Who should pay for college?

I was sure until the end of this essay that the author was going to argue for governments to pay for or heavily subsidise a post-secondary education (as in fact they do in much of the developed world); all the arguments about an "educated population" seem to point in that direction.

So I was surprised that the conclusion was instead that employers should pay for the college education that they are benefitting from. Surprise: they already are. They pay your salary, from which you pay your college loans. It does mean that your take-home (post-loan-payment) pay is lower, but that's because you're still just a journeyman. Any arrangement where the employer pays more than a base salary means that inexperienced fresh-outs will be more expensive and thus even less desirable than now.

This whole notion that beneficiaries should pay is garbage. The logical end of this is a totalitarian dictator that shoves stuff down your throat. The person who should pay is the person doing the buying, acting on their own free will.

As per college, totally agree this is over valued. There are far more efficient ways to learn. The whole system has turned into a tremendously expensive signaling device to future employers that you're willing to commit to something.

Of course there's also a long list of phenomenally successful engineers and businessmen who did fine without it: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Thomas Edison to name just a few.

I'm old. I live in a country that until fairly recently universally funded tertiary education. (What Americans call college, most other places call university, but we can all accept it as tertiary education, I believe.)

I was 28 when I started my degree, but it was "state funded", both university fees and a maintenance allowance were paid. I had a mortgage and a car, so I had to work during the summer to make ends meet, but without the mortgage it would have been decent subsistence living. Regular students survived, many did part time work improve their lot.

This was a great and workable system. It pretty much leveled the playing field and allowed anyone who wanted to go to university to do so, if they satisfied the requirements of the university.

I maintain that it is a fundamental right that anyone who so desires, and who meets the requirements of the university, should be state-funded through their first degree (not failed years, of course).

It is hugely beneficial to everyone in a nation state to have the most educated workforce it can afford and support.

You cannot over-educate a nation.