rkuo:

Here's what'll happen when the government pays for everyone's education. College tuitions will skyrocket because somebody else is paying the bills and people don't "worry" about the money nor are colleges accountable. Then the government will request more money for the grants because the allocated money isn't "enough money" any more. It's a black hole money pit. Funny thing is you can already see it happening....college tuitions are consistently outpacing inflation. Face reality, you can't win that battle by dumping money at the problem.

Great point!

Taboo

we want the minimum interference from our government, from other people's religion, from aggressive nations, from racial or other pigeonholing labels. We want to make our ways, to accomplish what we may without having to haul sluggards or freeloaders in our already heavy packs.

Exactly! Sounds like the Republican party platform.

We believe the roll of minimal government is to protect the freedom of the moral majority.

Now here is where you miss it. We believe the roll of minimal government is to protect the freedom of everyone!

So what's our priority? Education does not equal utopia. Education is the purpose and the goal, and it exists in poorer places than the one we Americans live in. There are so many educational models out there that work, that it amazes me that we choose one that is underfunded (k-12 or higher education). Why does the concept of education for everyone feel so socialist to everyone? Why does someone else's quality education cheapen our own?

I am sorry, but you will never convince me that everyone needs to go to college. I will never think of colleges as a priority. College can be a wonderful experience and learning journey, but it is not necessary! You are closely approaching the "intellectual superiority" mentality that I despise! Just because someone has a college "education," does not make them intellectually superior or somehow a better person!

Sorry, Heather. Your topic is too interesting to restrain all the tangents. Go ahead, blast away; I probably deserve it. You get an insightful from me, so I feel better about all this blathering

Draginol

When something becomes a "right" the quality of it seems to go down. Our high schools suck. That's because there's little competition involved. They're "free" so there's less concern about the quality. By contrast, we DO care about the quality of colleges because we have to pay for them

Exactly. I think you and rkuo are on the same page here.

Taboo

I would agree with you that a certain slice of the student population doesn't care enough, and one of the reasons for this is that their parents pay for it, without any lifestyle sacrifices for either the student or the parents

And what if you replace parents in that sentence with "government."

Dabe:

As for government subsidies and boosts up, like the Pell grants, it's a priorities issue, which has been a proven success. In your reality, trickle-down Reaganomics, to which you seem to adhere to and to which it is a proven failure, is the priority because it gives you tax cuts. But, education for lots of people, with assistence from government, is not your priority because you'd gain nothing.

This argument is so full of hole and half-truths, I wouldn't know where to begin.

That's not true. University education is a right in Australian yet on most indicators our universities score well

I don't exactly hear about people clamoring to get to Australia for college.  But there are lines to get into American colleges from around the world. Why is that? Especially when our high schools are so pathetic? What is the difference in the way our high schools are run and the way our colleges are run?